The Pixies’ blasted mix of surf-pop-punk, coupled with Frank Black’s twisted lyrical preoccupations (UFOs, classical mythology, Old Testament horror stories), created something dark and twisted, like the baby in Eraserhead; a primal and terrible thing. And now they’ve reconvened following their explosive Coachella festival appearance, bigger than ever, eclipsing even the 10th anniversary of Kurt Cobain’s death. Which is as it should be, as the Pixies were the band that Nirvana most aspired to sound like.
So, who were the Pixies?
In the mid-’80s, college friends Charles Thomson, aka Black Francis, aka Frank Black, and Filipino-born guitarist Joey Santiago (native tongue: Tagalog) formed Pixies In Panoply. Via an ad reading “bassist wanted for H