A Pixies primer

VICKI ANDERSON prepares for Pixies' Christchurch show tonight by digging up some trivia.

In a corner of Boston, Massachusetts, four musicians discovered one another and started a group called Pixies, the name randomly plucked from the dictionary by Joey Santiago, although they were originally titled Pixies In Panoply. Things On Fire was also, at one time, a contender.

The band stabbed "loud-quiet-loud" into alt-rock's veins.

Like a festering sore on the backside of the big hair, stonewash jeans and neon pink brigade that dominated the 80s, the Pixies cranked out five unique surf-punk albums in five years, touring like demons possessed before personality clashes and life on the road took its toll and they broke up in 1993, just as groups like Nirvana were heralding them as heroes. Kurt Cobain once told Rolling Stone: "I was basically trying to rip off the Pixies", before admitting he fantasised about belonging to the group. David Bowie covered them, and even had frontman Black Francis play at his 50th birthday party.

For 12 years fans muttered to themselves in darkened rooms. Then, in 2004, the band got back together.

Pixies have to rate as one of the most influential bands of all time, their influence on everyone from Radiohead to Weezer (listen to I Bleed and Undone back to back) far outweighing their record sales.

Earlier this year, they performed Doolittle in Auckland as part of the 20th anniversary of the album's release. I didn't go. I dithered about buying a ticket until it was too late. Probably weirdly, part of me was anxious that seeing them now would somehow tarnish my memories.

On Tuesday, they will play in Christchurch. I wouldn't have believed I'd ever see them in my home town. I'm lucky enough to be going to Splendour in the Grass in Australia this weekend, so I'll be seeing them twice in one week. Pinch me.

Since the announcement, fans have been eagerly discussing every possible aspect of anything Pixies-related with other like- minded anoraks.

Pixies fans are a devoted lot - some might say obsessed. Forum sites abound where sad people like me have nothing better to do with their time than discuss Pixies trivia.

The song Debaser is based on a film by what renowned artist? Crackity Jones is about whom? When was the band's first EP, Come On Pilgrim, released? Who produced Surfer Rosa, their first full-length? The photographer for all Pixies albums? What is the song played at the end of the film Fight Club? But these are newbie questions.

Delve deep enough and you discover that gamers have infiltrated Pixies lore, too. In the Nintendo game Perfect Dark, Lieutenant Deal, Doctor Francis, Captain Santiago and Doctor Lovering are paged.

I have something of an addiction to misheard lyrics, and Pixies material makes great fodder for some. Like on Wave of Mutilation, where some hear the line "I've kissed my mates, rode an old emu" instead of "I've kissed mermaids, rode the El Nino". Or Debaser, where "But I am un chien andalusia" is often misheard as "I'm gonna shake and abuse ya".

Everybody knows that the phrase relates to the 1929 surrealist film Un Chien Andalou, by Salvador Dali and Louis Brunel. It features a human eye being sliced open. Coincidence that eyes feature predominantly in the Trompe Le Monde artwork? Nah.

Some may also be interested to discover that the words "Paco Picopeidra la muneca" in Crackity Jones is Spanish for "Fred Flintstone, the money".

Some who claim to be fans don't even know that the 1991 album Trompe le Monde means "fool the world".

In 2008, Black Francis performed an original score at the Castro Theatre in San Francisco for the 1920 German silent film The Golem. You can hear it on his YouTube channel, or get the box set from his website.

Pixies lyrics are full of compelling narrative, unforgettable visuals, wit, irony and angst, as on Subbacultcha: "I was looking handsome/She was looking like an erotic vulture".

Sonically, they are sublime, and Francis howls like no other man on Earth. They appeal equally to base instincts and intellectual sides.

No matter how many bands try to ape them, fans know there's only one way to get to monkey heaven.

Q: Who are the band members?
A: Black Francis, Kim Deal (see also the Breeders), David Lovering and Joey Santiago.

Q: Is it 'The Pixies' or just 'Pixies'?
A: Just Pixies.

Q: Is Frank Black like Black Francis' older brother or something?
A: No, silly. Charles Michael Kittridge Thompson IV is known as Black Francis when performing with Pixies and as Frank Black during his solo career.

Q: Who is Mrs John Murphy?
A. Kim Deal, bassist and all-round curious creature, also of the Breeders, was credited by her married name on Surfer Rosa and Come On Pilgrim. She had never played bass before, but was the only person to respond to the ad that Francis and Santiago placed seeking someone who liked Husker Du and folkies Peter, Paul and Mary. Drummer (and nowadays accomplished magician) David Lovering worked with Deal's husband, which is how he got the gig.

Q: Is Black/Francis/Thompson IV part Spanish?
A: He often sings in Spanish. When he was at college, he was part of a student exchange programme to Puerto Rico, where he spent six months in an apartment with a "weirdo, psycho, gay room-mate". This room-mate inspired Crackity Jones.

Pixies at CBS Canterbury Arena, Tuesday.

- © Fairfax NZ News