The Daily Anthem
THE EVOLUTION OF FRANK BLACK
Best known as the frontman of alt-rock pioneers The Pixies, Charles Michael Kittridge Thompson IV (aka Black Francis, aka Frank Black) has survived 3 decades of the ever-changing rock scene. Some of the biggest acts to come out of the the last two waves of artists, such as Nirvana and Queens of the Stone Age, claim they may never have come to be if it weren't for the influence of The Pixies and their lead singer/songwriter. Follow along on one of the most interesting, influential and colorful rock and roll journeys of our generation.
(note: to avoid confusion we will use the Frank Black name throughout)
BORN: April 6, 1965....Boston, Massachusetts...Freddie & The Dreamers have the #1 LP in the U.S....Early Bird, the first telecommunications satellite to be placed in geosynchronous orbit, is launched.
While attending a church-sponsored youth camp, Frank takes in a performance by Christian-rock musician Larry Norman, whose music would become influential in Black's career.
After high school, Black attended the University of Massachusetts Amherst and majored in Anthropology. He moved in with a fellow student, Joey Santiago, who would go on to become the lead guitarist in The Pixies. Santiago introduced Black to punk rock and the music of Husker Du and Iggy Pop. They began to jam.
By 1985, Black had done a soul-searching trek to Puerto Rico, dropped out of school and convinced Santiago to move to Boston and start a rock band. Kim Deal would become the group's bassist via a classified ad and drummer David Lovering soon followed. The Pixies were official.
The band's first demo was a 17-track tape dubbed The Purple Tape...it led to a recording contract from English indie label 4AD. Rumors and intentions were still strong about the possibility of a new Pixies album but they were laid to rest in the early part of 2008. In March of the same year, Black released the mini-album Svn Fngrs (again under Black Francis). The title is a direct reference to the Irish folk hero Cúchulainn, who was said to have only seven fingers and seven toes. Two of the songs on the album are written from his point of view.
(From The Purple Tape)
The mini-album Come on Pilgrim (the title comes Larry Norman, whose catchphrase was "Come on pilgrim, you know He loves you") was released in 1987. It broke into the UK indie chart, but didn't see an official US release until 1988. It was packaged together with the band's debut full-length album, Surfer Rosa, and distributed as one. Surfer Rosa's subject nature dealt with offbeat topics like mutilation and voyeurism. There are many references to Puerto Rico and the Spanish language.
-from All Music - "One of the most compulsively listenable college rock albums of the '80s, the Pixies' 1988 full-length debut Surfer Rosa fulfilled the promise of Come on Pilgrim and, thanks to Steve Albini's production, added a muscular edge that made their harshest moments seem even more menacing and perverse."
While touring in support of the band's debut album, Black began writing for the follow-up effort. In sticking with his dark and unusual songwriting style, Doolittle was recorded and ready for release in April of 1989. Subjects embraced on the album varied from environmental destruction to surrealism to Biblical violence. The album was, and is, hailed as a critical masterpiece.
- from All Music- "Their Elektra debut, Doolittle, reins in the noise in favor of pop songcraft and accessibility. Producer Gil Norton's sonic sheen adds some polish, but Black Francis' tighter songwriting focuses the group's attack. A fun, freaky alternative to most other late-'80s college rock, it's easy to see why the album made the Pixies into underground rock stars."
After Doolittle, tensions began to overcome the band, leading to an announced hiatus. Black spent this time driving across America with his girlfriend, making stops to do live solo shows in an effort to raise money. The band would come back together in time to release 1990's Bossanova. The album's sound is heavily influenced by surf and space rock, with many references to outer space, UFOs and aliens.
-from Rolling Stone- "This time, the Pixies have left certain of their attention-grabbing college-band antics behind. Gone, for instance, are the macabre (and often misleading) song titles once favored by singer, songwriter and chief instigator Black Francis. And the Pixies do not ricochet all over the stylistic map, as they did on Doolittle. Bossanova is more of a straight-ahead rock album – by the Pixies' standards, meaning it's still safely off the mainstream."
The fourth and final studio album from The Pixies was 1991's Trompe Le Monde. The sound was a return to the band's earlier more abrasive style and listeners began to hear a maturation in Black's songwriting. One could also hear more heavy metal-esque riffs throughout the album.
-from All Music- "The title might be French for "fool the world," but with Trompe le Monde, the Pixies weren't fooling anyone: this was essentially Black Francis' solo debut. It focuses on Francis' sci-fi fascination and lacks any Kim Deal songs; even her backing vocals are far and few between. Yet the band sounds revitalized on Trompe le Monde, as if it were planned as their last hurrah."
By 1992, tensions were so high amongst the band and, in particular, Black and bassist Kim Deal, that The Pixies became no more. In 1993, they officially announced their split. Black had already been flirting with the idea of a solo career and had first intended to release a record of strictly cover songs. But, as it came time to record, Black had written much more original material and, in March of 1993, released his solo debut Frank Black. (During The Pixies tenure, he had gone under the stage name Black Francis and following the break-up took on the persona of Frank Black).
-quote- "For better or for worse, I had to finally start writing more personal songs. Not that the Pixies songs didn’t have narrative or meaning, but a lot of them, especially the early ones, were nonsensical or freeform and I didn’t really work hard on the lyrics, I just winged it. But I got burned out on Jabberwocky. I wanted to write songs with a focused subject."
