I picked up a few GAD mid price reissues this week. They all happened to be from Pixies too.
"Doolittle" is now known as GAD905CD and I cannot begin to say how much of an album this was ten years ago and still is today. When I first bought this album, I was on vacation. Rather than get the CD or vinyl, I just picked up the cassette first - and ended up playing it to death in the car stereo during the trip. I bought the tape in Vancouver, B.C. and did a LOT of driving over the next week or so, eventually going up to Edmonton for a job interview. By the time I returned home to my town in the central interior of B.C. the cassette was physically worn out! I even went through at least one CD copy due to so much virtually daily handling. The subsequent concert I saw for this album in Vancouver, with Bob Mould opening, was probably one of the most amazing concert experiences I've had to this day. Being close to the front of the stage and sandwiched like tuna amongst hundreds of other Pixies fans with sweat flying everywhere combined with the sheer violent sounds from the stage will not soon be erased from my memory. Watching them play at an instore earlier in the day (...and kicking ass - Black Francis was practically hanging out into the crowd so he could better gauge the sound quality) and then getting to meet the band made for a extremely memorable day. Truely the experience of seeing a band at their most brutally killer peak!
Up next is "Bossanova", now known to the world as GAD0010CD. Aside from the graphic ugliness of the back cover catalog number being fonted in black over a bright blue backgound, this album is a worthy follow up to "Doolittle". Following so close on the heels of the previous masterpiece automatically makes this for a hard act to follow but I really believe "Bossanova" is a perfect companion to "Doolittle", just as "Come On Pilgrim" sits perfectly with "Surfer Rosa". This is an album that flows very well, no filler here. I espcially found "Rock Music" to be effective in drowning out the upstairs neighbor's yelping kids in the house in which I rented the basement suite of circa '90.
"Trompe Le Monde", or GAD1014CD as it's now known to kollektorskum, was to become the final official Pixies album and continued on the whole UFO theme and comes probably as close as 4AD will ever get to a heavy metal album. Some Pixies fans may have been alienated (no pun) by this album but completing a journey from "Come On Pilgram" to "Trompe" demonstrates the life of a genuinely brilliant band that stopped before it became self parody, which con't always be said for many bands, even another noted 4AD one. One of my friends, barely into his twenties is a recent Pixies convert. He may not have been there to see it when it all happened but I find it great to see people discovering this band years later.
Thanks to the recent Pixies compilations people are being drawn to Pixies for the first time and old fans are rediscovering them all over again. Have you listened to the crucial four Pixies albums recently? Treat yourself to an amazing slice of history. Get out your Pixies collection or conversely, get a gold of the new GAD reissues. I'm going to pick up "Come On Pilgrim/Surfer Rosa" GAD803CD today...
JEFF KEIBEL TORONTO, ONTARIO CANADA