HEY! (this is track 20)

the pixies - hey

I've been dyin' to meet you.

The Pixies were just in town, and I didn't go because the tickets were $45. I'd pay $45 to see Radiohead; I'd pay $45 to see Blur; I might even pay $45 to see The Pixies... but in this case I just didn't really want to.

I read some show reviews online afterwards and discovered that the sound was bad; You couldn't hear Frank Black's singing unless he was screaming (which, granted, he does quite a bit of), and the background vocals weren't quite there. All this made me glad that I didn't spend the $45.

But then I read that they pretty much played songs from Surfer Rosa and Doolittle, and I was a little jealous.

I was a Frank Black fan before I was ever a Pixies fan. Aaron Chelburg (I'm not sure if that's how you spell his name. It's funny you could know someone for 2 or 3 years and never know) had some Frank Black stuff (Frank Black, Cult of Ray) and turned me onto it. It was probably the Frank Black song "Los Angeles" that really got me into his music.

I got into the Pixies later after learning Frank Black's history with the band. I've always liked Surfer Rosa, from the first moment I heard it. But the production of the other albums (going from Steve Albini to Gil Norton) always turned me off.

Well recently I watched the Pixies dvd, and that got me back into everything, and I've realized that Doolittle is and album with NO bad songs. Nobody can write an album with no bad songs. I even skip a song on my favorite album ever.

So I would have been happy with the setlist.

Oh well. I saw Frank Black for $12 in St. Louis once (Blueberry Hill's Duck Room) and it was probably the second or third best concert I've ever seen.

And $12.

"Hey" is from Doolittle, and I'm sure some of you already are quite familiar with it. On the Pixies dvd, Gil Norton talks about how Frank sang his vocals into a kitchen cabinet, and they put the mic in there as well. How about that.

Anyway. Dig it.

(I want to point out something to people that are reading this that I don't actually know. I don't think I've ever said "dig it" in public. Except maybe to say "yeah I dig it" when someone asks if I like something. But even then, I don't think I've ever said "dig it". But I do tend to type it out a lot. I just don't want you to think I'm the kind of guy that says things like "dig it" or "groovy" or whatever.)