PIXIES - BOSSANOVA

There is something so predictable about the inclusion of a Pixies album in a blog about records and record shopping that i for some reason feel like a dirty pervert for typing these words. They are the archetypal 'indie' band one of the few international artistes associated with said genre that you might name before Nirvana. There is something so trite about their image, something so dull and sub-art school wank about their album sleeves that they are almost a Chris Morris Fur Q 'UZI Lover' type parody. They have this dry toast persona that they used to market as 'achingly hip' that falls flat on it's face and they are ugly, very, very ugly (Ms Deal being a notable exception even in her latter days).

The guy with the hairy back, the predictable videos, the total and utter pointlessness of their stance and guise aside I hate to say it but they were very listenable. Bossanova comes from the absolute nadir of the bands success, my understanding is that it is almost universally overlooked in favour of earlier works but this is the album that I put on at random to accompany myself home on a sweaty tube last night. 

Given the endless winter the stench and stickiness of the very literal steel tube that trundles me too and from work was almost welcomed. The stale odour of my fellow commuters a short holiday from the dull grey and black Nordic Metal style winter that has outstayed it's welcome month on month. I had remembered my iPod for the first time in a while so decided to take the opportunity to stuff my ears with rubber and drown out the station announcements in favour of something that sounded less like a quirkyTrunk Records release.

I'd like to say that I was transported back to my heady student days, beer sticky floors and sex but instead I was reminded of what god awful taste in music I had when this came out. Yes I borrowed a cassette copy of Doolittle from my local library copying it onto an Agfa in an attempt to impress a very short lived girlfriend, her mum hated me, or more accurately the thought of me upstairs in her house with her daughter - If reading this she would be relieved to know that nothing much beyond a ruffling of hair and amateur fumble on my part ever took place. The Doolittle cassette aside I was still very much cock-deep in that horrible world of 'funk metal'. In my teen mind bands like Mordred and Primus were the pinnacle of mans musical achievement. I was a musical idiot.

It probably took another five years or so for me to get around to this proper and when I did, I liked it, it was good.

On the tube yesterday the thing that really got me was the amount of songs on here, real songs, no filler, no vacuous WIRE magazine bullshit, but real, honest to God songs and these songs are good, great in places. Fucking foot-tappers some of them. Last night Bossanova did what any good record still has the power to do. Outside my front door I pulled the headphone buds from deep in my ears, examined them, flicked off the flecks of offending yellow and looked up at an alien clear blue sky conscious of my sticky arse. I inhaled deeply and thought to myself 'I should start an indie band.'

Regardless of the fact that that's absolutely the worst idea in the world the thought stayed with me for a while as I considered using a roll-on anti-persperant on my backside for the following days commute.