December 13, 2004
ROCK REVIEW | THE PIXIES
Once Upon a Time, There Was This Really Loud Band
By KELEFA SANNEH
The New York times
It's not hard to envy the Pixies. After more than 10 years apart, the members reunite, only to find that fans (and, if anyone cares, pop critics) love them more than ever. There are sold-out shows, glowing profiles, ecstatic fans. By now you've probably read at least one article about how the Pixies helped inspire a generation of bands, about how much Kurt Cobain loved them, about how water tasted different before they came along, about how the sky used to be a slightly different shade of blue.
But despite all that build-up - or maybe because of it - Saturday's Pixies concert at the Hammerstein Ballroom was a rude, often exhilarating shock. It had been all too easy to forget about the Pixies' ugliness: how fast they played, how loud they were, how nasty they sounded. Compared with the old-timers, the appealing postpunk act that opened the show, TV on the Radio, seemed positively quaint, even polite.
The concert was the opening night of a weeklong, eight-concert engagement, a tribute not only to the continuing popularity of the Pixies but also to the ticket-buying power of the many 30-something fans who remember the band from their college years. (It would be interesting to know how many devotees end up seeing more than one of the eight concerts.) The opening acts are different every night, ranging from pre-Pixies veterans (the reunited Mission of Burma tonight, the pioneering punk bassist Mike Watt next Saturday) to post-Pixies alt-rock bands (the shaggy Canadian collective Broken Social Scene on Tuesday, the feminist new-wave trio Le Tigre on Wednesday). Don't be surprised if the Pixies out-clamor them all.
In 1986, when the Pixies were formed, it made sense that an underground rock band would want to make lots of noise. Shrieked lyrics and guitar tantrums were two signs that you weren't angling to become radio fodder, two signs that you were part of the American postpunk movement - waving the flag, even if you weren't quite marching in step.
But sometime in the 1990's, things changed. The success of Nirvana helped introduce Pixiesish chaos to mainstream listeners who decided that screaming singers and screaminger guitars weren't so hard on the ears after all. From Nine Inch Nails to Korn, shriekers earned a place in overground rock 'n' roll, and the tradition continues today. Turn on your local modern-rock station and wait a few minutes; you'll probably hear the kind of racket that once kept bands off commercial radio.
Not surprisingly, some underground bands responded by getting quieter and sweeter. Those looking for an alternative to the high-decibel ennui of, say, Linkin Park can throw on a CD by the Postal Service or Interpol (to name just two big-name alternative acts), losing themselves in something quieter and more restrained. Emo bands and Ozzfest perennials still scream their lungs out, but lots of bands following in the Pixies' wake have decided to pipe down.
So where does that leave the Pixies? Exactly where they started: alone. On Saturday night, it was a relief to hear that they still sounded utterly and gloriously like themselves, barreling through songs full of elements that might once have seemed disparate but now seem inseparable: the ruthless, sometimes deadpan drumming of David Lovering (in "Bone Machine," he makes it almost impossible to find the downbeat); the precise disruptions of Joey Santiago's electric guitar; Kim Deal's warm slow-motion bass lines; the frantic strumming and gorgeous yelping of Black Francis, a k a Frank Black.
Most startling of all is how little the band's live show has changed over the years. The Pixies' old record label, 4AD, recently released a great retrospective DVD (it's called simply "Pixies") that includes a performance from 1988: Mr. Santiago and Mr. Lovering have hair, Black Francis looks a bit more streamlined, and Ms. Deal looks less like someone you might trust with your car keys, but the furious, off-kilter energy is exactly the same.
Age hasn't affected all of these songs the same way. When Black Francis sang "Where Is My Mind?" it was hard to remember that the phrase had once sounded vague and bitterly evocative; these days, it sounds more like someone making fun of the slacker-chic 1990's. But most of the songs sounded as mysterious and elusive as they always have, from the gently swaying "Caribou" to Ms. Deal's unsettling (and beautiful) sex song "Gigantic," which might be the best thing the Pixies ever did.
If you had to pick a concert for the inevitable live reunion DVD, it probably wouldn't be this one: the members sometimes seemed to be battling one another to establish the right tempo, and a few songs sounded even more ragged than they were supposed to. The band members didn't look as if they were having the time of their lives. They looked like four people working hard to create a marvelous racket; even after watching them do it for 90 minutes, you weren't quite sure how they did it. And as the fans filed out, ears ringing, no doubt some of them were already getting ready to return for another noisy night.
