Disowning His Catholic Upbringing | Frank Black has played in a lot of bands, but he’ll be performing a solo show in Edmonton this Monday.
DETAILS
BLACK FRANCIS
w/ guests. Starlite Room (10030-102 Ave). Mon, July 6 (8pm). Tickets available through Freecloud, Listen, Blackbyrd and Ticketmaster.
The best (and funniest) scene in Jim Jarmusch’s film Coffee and Cigarettes has a clearly flustered Iggy Pop explaining to Tom Waits that he can call him by his stage name if he wants, or by his given name, Jim.
Introduced to Pixies frontman Black Francis over the phone, the question also arises in a joking way — how should he be referred to? Is he Charles Michael Kittridge Thompson IV? Black Francis? Frank Black?
There’s a long silence, followed by a sigh, after which Francis wearily responds. “They’re just names. It doesn’t matter — you can call me what you want. Can we just get to the music?”
Mental note: do not try and ingratiate oneself early on with Black Francis.
Of course, once you’ve buried yourself right off the top, it’s generally hard to recover in an interview; like Pop with Waits, there’s a remorseless undertone thereafter as each question gets floated and judged wanting.
But his impatience is understandable; along with wife Violet Clark (with whom he plays in the duo Grand Duchy), Francis presides over a household of five children. Include various Pixies reunion dates plus solo acoustic shows and you have a very busy man.
The tour that has him coming through town is split between acoustic dates — this Monday’s Starlite performance, for instance — and Grand Duchy shows. Thompson waxes enthusiastically about the family project that has him splitting songwriting and musical duties with Clark, but seems slightly dismissive about questions regarding what fans can expect from the solo concert.
“I will be there with a guitar, I will sing and potentially talk to the audience,” he explains patiently. “I don’t know exactly what I’ll sing, but it’ll be from my repertoire, whether this band or that band. I don’t really think about performing as a campaign anymore, as in ‘Okay, this is what I need to do to tell the audience about new songs.’ Now it’s about ‘Okay, here I am.’”
Fair enough, Mr. Black. After years marginalized by a rock press insistent that he repeat himself artistically on post-Pixies releases, he has to be a little tired of playing the game. And it has to be said that nowhere in the interview is he ever actually angry or snide — just eager to get to the crux of the matter, pronto. Ask a few point-blank questions about a particular phase of his career and he opens up.
“Yeah — I think those Catholics records have some integrity to them. Now people might say, ‘Oh yeah, those Frank Black and the Catholics albums were great,’ but at the time they were ignored by the press and even fans. ‘What are you up to? This is stupid.’
“But that’s the way it goes when you play ‘alternative rock’” — the phrase sounds utterly ironic when he utters it — “You make your records and then years later everyone loves them. ‘Teenager of the Year [his second solo album] is a classic!’ Well, at the time everyone was like, ‘Well, it’s kinda long, isn’t it?’”
Validation is sweet, but as any number of critically acclaimed musicians can testify, it doesn’t feed the family. A moderately successful indie rock career after being namechecked far and wide as a godfather to the ’90s boom would have to be somewhat galling, but fortunately Francis has his kid’s college fund taken care of.
“The Pixies reunion shows have been lucrative; we don’t have chefs, we show up and production crew is dumbfounded. Four musicians with a dinky rider, easy as can be, no number-crunching, we play some shows and make money.”
Was there ever any possibility after so many years as a solo artist that he’d chuck it and become a manager at the Gap?
“Nah – as soon as I played my first show I thought, ‘Okay, that’s it, I’m a Beatle. I’m in the club, I get my own record deal.’ I knew I wanted to be doing this, and nothing was going to stop it. I’ll load my own gear if I have to — and trust me, sometimes I still have to.”
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