PIXIES
Pixies
(4AD DVD)
***

“Who's the most important rock act of the past 20 years?” Survey your obsessive music-geek friends and the likely answer will be “the Pixies,” the '80s catalyst for Nirvana and '90s alternative rock. Regardless of whether you have such geek friends, a legion of music journalists and musicians — including Bono, David Bowie, PJ Harvey, and members of Radiohead, Bush, Blur, Ash and Travis — make the case for you in the Gouge documentary included on this DVD. This archival Pixies video retrospective provides an even stronger testimony to the band's brilliance in a 15-song 1988 London concert performance that vividly captures the band's irresistible electric chemistry. Here in full glory is Charles “Black Francis” Thompson's uncomfortably amusing, violently psychopathic presence colliding with Kim Deal's cosmic vocals and nervous bass lines, all swimming in Joey Santiago's skewed, surreal guitar riffs and David Lovering's manic drumming. The jaw-dropping concert footage is made even more spectacular by its unimaginably rich Surround Sound audio mix.

Considering the striking visuals of the Pixies' album art, it's particularly disillusioning that their music videos were so horrifically witless and unimaginative. With the exception of “Debaser” and “Head On,” there's no further payoff beyond the first lousy 20 seconds of each clip. Especially don't get suckered into the insultingly useless “Velouria” video. A second documentary collects mundane behind-the-scenes footage from the 1989 American and European tours. It's admirable this historic footage has been preserved, but it's unlikely that even the most die-hard Pixies fans would subject themselves to repeat viewings of this snooze-inducing documentary. Still, when interpreted as a definitive concert DVD padded with give-or-take “bonus extras,” this video release overall is as important and essential as the band it documents.

(Originally published in The Cleveland Free Times, May 12, 2004)