Frank Black “Honeycomb”
With most bands, we can figure out the source code. We can hear the genealogy and taste the ingredients. In fact, we love that sort of sleuthing and name-checking. Band A = Band B + Band C + .5x Band D. But, occasionally, we find a band that is genetically aberrant — their music is from no time and no place. We know, logically, there are reference points. But these rare birds sound illogical. The math doesn’t add up. These are the outliers that make us wonder, “Who made this sound this way?”
I felt this way the first time I heard (the band) Television. I had never heard music like that before. I mean, I guess it sounded like 50s Sci-Fi and The Velvet Underground and The Grateful Dead. Or maybe I was just imagining those thoughts because others had said something along those lines before. Similarly, I remember hearing Big Star’s “Third” (“Sister Lovers”) and, with only the vestigial Beatles’ influence left at point at, I struggled to understand who made that music and how. Was “Marquee Moon” 90% Tom Verlaine? How much was Richard Lloyd? Was “Sister Lovers” 80% Alex Chilton? How much was Chris Bell?
More recently, The Pixies also posed this challenge. They made a sound that nobody could have predicted and nobody could effectively imitate. But what was the source of that sound? Where was the well located? How much of it was Frank Black? How much was Kim Deal? How much was Joey Santiago? Based on the members early solo albums, the case only gets muddier. Frank Black’s first three solo records sound almost exactly like The Pixies without Kim Deal or Joey Santiago. It’s the same vein being tapped, but just one type of blood coming out. On the other hand, The Breeders’ records sounded a whole lot like the bass heavy Pixies songs that Kim sang lead on. In fact, The Breeders also maintained more of the simplicity plus the boundless risk-taking of The Pixies. Several years after Frank and Kim broke up (for the first time), my investigative work was something of a stalemate.
Over time, however, I began to wonder if those early Frank Black records were simply products of residual Pixie dust. That he still had muscles from his collaboration with Kim Deal and Joey Santiago but that, over time, they’d begun to fade in the wash of life? I even wondered, without traces of The Pixies, whether I even wanted to listen to Frank Black records any more? Frank Black seemed to think so. He released at least eighteen solo albums as Frank Black, Frank Black and the Catholics and Black Francis, between 1993 and 2011. There are probably others that I don’t know about. I stopped following in the late nineties. I couldn’t keep up and, candidly, I lost interest.
Along the way, and unbeknownst to me, Frank Black -- the bald, round, one-time renegade, occasional howler, forever pioneer -- started growing older. His output didn’t slow. But his music did. I didn’t hear any of the records from the 2000s in real time but, in retrospect, he began to really dial everything back. Three chords. Mid tempos. Tender vocals. Just songs. Some of them, frankly, sound like the best songs you could imagine from a busker or open mic dude in Austin, Texas. Some sound like really great, late period Pavement. Some sound like Frank Black recording a demo while tired. And some knock your socks off. But in all instances, he sounds like a guy, doing his job, year after year. Frank Black began as the world’s largest Pixie and turned out to be a middle-aged troubadour.
That journey, inevitably, led him to Nashville, where all troubadours go to find themselves. For many years, Frank Black had imagined heading to Music City, working with the session guys there, and making his version of “Blonde on Blonde” — in spirit, if not in sound. The idea remained just that -- an idea -- for nearly a decade. Every year, producer Jon Tiven (who, ironically, had worked with both Alex Chilton and Chris Bell) would call and see if Frank was ready for the “Black on Blonde” record and Frank would demure. All the while, he was churning out solo albums to feed his fans, and, eventually, reuniting the Pixies.
However, in 2005, at the age of forty, a whole bunch of shit happened. The Pixies simply could not work together and had to cancel a much anticipated tour. More sadly, Black’s marriage of sixteen years ended. He went into therapy and figured out what he needed to do. The “what” was apparently to head to Nashville and, with Jon Tiven’s help, get legendary session players like Steve Cropper, Reggie Young, Buddy Miller and Spooner Olsen into the studio for “Black on Blonde.” The Nashville guys knew relatively nothing about Frank Black or The Pixies. They were hired to go to show up and play some guy’s songs. Like they always do. Just this time, this guy kind of invented Alternative Rock.
Released as “Honeycomb” and by the artist Frank Black (not “Black Francis” nor with The Catholics), the album is a kindly and digestible record. It’s modest, but in no way lazy. It’s fourteen songs and fifty-three minutes, including three covers. He polishes up Townes Van Zandt’s version of “Song of the Shrimp,” made semi-famous by Elvis. And he channels some 70s Soul on his cover of “Dark End of the Street.” The eleven originals generally occupy a similar space. They’re plaintive and humble. Sometimes, they are deeper and wise, like on “Another Velvet Nightmare,” which is one of several songs that borrows heavily from pre-synth Leonard Cohen.
Yes -- some of the tracks are so easy as to be forgettable. “Go Find” is a perfectly nice song that could have been written and performed by anyone at any bar in any city in any year. It’s inoffensive, but it’s hard not to want a Black Francis song to sound something like Frank Black. He does that on the lovely, six minute album closer “Sing For Joy,” which could be fairly mistaken for David Berman on a happy day. And it’s a nice reward for what is a fairly long, unspectacular drive.
“Honeycomb” is not “Blonde on Blonde.” It’s not a Pixies break-up album. It’s not a divorce album. And it’s certainly not genetically aberrant. Black sounds rather workmanlike -- an appropriate byproduct of the players and the setting. From 2005 to 2011, he would keep working. In fact, he would make more music in Nashville. He would record and tour with The Pixies. He. Just. Kept. Going. And then, in 2011, the solo albums stopped. The man who had sounded ageless since he left the Pixies first arrived finally started to show his middle age. He said that he couldn’t release solo records any more because they lost him money. The bands for hire, the studio time, the promotion and the touring — it was all a losing proposition for forty-something Frank Black. “Honeycomb” sounds like a job, but one that Frank Black loved. Eventually, though, it seems that the ex-Pixie discovered the bummer that confronts most of us around middle age — that we all work for the same reason and it’s not for love. It’s to pay the bills.