Covers Courageous #12: The Pixies - Sweet Honey Pie

The Pixies are icons in the college radio world, and that's an understatement.

I picked up the Live at the BBC Sessions by The Pixies at a used record store a few months ago and finally got a chance to listen to it. Overall, the Pixies make a decent live band. What they lose in precision, they more than make up with energy.

The lead off track on Live at the BBC (and also included in their 1988 Peel Sessions, where the track is taken from), is a version of The Beatles "Wild Honey Pie". This is an interesting choice for a cover, considering the original is widely considered the worst song on The White Album. The original is a shrill, meandering and short slice of psychedelic pop. At best, it's just a couple of minutes of filler on an otherwise incredible Beatles album.

The Pixies, however, turn it into a noise-rock paean. Instead of the high-pitched singing of the original, the lyrics are screamed by Black Francis. The music is sped up, noised up and brutalized. In a lot of ways, the cover resembles "Rock Music", a primal, unhinged song with the power of punk, but none of the subtlety of alt-rock.

Best of 2014 #5 - The Pixies - Indie Cindy (PixiesMusic)

I was incredibly habit to finally hear new music coming out from the legendary noise-pop band The Pixies. After years of touring, the band finally gave its fans some new music to chew on. And it was good, but not without controversy (I've already written about this, so I won't go into it in detail.) Could there be a Pixies without Kim Deal. Yes, there could be, and they made a damned fine album. This is not Doolittle, and nor should it be. This is the 2014 Pixies and they're just about as good as they can be. Indie Cindy was a very solid effort of noisy, melodic post-punk with Frank Black's odd lyrics intact. No idea if the band will continue with new music, but no matter. This holds up well to the Pixies' legacy and is a nice kick off to a possible future.

Record Review: The Pixies - Indie Cindy

Before tackling this review, there's an elephant in the room that needs to be dealt with. When the Pixies first reformed and started touring in the mid 2000s, there was always the rumour that new music would be coming soon. But, there's a problem when a band so critically acclaimed reforms. Their output will never compare to what they have already put out. Especially for a band as mythic as The Pixies, who's back catalogue is among the most revered in music critic's and hipster's circles alike. Given the band's acrimonious attitude towards each other at times, it seemed that any material released would be fraught with controversy regardless. Bassist Kim Deal left the band shortly before they decided to lay down the tracks that would become the 3 digital EPs, that would eventually come together as the album Indie Cindy. The band replaced Deal with the wonderful Kim Shattuck (of the equally wonderful punk/grunge band The Muffs), and summarily dismissed her after just two months. Then the cries from fandom came: How could this be the Pixies without Kim Deal?

The primary problem here isn't the music on Indie Cindy. After repeated listening, this is a solid album. The problem is trying to compare this album to the rest of the Pixies catalogue. Let's face it, the Pixies aren't likely to release anything as iconic as Doolittle again. Indie Cindy isn't Doolittle. It's not even Trompe Le Monde, recorded 23 years before Indie Cindy. But it is a Pixies album, Kim Deal present or not. And it's a great album. The first single we heard, "Bagboy", has the Pixies growl and snarl to it, the sarcasm and the wall of noise, but it's also identifiable as a new direction for their sound. There are drum loops here, plus keyboards and samples. This song is a bit idiosyncratic of the rest of the album, which careens the way a Pixies album should, from bombast and feedback wails ("What Goes Boom", "Blue Eyed Hexe") to more melodic guitar blasts ("One Toe in the Ocean", "Silver Snail"). To compare this to their back catalogue is inevitable, but pretty unfair to the band. Truth be told, this album is one of the most solid rock albums of the year. If Doolittle never existed, this album would likely stand by itself as good as the bulk of The Pixies and Frank Black's solo work. Don't punish this band by expected them to relive what they've already done. They've matured, and you'd expect them to tone it down a bit, but they haven't really. They've taken their experiences, used what they know now and what they knew then and made something just as enjoyable as anything they're released. Let it stand by itself and enjoy it!

Covers Courageous #2: The Pixies - Winterlong

I'm a sucker for tribute albums, even when they're those awful industrial albums that Cleopatra trots out every so often (heck, I own four of them!). Often, they'll have some perfect collaboration between the vision of the coverer and the coveree. Or they'll be some perfect eyebrow raiser you wonder why they recorded, but having it turn out to be amazing. Luckily, "The Bridge: A Tribute to Neil Young" has both of these, one of which we'll look at today.

Neil Young barely needs an introduction, but the concept behind this album deserves a mention. Young formed a society called The Bridge School, which raises money for educational technologies for handicapped children. Young's own son Ben has cerebral palsy. So, a bunch of folks got together to do this album to raise funds for the Bridge School. The Pixies were one of the more loud and grungy acts that did a song (along with Sonic Youth, Soul Asylum and Dinosaur Jr. on that end), and their style of tense noise rock fit well with Neil's ramshackle, broken down sludge rock. Taking on "Winterlong", it's one of the highlights of the album.

http://youtu.be/mWWjMgzhbu4



The Bridge, the album, is long out of print and a bit difficult to find, but The Pixies included this cover in their B-Sides album, so you can find it easily there.

For those curious of the other cover, it's Psychic TV doing "Only Love Can Break Your Heart'. Look it up, we'll be looking at it soon.