In support of his brand-new solo album Bluefinger which is released tomorrow, September 11 (Cooking Vinyl), BLACK FRANCIS, formerly known as Frank Black, formerly lead singer of the iconic Pixies, will do a very special 14-concert west coast run beginning on Monday, October 1 with two nights in Portland, OR at the Fir Lounge. The tour will also include multiple nights in Los Angeles, Vancouver and San Francisco. The confirmed itinerary is below.
Black Francis will be joined on this trek by the talented group of musicians who recorded Bluefinger - Violet Clark/vocals, Dan Schmid/bass, and Jason Carter/drums, and of course Black Francis on guitar, harmonica and vocals.
Reviews for Bluefinger have been over the top - Mojo wrote, "'Bluefinger' marks an artistic rebirth for the King of Quiet/Loud," the [London] Times stated, "Frank Black is a genius, as a Pixie and even more so as a solo artist," while NME called Bluefinger "...his finest album since the demise of his influential 90s alt/rockers...this is a slice of Black gold."
Imbued by the spirit of the late eccentric Dutch painter/musician Herman Brood, Frank Black donned his decades-old moniker of Black Francis and recorded eleven songs - ten by Black Francis, one a Brood cover - for Bluefinger. "I privately went back to the old stage name, if that even makes any sense, almost as a joke," explains Black Francis. "I couldn't get the Pixies back into a studio, but I would transform into my alter ego of yesteryear."
All songs on Bluefinger directly or indirectly reference Brood who was known as the "Dutch personification of 'sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll'." Brood was a rock musician going back to the 1960s, and he and his band, Herman Brood and His Wild Romance, experienced success in Europe, and even scored a top 40 hit in the U.S.A. in 1979 with "Saturday Night." He was outspoken and in the public eye for decades, in part due to his relationship with the German artist, Nina Hagen. His art has been exhibited at galleries and at the Museum of Groningen in Amsterdam, and he created murals - considered by many to be valuable contributions to Dutch culture and art - in various public spaces around that city. A hard drug user for many years, he swore off most drugs later in his life, but the damage had been done. In 2001, he was told he had only a few months to live, and later that year, committed suicide at age 54 by jumping off the roof of the Amsterdam Hilton Hotel.
"John Lennon and Yoko Ono claimed the Amsterdam Hilton in 1969," Francis continues. "The Pixies headlined their first big rock show in Holland in 1988. Herman Brood reclaimed the Hilton for his country in 2001, and now I feel he has even claimed back the Pixies, or at least me, BLACK FRANCIS."
As Black Francis, Boston and Los Angeles-bred Black was one of the architects of modern rock as a front man of the Pixies, whose "loud-quiet-loud" dynamics, primal scream intensity and free-ranging compositional style exerted a huge influence on alternative music. His solo recordings as Frank Black demonstrated his artistic restlessness, embracing alternative pop and avant-garde rock with equal fervor; he continued exploring this territory with a new band, The Catholics, fr several years before journeying to Nashville to create two critically-acclaimed albums with producer Jon Tiven - 2005's Honeycomb and the more intense, upbeat Fastman Raiderman in 2006.
Confirmed tour dates for Black Francis' Fall West Coast are as follows:
OCTOBER
1 Fir Lounge, Portland, OR
2 Fir Lounge, Portland, OR
3 Richards on Richards, Vancouver, BC CANADA
4 Richards on Richards, Vancouver, BC CANADA
5 Wow Hall, Eugene, OR
7 Harlow's, Sacramento, CA
8 The Catalyst, Santa Cruz, CA
9 Cafe Du Nord, San Francisco, CA
10 Cafe Du Nord, San Francisco, CA
11 Cafe Du Nord, San Francisco, CA
13 Soho Music Club, Santa Barbara, CA
14 Downtown Brew, San Luis Obispo, CA
15 Safari Sam's, Los Angeles, CA
16 Safari Sam's, Los Angeles, CA
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