I am a huge Frank Black fan.
Black Francis.
Charles Thompson.
Etc. Whatever name the man uses I will follow. I love The Pixies, Love The Catholics, Love everything I’ve ever
heard the man record/perform. I’ve seen him live a number of times*, bought
almost everything he’s ever released in one way or another and
my wife, super cool music chronicler that she is has even had him call her at home so she could interview him for a mag she used to write for.
It’s no surprise then that Mr. Francis’ latest band Grand Duchy (with Violet Clark) put out arguably my favorite record last
year, Petite Fours**. And yet as much as I love Petite Fours, it is only about forty-minutes long
and so gosh dern awesome it essentially serves as a tease. A harbinger of more greatness to come (Black Suit was BY FAR my favorite track of 2009. By FAR) So I’ve been waiting with bated for the companion piece to drop ever since (because Mr. Black’s M.O. seems to be to record two or three albums’ worth at any given time).
If you’re a fan of Mr. Black you probably know that he writes NON STOP – he’s released fifteen albums in fifteen years (okay, Oddballs and Svn Fngrs aren’t proper albums but they are made up of new or prev. unreleased material, which in my book counts). What’s more all of those records are GREAT! Not a bad track on any of them. One could almost go broke following the
former Pixies frontman. But truly original and talented artists are few and far between and I like to give Mr. Francis my money so I can do my part to ensure he can live comfortably and continue doing what he does best. In the age of ripping, burning and sharing I’m not above jacking a track here or there from the high profile groups, but guys like Frank Black get my money every. Single. Time.
But that’s just me.
Anyway, so I’d been waiting for that next Grand Duchy album
blindly until recently when Mr. Brown** began sending me rapid fire emails
a few nights ago documenting not only Mr. Black’s forthcoming album NonStopErotik, but also the announcement of a personally signed, limited-to-500-copies-and-extensively-packaged new box set of original material that
chronicles his ‘score’ for the 51st San Francisco International Film Festival to the THE GOLEM. Yes, this is the same 1920’s German film Fantomas re-interpreted the score from on their 2001 album Director’s Cut. The box set is two studio discs of music (again, both amazing), two discs chronicling the infamous live performance at San Francisco’s Castro Theatre and the film itself. And best of all, the 90 bucks through http://www.blackfrancis.net/webstore goes right to Mr. Black himself (hell, my wife swears it was him who responded with a hearty ‘Thanks!’ to her order email, so he’s probably running the site himself, thus you ARE putting money right in the artist’s hands folks. Doesn’t get any better than that!)
Thank You Black Francis, I love You.
……………….
* Never the Pixies though. They were just slightly ahead of
my time (I was a metalhead while their days were winding down) and I’m not sure
if I’ll ever go see one of the reunions – you can’t go home again, right? Maybe… but I’d always rather see Frank!!!
** Depending on what day you catch me it’s either Grand
Duchy’s debut or former Mr. Bungle bassist/Fantomas/Trio Convulsant four-string
master Trevor Dunn’s new band Madlove’s debut. Both kill harder and faster than Conservative talk show hosts in Singapore snuff houses packed with underage tsunami orphans!!!
1 comment
Mate, there aren't words to describe my affinity to the music of this great man. I once told a friend of mine that Frank's music would change his life. OK, i'd had a few, but I still adhere to that. The man is a genius. I grew up with the Pixies, and still love there music, but there is something different about his solo work. I take it any day over anything the Pixies have done. Multi-faceted, hook-laden, at times classically grunty, others sublime in its beauty. I can't say enough about him. I'm currently living and working in Thailand, so its difficult to buy the real deal, and I can't wait for Amazon, so I'm guiilty of doing him an injustice. i won't even go the favourite album nor the favourite songs – the guy is incredible in his ability to be so consistent in his quality. However ! – Lake of Sin is brilliant. Like many of his songs, I hear an influence I just can't place, but as usual, he takes the influence and gives it something altogether different. Incredible song. Cinema Star and Dead Man's Curve are more clear-cut in influence (Van), but again, fantastic tunes. One day the world will bow to his greatness – unfortunately not in his or our lifetime, but I believe it will happen. I just don't listen to anything else these days without comparing, and everything pales.
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