Come on Pilgrim

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Azerrad, Michael. Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground, 1981–1991. Little Brown and Company, 2001. ISBN 0-316-78753-1, p. 344 Dedicated fans know the story of the Pixies’ early work, with their 1987 mini-album debut, Come on Pilgrim, being composed of demo recordings made earlier in the year. Just six months later, the band released their Steve Albini-produced album Surfer Rosa, which, while not generating widespread commercial success at the time, slowly became an underground favourite, serving as a vital influence for grunge and musicians such as Kurt Cobain.

In March 1987, Pixies entered Boston's Fort Apache Studios with Fort Apache owner/record producer Gary Smith to record a demo tape. The resulting 17-song cassette, later dubbed " The Purple Tape", eventually found its way to Ivo Watts-Russell, president and co-founder of the influential British record label 4AD. Pixies' manager Ken Goes was also the manager of Throwing Muses, who had become the first American band to sign to 4AD a year earlier. Goes passed Pixies' demo tape on to Watts-Russell, who walked the streets of New York listening to it on his Walkman and "absolutely adored it from day one". [7] Despite initial hesitance to sign the band, seeing as how 4AD had already signed an American band from the same manager, he was convinced to do so by his girlfriend, Deborah Edgeley, a secretary for 4AD. [7]Pilgrim is 20 minutes long and more of a hint at what the band could do than anything else. Two of its best songs (“Caribou” and “Vamos”) ended up being re-recorded in more muscular forms; another (“Nimrod’s Son”) unfortunately wasn’t. The other songs from the Fort Apache sessions—which came to be called “The Purple Tape”—ended up scattered throughout the Pixies catalog, also in stronger versions. As much as the band changed and refined their sound over time, they seemed almost romantically attached to a big-bang concept of their own music, like a person who measures every relationship against that first love. Biel, Jean-Michel; Gourraud, Christophe. "Pixies Titles/Names". Alec Eiffel. Archived from the original on 2019-04-01 . Retrieved 2007-04-07. The first Thanksgiving likely did not include turkey or mashed potatoes (potatoes were just making their way from South America to Europe), but the Wampanoag brought deer and there would have been lots of local seafood plus the fruits of the first pilgrim harvest, including pumpkin. Relations with Native Americans The Venn diagram here would be tight. Hüsker Dü made noisy, bleeding-heart records for the underground label SST; Peter, Paul and Mary sang “Puff, the Magic Dragon.” Francis got only one response, from a woman named Kim Deal. She had never played the bass before but presumably saw in his ad some sly humor and the spark of liberated thinking that lies behind a bad idea.

Dolan, Jon (December 2008 – January 2009). "Pixies: Surfer Rosa". Blender. Vol.7, no.11. New York. p.86. Archived from the original on April 21, 2009 . Retrieved September 5, 2015. {{ cite magazine}}: CS1 maint: unfit URL ( link) Powell, Mike (April 25, 2014). "Pixies: Catalog". Pitchfork. Archived from the original on April 10, 2022 . Retrieved April 25, 2014.a b Frank, Josh; Ganz, Caryn. Fool the World: The Oral History of a Band Called Pixies. Virgin Books, 2005. ISBN 0-312-34007-9. p. 80 The information regarding accolades attributed to Surfer Rosa is adapted from Acclaimedmusic.net. [46] Accolades for Surfer Rosa Publication a b Press, Joy. "Pixies, by Joy Press". Option. Archived from the original on 2011-05-16 . Retrieved 2007-04-15. Top 50 by Nirvana" [MIXTAPE]". Archived from the original on 18 October 2014 . Retrieved 8 May 2013. Surfer Rosa was released in the UK by 4AD on March 21, 1988, entering the UK Indie Chart the following week. It spent 60 weeks in the chart, peaking at number 2. [23] Until August of that year it was only available in the U.S. as an import. Although the label held worldwide distribution rights to Pixies, they did not have access to a distributor outside the UK. When 4AD signed a distribution deal with Rough Trade's U.S. branch, the album was released on vinyl and cassette as part of the Surfer Rosa/Come On Pilgrim release. While Surfer Rosa/Come On Pilgrim has remained in print on CD in the UK, subsequent U.S. releases have seen the two released on separate CDs. These separate releases first appeared in January 1992, when Elektra Records first reissued the band's first two albums. After 4AD reacquired rights to the band's U.S. distribution, they released both as separate CDs. [24] Surfer Rosa was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America in 2005, 17 years after its original release. [25]

