DAR Constitution Hall has seats the color of presidential navy, spangled with aging stars in a kind of yellow. I watched my brother graduate from high school there, and in fact this is the reference point that most burb residents gave when i said i would be seeing the pixies there monday night. waiting impatiently for the "m's" to be called on a sweltering dc summer afternoon in 1999 is a little different than waiting for jay reatard to get off stage - for one thing, i spent this musical evening being expressively drunk, drunk enough so that this morning in the mirror i caught a large and unsightly ketchup stain down the front of my sweatshirt, and cannot recall why exactly there might be a ketchup stain but i am hoping that tater tots were involved.
the pixies take the stage to great applause, they, like the crowd, are a little on the sweaty, fuller-faced side of cool - frank black looks like an out and out troll doll that your little sister shaved while you were away at college. his pot-belly and turned out hips-waddle give a fester adams kind of vibe, until he opens his mouth, and then it's just vibe.
"we're playing b-sides first" kim deal explains, after chanting "weird at my school" with the rest of the band.
nostalgia was in fact the order of the evening as the band played the entirety of "doolittle" - their first international release from 1989. back when rolling stone magazine was physically (culturally?) bigger and had the perplexing smell of perfumed mold i read an interview with kurt cobain citing the pixies as a huge influence, and i promptly joined one of those pyramid scam music clearing houses and ordered this album and like Violater. sorry, dad.
the cd sat in a pile of jewel cases until i was 14. the first time i heard the opening bass line to "debaser" i was lying on the floor in a pile of dirty clothes, probably thinking about kissing boys or something. it blew my face off, and then frank black starts scream-talking about slicing up eyeballs, which i used to think was "bibles" and in any case, both are blasphemous and a little sticky.
to see this live electrified my 14-year old self, and generally everyone at DAR, though the married couple in the row directly in front spent the evening huddled together with their pinky fingers in thoughtful repose. the gurgled screams of "tame" and the bass heavy boy talk / girl coo of "i bleed" felt like being new to high school - small and angsty and sweaty and angry at most but not all and loving everything until your heart gets sore. which is why it momentarily blew my mind when my dude andrew recently commented on the pixies vibe being dirty/pretty. i associate them with being punky and innocent and violent all at once but kind of in these separate bubbles, but thinking of them as dirty/pretty together like the breeders or like, david bowie feels sort of new. it's like a lot of people describe them as "surreal" or whatever but to me the pixies feel like trying to get your dick in the right place or really liking grosse point blank ... awkward and throbby and comedic and super fun. and i guess that's all of it dirty/pretty.
there was a ton of buzz on the nerd about how frank black and kim deal stand on opposite ends of the stage and hate on one another, but amid deal's cheery crowd-love, her and black make expressive faces and hip shakes at one another - consummate punk professionals. and here's the thing about seeing old(er) people play punk music 20 years after releasing it, best summed up for the duration of "gouge away" - the sick conclusion to doolittle. the violence of asking "sacred questions" in your youth most likely (?) fades with age ... just like the "3 day parties" and the urge to "break the walls / kill us all" that black shrieks about. it's so wild to see these 30 something punks, people that wore their teeth and claws down on the gouge, but who are inevitably now contributing to the smooth resurfacing of these marks, in one way or another. you know, myself included. i'm definitely done gouging for a bit, my most forceful scooping is all about the scooped like pick-up from the metro. i recently saw the dirty projectors and for all their dirty/pretty eye-jaded hyped dramatic tension, they are definitely putting on the gouge. the pixies are riding the wave, which is why, although it was SUPERfun to see them, it all felt kind of masturbatory. but, you know, that's what being 14 is all about.
