When The Pixies got back together last year, hard-core fans knew that money was spurring the reunion – the band never denied that – but they couldn’t help but wonder if the legendary outfit would write any new material to commemorate the occasion.
The Pixies, who play Red Rocks on Sunday, answered that early on by releasing the Kim Deal-penned “Bam Thwok” via iTunes in mid- June of 2004. The choice cut of pop, with Deal on vocals and Joey Santiago’s meandering guitar playing an important conversational supporting role, was the first new material the band had released in more than a decade. And to the delight of Pixies loyalists, the track proved the band still had it.
“Recording it was a nice way for us to break the ice after 12 years,” Frank Black said in a statement last year. “The recording process was very relaxed, and it didn’t feel like 12 years had passed.”
High praise from the difficult Black, although his band released what was basically a comeback song that was neither written nor sung by him. Still, when The Denver Post interviewed him last year and prodded him about more new material, he left it open-ended and talked unenthusiastically about the “maybe we will” chances they’d record more new stuff. (It sounded more like “maybe-we-won’t.”)
This is how we arrive at “Bam Thwok,” the foolishly named pop ditty that Deal wrote after finding an art book in a city gutter.
“From the handwriting, you could tell that this book must have belonged to a little kid,” Deal said in the statement. “This kid had written a short story, a paragraph really, about a party that took place in another universe, about people and monsters that were partying together. That’s what provided the inspiration for the lyrics.”
You’d never get that listening to the song. The Pixies’ lyrics notoriously lack clarity and metaphor and are known instead for their aesthetic compatibility: Does this word sound good next to that word? Oh, good.
And so comes the part- teen-onomatopoeia, part- Fozzy Bear chorus to “Bam Thwok:” “Love. Bang. Crash. Wakka, wakka, Bam Thwok.” Another particularly great, quintessential Pixies line: “I can hear the buzz and modulations of the universe, but you’re the first to make me feel them.”
Classic examples of The Pixies’ songwriting way.
“It’s a song about loving everyone,” Deal said, “showing goodwill to everyone.”
It really is a happy song, an uplifting ditty about intergalactic parties with a terrifically out-of-place organ solo that recalls a carousel – the passage performed and recorded by Santiago’s father-in-law as he did missionary work in the Philippines years ago – stuck in the middle. It’s all backed by David Lovering’s driving beat.
Most refreshing is the excellent vocal interplay between Deal and Black. Just as Kim and Kelly Deal had a way with curious, awkward harmonizing with their work in The Breeders, Kim Deal and Frank Black have voices that complement each other even more absolutely.
Although “Bam Thwok” is a breath of fresh air for Pixies fans, they won’t likely be fully sated until they get a proper full-length album, which very well might never happen. The promotional machines are working overdrive in support of Black’s solo record “Honeycomb,” his first solo effort since 1996’s “The Cult of Ray.” It will be released July 19.
But maybe after that we’ll get a Pixies record – huh Frank, huh?