Best Albums of the 1980s | Music". Slant Magazine. Archived from the original on 2012-05-29 . Retrieved 2012-09-14. a b Phares, Heather. "Surfer Rosa – Pixies". AllMusic. Archived from the original on March 12, 2022 . Retrieved March 31, 2007.

As 4AD was an independent label, distribution in the United States was handled by British label Rough Trade Records; however, it failed to chart in either country. Only one single was released, a rerecorded version of " Gigantic", and reached number 93 on the UK Singles Chart. Surfer Rosa was rereleased in the US by Elektra Records in 1992, and in 2005 was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America. The artwork was conceived by Vaughan Oliver, with photography from Simon Larbalestier. The man in the "hair shirt" on the cover was a friend of Larbalestier's and the photograph was from a series of work Larbalestier was making based on The Temptation of Saint Anthony by Gustave Flaubert. [11] Composition [ edit ] Music [ edit ] Mervis, Scott (June 8, 2021). "Pixies will play Stage AE in September". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette . Retrieved October 6, 2021. The Boston band debuted in 1988 with "Surfer Rosa," introducing its unique form of quiet-to-loud art-punk and, over the course of a few years, hit the college airwaves with such songs as "Gigantic," "Monkey Gone to Heaven" and "Here Comes Your Man."

For those who might complain about anniversary or retrospective tours being a poor attempt to recapture the spark of a time that is long since gone, one only need to take a cursory look towards the Pixies on stage to know they are one outfit bound to never fall into this category. Rather, they’re legends of the game, showing just why it is they’re the beloved figures they’ve come to be known as, and performing as if we were right there in the early days, watching the birth of greatness. But I think what keeps more people from listening to them is that they seem like albums that don’t care whether you listen to them or not. Bossanova is sweeter than Trompe, but its sweetness exists at an impossible distance. “She’s my fave, undressing in the sun,” Francis whispers on the cryptic miniature, “Ana.” “Return to sea—bye. Forgetting everyone.” Later, on “Havalina,” he spots a javelina—an ornery, boar-like animal not uncommon here—walking across a plain. The music is a slow dance between celestial bodies, heavenly but melancholic. So he sees the boar, and in two short lines, the song is over. Late Pixies songs are triumphs of private epiphany: Small, diamond-bright moments that flash in someone’s eyes and then disappear forever. Of course, it was clear that despite the legacy which these releases boast, many fans were either there for (or simply appreciated more) the band’s hits. Although songs like “The Holiday Song”, “Nimrod’s Son”, “Gigantic”, and “Where Is My Mind?” received the most applause, observers would be remiss to have not mentioned the sheer brilliance of lesser-appreciated cuts like “Bone Machine”, “Tony’s Theme”, and a b c "Surfer Rosa at AcclaimedMusic.net". Archived from the original on 2007-09-28 . Retrieved 2007-03-25.

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The Pixies have now been reunited for four years longer than they were around to begin with, but are just getting around to releasing a new album, which they have called Indie Cindy. Worse than any of the music is the feeling that a band so deft at challenging the system has become part of it in the most predictable ways, rubbing together the tropes of their old art and hoping they can still start a fire, replacing experimentation with routine, filling Kim Deal’s place with not one but two different bassists over the last five months, breaking up the album into three EPs to gin up interest, and generally reminding us that artists of their stature are businesses, not charities.