The next year (1994), Black released his second solo album, the quirky 22-track Teenager of the Year. People close to the recording and writing process of the album saw Black taking a more spontaneous approach to his songwriting, beginning to venture away from his Pixies-style, embracing a wider variety of topics and genres.
-quote- "The album took hold when I began to incorporate, in a science fiction way, the history of California – there are lots of references to LA in the past and in the future. This geography that started on [the Pixies’] Bossanova began to take hold. Kind of like – if Lou Reed is always about New York, I was LA; kind of, ‘I am California!’ California became my fodder. So there’s lots of history, politics, geography, people – like Mulholland who brought water to LA. Well, if it was good enough for Roman Polanski, it was good enough for me.”
1996 saw the release of Black's third solo album, The Cult of Ray, whose title references the famous science fiction writer Ray Bradbury. It was Black's first release on Rick Rubin's label, American Recordings. The backing musicians for the recording of this album would go on to form the core of The Catholics, who became Black's backing band for the next seven years.
After struggles with Sony and American, Black left the label and signed on with English label Play It Again Sam. The self titled Frank Black & The Catholics was released in 1998. It became the first album to be commercially released via the internet by a major artist when GoodNoise.com (now eMusic) picked it up. Observers began to notice Black straying away from his known quirkiness and taking a more straightforward appoach in his songwriting.
-quote- "In the end, Rubin said he thought it was a really great demo but not a great record. And maybe that’s what it is. But the people in the band had all come from this postpunk background, they were used to making records cheaply and not worrying about selling them and getting on the radio – it was very anti-commercial"
Five more albums would be released under Frank Black & The Catholics.
Pistolero (1999)
-quote- "This was also very raw-sounding. It’s all pretty rockin’. We didn’t really get into country till the next record. But this was raw – not lo-fi, just as kick-ass as we could get it."
(from Rolling Stone) "Pistolero is a DIY affair captured live on a two-track recorder, featuring bass, drums, distorted guitar and Black's template wit as its axis."
Dog in the Sand (2001)
-quote- "There were a couple of minor complaints that we were rocking out but the records weren’t very produced. That kind of upped the ante for me: kind of, ‘fuck you!’ But I did wonder how we could get them more produced: ‘I know, we’ll ask some of our friends to come in and sit in on the sessions. We’ll have a nice twinkly guitar here, add some percussion there, and some piano to sweeten it up – but rather than overdub it all, we’ll have a seven- or eight-piece band"
Black Letter Days (2002) and Devil's Workshop (2002).
-quote- "The whole California thing became an obsession...We spent a lot more time making Black Letter Days, and I’d demoed a lot of the stuff with people from Beck’s band or whoever happened to be passing by. By the time we got round to recording the demos with The Catholics, there was all this forethought – it was a more prepared record than Devil’s Workshop which, by contrast, featured more blasts from the past, scraps of music from years before, nuggets of music or chord progressions that I cherished but never got round to recording...The general consensus is that Black Letter Days is the better record and Devil’s Workshop is the dark horse. Both albums have their fans, but I think the variety – even though it has fewer songs – is greater on Devil’s Workshop."
The final album recorded under The Catholics was Show Me Your Tears, released in 2003. A lot of the songs drew from Black's divorce at the time and therapy sessions he had been attending.
-quote- "The flipside of all this was that everything was falling apart in my world: the band was falling apart, and my marriage was falling apart. In fact, when I was cutting a lot of these songs, my ex-wife said, ‘Charles, these songs are sounding a little bit… what’s up? Are we in trouble?’ and I was like, ‘Oh no no no no no! They’re just songs.’ But, of course, she was right. And while I may not have been consciously writing these things, subconsciously I was."
Before the album's release, rumors began to circualate of a possible Pixies reunion.
In April of 2004, The Pixies played together for the first time in 12 years. The re-united band embarked on an extensive tour through the U.S., Canada, Europe, Brazil and Japan.
The Pixies would continue to make live appearances over the next few years, with talk of a new album in the works. During this time, Black released a double album entitled Frank Black Francis. The record was a compilation of early Pixies demo recordings and studio collaborations of later unreleased material. Black then began working with a group of Nashville studio musicians and released two more albums. Honeycomb, released in 2005, was Black's first solo work since The Cult of Ray. He was inspired by Bob Dylan's Blonde on Blonde, in which Dylan travelled to Nashville to record with local musicians.
A year later, with many of the same studio musicians used on Honeycomb, plus some new ones (Levon Helm of The Band; Tom Peterson of Cheap Trick), Black put out the double album Fast Man Raider Man. The album is noted for Black's venturing into multiple musical genres and its feel as an ode to the great musicians of the past and present.
2006 also saw the release of another compilation of old and new material in the form of Christmass. In 2007, Black reverted back to the name Black Francis and released the album Bluefinger. All of the songs on the album reference Herman Brood, a Dutch musician and artist. Brood has been called the Dutch personification of "sex, drugs and rock 'n roll".
Frank Black plays at the grave of Herman Brood
More than 20 studio albums later, many compilations and collaborative ventures, over 2 decades of constant touring and a succesful launch into the rock and roll icon galaxy, we wonder what will be next for the Frank Black - Black Francis machine. While we wait, we leave you with this....
