FRANK BLACK fo fanna

Last Tuesday, nestled curiously in between a 99-cent store parking lot and an Indian fast food restaraunt, a transformation was taking place.

“He’s playing with a broken finger!” cried Frank Black of bassist Dan Schmid at Safari Sam's.

The singer's announcement of the former ex-Cherry Poppin' Daddies bassist induced a heavy uproar of laughter and cheer from a 300-person audience atypically dressed to the nines. (PJ Harvey, in a giant white faux coat, stood next to me for most of the night.)

It's been over 20 year since the former Pixies frontman (born Charles Michael Kittridge Thompson IV) began his affair with psuedonyms. "Black Francis" was adopted in 1985 when the musician first began performing with then infamous quartet The Pixies. Later, "Frank Black" was adopted to signify the singer's transistion from The Pixies' 1993 breakup and his own musical explorations. Since then both monikers have stuck and lent their titles to an erratic solo career and alternate projects (Frank Black and the Catholics.)

One thing damaging about deciding to carry on using a name of such stature is the expectations eventually faced.
The artist has relentlessly struggled to escape the shadows of his previous works with The Pixies. He has been labeled as a screaming, wailing type with cryptic and often convoluted lyrics. When Black embarked on a solo carreer his first album, self-titled "Frank Black," was unduly matched to Pixies' last release Trompe le Monde, recorded the previous year, despite its turn to folk. Black's second album Teenager of the Year was regarded as "pop" when compared old works.

A question is begged here. Had Frank Black, (or Charles Thompson, for that matter) sought out his solo endeavors prior to The Pixies life-span, would he have encountered more immediate success? His present work, in my humble opinion, is stellar. Unfortunately, that is only one person's opinion, and even more unfortunate, I would never had been exposed to Black had it not been for his earlier Pixies involvement. The Pixies helped launch Black. Who were these 300-plus people really here to see?

At approximately 10:30 p.m. the lights dimmed. Following the singer's pre-show broken finger announcement, Black and his backing band, Schmid and drummer Jason Carter, preparred to deliver the beginning of what the singer described as “Our 11 Song Opera.” The bass line dropped, cymbals stirred, and suddenly the voice of a man once wild but now restrained quieted a roaring crowd with new album title-track “Bluefinger.”

In front of a patient audience the origin of the opening song was explained as a love-letter and homage to the late Herman Brood, an eccentric Dutch rocker and painter who took his own life in 2001 by jumping off the roof of the Amsterdam Hilton.

“Not all Hiltons are alike,” said Black. “Some of them don’t wear skirts.”

The bald and portly musician spoke with deameanor so calm and articulate that hearing it was almost jarring (think of the first time you heard Billy Corgan's speaking voice, because my awe was somewhere in that realm.) This, coming from a man who has screamed "I'm Amazed!" loud and crass enough to make my eardrums bleed.

The hour-long set progressed with additional Bluefinger tracks "Test Pilot Blues," "Lolita," "Threshold Apprehension" and "She Took The Money." Each was met with brief clarification in Black's oh-so mild voice.

Both “Tight Black Rubber” and “Threshold Apprehension,” according to the Black, were based on factual events from his own life that also mirrored some in his muse’s, Herman Brood. Third to last song “You Can’t Break a Heart and Have It” Brood cover, second to last "Break My Body" a Pixies cover. The final "Motorway to Roswell" was uniquely Black's

With the evening finally ending, what somehow became more difficult than stomaching yet another Stella was trying to remind myself that this exposed musical genius visionary was human. This is just another person with big ideas. This is a grown man widely recognized by his past, and yet audience members flew in from out of state just to gather in a dimly lit venue and to hear him discuss pee and cigarette breaks. If actions do speak louder than words, the genereal consensus is screaming: somewhere in between the forum of chaos and expectations, a revolutiony is still alive and kicking.

Referred to simply as “C.T” by those who know him well, Black Francis/Frank Black/whatever he's calling himself remains best known by the rest of us as the voice behind the madness.