Tag: the pixies

Nothing Constructive

I didn’t play guitar tonight. I did play about an hour and 10 minutes of World of Warcraft and with the exception of the last five minutes or so when I died repeatedly I had a nice stretch of slaughtering bad guys and monsters so I guess it was okay. I know we said we weren’t going to play World of Warcraft anymore, but it’s still my wife’s all time favorite, and it is also the only game I have on my PC and my subscription hasn’t run out yet so… yeah.

Star Wars: Old Republic is downloading, so there’s that.

There’s a Pixies song in the soundtrack to The Suicide Squad. Hey, off of Doolittle. Yeah… that set off the old Boston rock fan zaniness in a big way. I had already started listening to a lot of Throwing Muses prior to watching the movie but now we’re just up to our eyeballs in the music of the city of Boston from the late 80’s through the late 90’s. Pixies have been the soundtrack to tonight’s video game violence. I’ve blown through Come on Pilgrim and Surfer Rosa and I’m about 3/4 of the way through Doolittle. For my money, Pixies Doolittle, Throwing Muses House Tornado (or the first record), and Mission of Burma’s Vs are enough to justify the entire god awful decade of the 1980’s. Throw in a handful of Rush records and just dump the rest of the decade down the crapper and you’re good to go.

Did I mention that Betwixt is getting back together for a few shows soon? There’s your 1990’s justification right there.

You know, I wish I had something constructive* to add to the electronic conversation tonight but I just don’t. Go give Doolittle a spin and you’ll feel better. Try Betwixt’s Moustache album too. Also, if you can find Smackmelon’s Space Shot play that too. Trust me.

*Twice through the course of this post, once in the title and once in the body, I have misspelled constructive as constructed. I blame society for my spelling short comings. The Pixies playlist just moved on from Doolittle to Bossanova. We should be Digging for Fire shortly.

Addendum: When I logged out of World of Warcraft, the Steam app said I had 10 seconds to wait before I could play Star Wars: Old Republic. Groovy, thought me. Then when I hovered my mouse over the Start button it changed to 8 seconds, and then to 4 hours and 50 minutes. It’s currently reading two hours and 56 minutes. Okay. I guess we won’t play tonight. It’s all right. I couldn’t decide if I wanted to be a Jedi or a Sith to start with anyway.

Addendum #2: We watched an episode of The Big Bang Theory tonight while we ate dinner. In it, Sheldon played a Theremin. Did anyone else completely forget that there is a Theremin in the Pixies song Velouria? The world is a small place, and music makes time travel possible.

Los Pixies at T.T. the Bear’s Because it is 1987

TT the Bear’s is my favorite music venue in greater Boston and it’s closing. The bar was bought out by the competition, The Middle East which is also the next door neighbor, and despite an attempt to work out a deal to let TT’s stay open under the same management, they are being shut down this summer.

To help give the place a proper send off, The Pixies are going to play a one off, unannounced show tonight.  Here is the band’s statement:

June 18, 2015
BOSTON, MA – IMPORTANT

Hello

To help bid adieu to Cambridge’s T.T. the Bear’s Place, one of the most iconic nightclubs in the country, Pixies will perform at the venue one last time TONIGHT.

Tickets will be priced at $55.00 and go on sale today at 2:00PM ET at the Orpheum Theatre box office.

They will be sold on a first-come-first-served basis with a two-ticket limit.

All interested must be present when purchasing the ticket as all ticket holders will be wristbanded when they buy their ticket.  All attendees must be 18+, will need a valid ID, as well as their ticket and wristband in order to enter the club for the show.

Yes, the ticket price is absurd, and yes you have to jump through a ridiculous number of hoops to get a ticket, but TT’s is not what you’d call a big place.  I don’t know what the capacity is but it can’t be more than a couple of hundred.  Even at $55 and selling at only one location and the whole wristband thing, these are going to sell out in seconds.  Seconds, I tell you.
This is one of those weird gown up issues for me.  Something I never would have dreamed possible 20+ years ago.  When I was a kid I would have slaughtered scores of innocents to get in the door.  I would have done anything.  Now though, I have a conflict.  Given the choice between ditching work to get tickets and then staying in the city all day and then cramming* into a small room to see an awesome (though well past their prime and missing their bass player) band and going to an 8th grader’s middle school graduation ceremony… there is no question.  Graduation it is!
Still, this is a super cool move by the band.  It’s always great when bands who’ve moved on do something to show that they still remember where they came from.  Huge thanks to Los Pixies.  Now if they can just get Kim Deal to come back for the night.  Also, think they can get Throwing Muses to share the bill with them?  Like the old days?
*I went to a show at TT’s once where I thought I was going to die.  Not really, that’s too dramatic, but it was definitely weird.  It was a WMBR Pipeline sponsored show that was headlined by a Zulus reunion.  The Zulus didn’t do a whole hell of a lot for me when they were together, and I wouldn’t have gone to this particular show if Chelsea on Fire hadn’t been on the bill.  At that point in time Larry and I would have gone to the North Pole to see a Chelsea on Fire show.  Anyway, the place was packed to the rafters.  There wasn’t a single inch of free space in front of the stage.  It was alarming.  There were moments when the crush of people actually made it hard to breathe.  I couldn’t tell if it was because we were all crammed together, or if there just wasn’t enough oxygen in the room for all of us, but it was definitely an uncomfortable feeling.  There was also the simple thought that if someone over by the bar did something stupid like set a fire, all of us were dead.  I’m pretty sure this was before the Station burned down, but there was no way a crowd that big in a room that small would have been able to evacuate through the small exits.  It would have been a disaster.  Since the Station fire all of the rules have changed.  I haven’t been to TT’s in a long time, but I’m 100% positive the same claustrophobic fear would not have happened today.  Don’t let my hazy Zulus memories scare you off of tonight’s show.  If you can get there, go and check out the Mighty Pixies.  You won’t regret it.