Ben Sisario - The Pixies Doolittle

Doolittle

Praise for the series:

Ideal tot tie lock geek who thi i s lint notes just aren't enough-Rolling Stone

One of the coolest publishing imprints on the planet-Bookslut

These ate for the insane collectors out these who appreciate fantastic design, well executed thinking, and things that make vout house look cool. Each volume in this series takes a seminal album and breaks it down in stattling minutiae. We love these. We ate huge netds-Vice

A btilliant sefies...each one a work of teal love-NME (UK)

Passionate, obsessive, and smart-Nylon

Religious tracts tot the tock'n' toll faithful-Boldtype

Each volume has a distinct, almost militantly personal take on a beloved long-plavet...the books that have resulted ate like the albums themselves-filled with moments of shimmering beauty, forgivable flaws, and stubbotn eccentricity-Tracks Magazine

[A] consistently excellent series-Uncut (UI)

The nobility-and fun-of the project has never been questioned.. winning mix of tastes and waiting styles-Philadephia Weekly

Reading about rock isn't quite the same as listening to it, but this series comes pretty damn close-Neon NYC

The soft of great idea you can't believe hasn't been done before-Boston Phoenix

For reviews of individual titles in the series, please visit our website at www.continuumbooks.com and 33third.blogspot.com

Also available in this series:

Dusty in Memphis by Warren Zones

Forever Changes by Andrew Hultkrans

Harvest by Sam Inglis

The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society by Andy Miller

Meat Is Murder by Joe Pernice

The Per at the Gates of Dawn by John Cavanagh

Abba Gold by Elisabeth Vincentelli

Electric Lsedyland by John Perry

Unknown Pleasures by Chris Ott

Sign `O' the Times by Michaelangelo Mates

The Velvet Under ,ground and N o by Joe Harvard

Let It Be by Steve Matteo

Live at the Apollo by Douglas Wolk

Aqualung by Allan Moore

OK Computer by Dar Griffiths

Let It Be by Colin Meloy

Led Zeppelin IV by Erik Davis

Armed Forces by Franklin Bruno

Exile on Main Street by Bill Janovitz

Grace by Daphne Brooks

Murmur by J. Niimi

Pet Sounds by Jim Fusilli

Ramones by Nicholas Rombes

Endtroducing... by Eliot Wilder

Kick Out the Jams by Don McLeese

Lou' by Hugo Wilcken

In the Aeroplane Over the Sea by Kim Cooper

Music from Big Pink by John Niven

Paula' Boutique by Dan LeRoy

Daydream Nation by Matthew Stearns

There's a Riot Goin' On by Miles Marshall Lewis

Stone Roses by Alex Green

Forthcoming in this series:

Court and Spark by Seau Nelson

Daydream Nation by Matthew Stearns

London Calling by David L. Ulin

The Notorious Byrd Brothers by Ric Menck

Loveless by Mike McGonigal

Bee Thousand by Marc Woodsworth

Highway 61 Revisited by Mark Polizzotti

In Utero by Gillian Garr

The Who Sell Out by John Dougan

Doolittle

Ben Sisario

Acknowledgments

Special thanks to the Pixies, particularly Charles Thompson, the friendliest and most hospitable rock star ever, and to Heidi Ellen Robinson Fitzgerald and Ken Goes for their generosity and aid.

To David Barker for the assignment.

To Mitch Benoff, Arthur Fiacco, Jonathan Claude Fixler, Steve Haigler, Lenny Kaye, Paul Kolderie, Simon Larba- lestier, Joyce Linehan, Peter Lubin, Corinne Metter, John Montagnese, Gil Norton, Vaughan Oliver, Geoff Patterson, Burt Price, Gary Smith, Frank Swart, Lauren Uzdienski, No Watts-Russell, and Steve Webbon for interviews, information and everything else.

To Sam Retzer for help with the chords.

To Sam Sifton, Tom Kuntz, Erika Sommer, and everyone at the Neiv York Tunes for their forbearance.

Warm gratitude to Jesse Steinchen, Bill Madden-Fuoco, and Peter Keepnews for their invaluable editing help.

And a very, very special thanks to Craig MVlilley for pulling Doolittle out of his pants one day in 1989.

For updates, corrections, comments, and anything else, the author may be reached at bensisario.com.

April 2005. On a brisk spring morning in downtown Eugene, Oregon, the canary-yellow steel hulk of a 1986 Cadillac glides up to the entrance of my hotel like some combination of gondola and cargo ship. The motor purrs unhurriedly as I approach the window and see the driver sitting stiffly upright, his right arm extended over the passenger seat and a look of blank pride on his moon-shaped face. He does not gesture or speak, but the message is clear. The big man is here in the big car. Get in and come along on a journey

Charles Thompson, aka Black Francis, aka Frank Black, pulls onto the road as we begin a three-day weekend of interviews that take place mostly in his car, cruising aimlessly through the pristine open landscape of western Oregon, where he has lived, in various spots, for the last couple of years. The man who made his reputation with a bloodfreezing scream, singing about slicing up eyeballs, about grunting whores and waves of mutilation, is genial and chat ty but remote, particularly about his old band, the Pixies. Where was Doolittle, the monument of alternative rock that is the band's crowning achievement and biggest seller, recorded? Don't remember. What was going on in his life at the time? Band, girlfriend. Whatever. All that is archaeology. Thompson has just turned forty and is in his first few months of fatherhood, a happy and doting dad. His girlfriend, Violet, threw him a surprise birthday party down in LA the week before, with old friends and stars-cool stars, not plastic-surgery stars: we're talking Jack Black, Polly Harvey, They Might Be Giants-and Thompson is still in the glow of it. He lives in Eugene for family considerations, but being in a quiet, suburban corner of the earth far away from the rock biz or anything having to do with the Pixies seems to suit him in his new life. He is like a great actor adapting to life offstage.

The Pixies' music is distant indeed; the best and most enduring of it was recorded in the waning years of the Reagan administration, a time when "alternative music" barely existed as a market classification. But Thompson is not really so far removed from the band, or the stage. A few months ago, just before the birth of his first son, Jack Errol, he returned home from the Pixies' reunion tour, one of the most significant comebacks in rock'n'roll history. Selling out halls and sheds and festivals from Indio, California, to New York City, from Saskatoon to Paris, it was highly profitable. When I first sat down with Thompson, in New York at the end of the 2004 tour, he mentioned, with no excessive enthusiasm, that it was fun to be back playing Pixies songs with his old bandmates. But he was unequivocal about one thing: "It's very nice to finally be making good money."