Not content with the revitalization of Pixies, releasing a live BBC Sessions album and doing away with another bass player, Frank Black wants the show to go on, to celebrate the greatness that was Teenager Of The Year which I played to death many years ago. Not Pixies by any means but a good stab at punk pop perfection from the warped mind of the space nerd. Read on…
Frank Black is delighted to announce two very special shows for 2025, where he will be performing the ‘Teenager Of The Year’ album in full.
The Teenager Of The Year shows will see Frank Black play Le Trianon in Paris on Tuesday 4th February and the London Palladium on Thursday 6th February.
“Sometime in the early 80s, I’d have to look up the date, I matriculated high school. This school held an awards banquet for some of the departing students at the school. I received an award called the TEENAGER OF THE YEAR award; my brother received the same award the following year. Our award was a 50 dollar credit for textbooks, a TEENAGER OF THE YEAR medallion (my mother still has this), and also the banquet hall dinner, soup to nuts. My brother and I had no complaint about the award (it was given for being all-around-good-guy as best as we could determine). But for such a grand title to be given as TEENAGER OF THE YEAR, I felt the glory had not been amplified enough.
In 1993, I was doing “solo recording” sessions with Eric Drew Feldman in Los Angeles. We had settled on a core band with Nick Vincent and Lyle Workman, occasionally augmented by Joey Santiago and Moris Tepper. Though we had to change studios numerous times for actual forest fires and earthquakes, the whole process was such an addictive musical buffet that Eric and I couldn’t stop. We did some vocals at a studio rumored to be owned by Sergio Mendes; in the control room was a wall of television screens broadcasting the brush fire which crept toward us. We eventually evacuated to someplace else. We never met Sergio but we saw him perform a few weeks later when we vacated to Las Vegas after the Northridge earthquake, which had trapped the TEENAGER OF THE YEAR tapes in a studio vault for some time. Our zeal plus empathy from our financiers, they safely observing our travails from London, was enough to keep the money flowing until Eric and I relented and declared “Consummatum est”.
We tried to make it grand. 22 in 62. I called it TEENAGER OF THE YEAR. It is 30 years old now, and the original band will perform the record at various venues in early 2025. 4AD has remastered the LP for a fresh printing. Enjoy.” Black Francis 2024 Meredith, New Hampshire.
Originally released in May 1994, Teenager of the Year, is now widely regarded as the defining statement of his solo career and the best album the Pixies never made.
“Initially it was a 14-song album. It was mixed. Eric Idle was staying nearby. He kept telling me to change the songs around. Al (Clay)had to run off and go to his next project. We weren’t completely happy with what we had. The solution: record more songs. Eight more were born. Whole shebang was remixed by David Bianco. The day before we were to start the remix, the 1994 Northridge earthquake occurred. Charles, Jean (Charles’ first wife) and I escaped to Las Vegas, ate many shrimp cocktails, and we saw Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, and Sergio Mendes and Brazil ’99 perform. Sergio was especially good. After about five days we returned to the mixing studio and the deed was done.” Eric Drew Feldman.*
The new re-mastered version of Teenager Of The Year will be released by 4AD later this year.
Along with Frank Black, the band for the tour features Eric Drew Feldman, Lyle Workman and Nick Vincent who originally appeared on the Teenager Of the Year album.
The band is:
Frank Black on guitar and vocals
Eric Drew Feldman on bass and keys
Lyle Workman on guitar
Nick Vincent on drums
Rob Laufer – keys, bass and guitar
Tickets for the Teenager Of The Year shows are available from 10am CET Friday 14th June here: https://blackfranc.is
Forewords by Wayne Carey, Reviews Editor for Louder Than War. His author profile is here
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