Movie Review: loudQUIETloud: A
Film About the Pixies
I'm a sucker for a well-done documentary about a band I like, and loudQUIETloud: A Film About the Pixies
fills the bill. It displays the greatness of the music that I already
loved. It tells me more about the personalities than I knew previously.
Kim Deal is the most gracious with the fans, perhaps because, as a
female musician, she's still an anomaly and therefore a role model to
teenage girls. Dave Lovering is sad, in several meanings of the word,
his career as a magician looking disturbingly similar to Gob Bluth's on
Arrested Development. Joey
Santiago is the most well-adjusted of the bunch, a committed family man
who is torn about touring keeping him away from his growing brood at
home. Kim's twin sister Kelley, brought along by Kim for moral
support, is a fun, blunt addition, not merely a hanger-on.
The scenes where Black Francis (sorry, I just can't quite think of him
as Charles Thompson or Frank Black) gets interviewed, resurrected my
range of emotions about my days of doing them. On one hand, I recalled
why I enjoyed interviewing him several times, especially when he
offered his suggestion that if the band were to start recording again,
they should really start from scratch with a new name like Vomit Squad.
On the other hand, the footage of his phone interviews showed him just
as disengaged as I suspected some of my telephone interview subjects
were. During the first phoner, he's fiddling with an eyeglass case
while talking. During the second, he's lying on his hotel bed in just
his underwear, which caused a collective shudder by the audience at the
Music Box.
The concert footage proved insightful, too. It reconfirmed my belief
that, as wonderfully original as the Pixies' music is, the band was
always short on charismatic stage presence, which may have limited
their popularity as much as an inherent weirdness to their sound. But
it also showcased guitarist Joey as an underrated talent. As singers
and songwriters Black Francis and Kim always garnered more attention,
but Joey's unique riffs are a large part of their distinctive sound.
