Pixies and Eskimo Joe say 'Hey'...

The fact that I haven't written about this song yet is criminal. It kind of makes sense, given that we've been straying far more towards the hip-hop end of the spectrum here at One A Day lately. But today after seeing my article decimated on Page 3 of the newspaper, I flicked through the entertainment classifieds and noticed that Pixies had sold out three shows in my town alone. To put this into perspective, not only are this band on a semi-indefinite hiatus, but they're also pretty old and pretty far away from ever recording anything a seminal as 1989's Doolittle ever again. Nas, who we saw last night, while still being an OG, is still writing records and still making headlines, having burst onto the scene about two years after Pixies. Nas sold out a 2000 capacity venue, these guys are set to blitz three times a 5000 capacity venue. What's the point of this comparative literature? Somtimes, all the slick beats and motherfucker mentality can get me a little too enamoured with hip hop. But I was born a rock boy and that's where I'll ultimately stay. At least until Greg C comes after me for referencing him in my Brother Ali post on Friday.

If you want a history of Pixies, go and read Wikipedia, or like, 20 issues of SPIN magazine or something. If you honestly don't know who this band are and you know how to read and write then there's very little we can do to help you. You might like to start with a band called Nirvana, sidestep a crazy-ass lady called Courtney and continue along your trajectory until you reach Animal Collective, or Them Crooked Vultures or one of Jack White's 50 gabllillon bands (yep, I just made that word up. Wanna fight about it?) Let's just settle for this; Pixies are weird. The people who like Pixies, not just the ones who pretend to be excited everytime Richard Branson pays them to get back together, are similarly weird. It's understandable, Frank Black/Black Francis/White Man's Buddah is up there with the most brilliantly erratic lyricists of all time.

'Hey' is the sexiest unsexy song ever. The bass line is so simple, yet powerfully evocative. Black's voice alternates between crooning and barking, with all these references to "whores in my head" and various other stuff that you probably can't ask your parents to turn up on the radio during that long interstate trip to your holiday beach house/log cabin. Everything about this song screams 'surf rock nightmare'. It's like Quentin Tarantino had directorial duties over the album, every second of this song I can just see Uma Thurman dancing sexily and then snorting a line of heroin by accident. It's that kind of awesome. Someone else who thinks so is Eskimo Joe lead singer Kav, who not only picks Pixies as his subject of choice every time he goes on a music quiz show, but also did a cover of this track for Triple J's hilariously titled Like A Version. I think he did a pretty good job of it, and besides, his voice has that similarly rough texture that means that he does well with the Frank Black material. But then, I love the Eskies, so I'm probably biased. Or maybe it's just them whores in my head...

Pixies - 'Hey'


Eskimo Joe - 'Hey'


Pixies fly here
Meet an Eskimo called Joe here