Marc Spitz

Saw Pixies last night at the Hammerstein Ballroom with my friend and sometime theater collaborator Johnny and realized that it had been seventeen years since we’d last seen them together. We drove down from Bennington College, copped some dope, and then headed back uptown to the old Ritz, which was at the time, the new Ritz (the old Ritz is now Webster Hall, which was Webster Hall before it was the old Ritz and so shall it be in the end… although it looms smaller in my memory and affections, having seen three dozen formative new wave and punk shows at the old Ritz and purchased five times that many lapel badges from the button man downstairs as a teen). I recall the band closed with “U Mass” that night and we all hopped up and down so violently that we were soon smack-spewing in the toilets. Last night was a much different energy. It all seemed so – functional. The band took the stage on time. There was a friendly, if a little chilly and “professional” energy between them. The stage set was hot, with projected films (Un Chien Andalou of course) behind them. They replicated the Doolittle album, its b-sides (“Do the Manta Ray”!!!!!) and “Caribou” “Broken Face” and “Planet of Sound” album-note perfect, but there’s no way around it being an oldies show. Ben Ratliff in today’s Times really nailed it. They’ve been an oldies act for five years now. I was on tour with them in Europe in ’04 when they first reunited. I spent one night trying to break into a cemetery with Kim Deal to see Jim Morrison’s grave (Kim wanted to pee on it as I recall). We had the wrong cemetery. We could have peed on Francois Truffault’s grave but there would have been nothing punk rock about that and Jules and Jim has the meaning of life in it or at least the meaning of women. We ended up in her hotel room very late at night, watching a Basil Rathbone movie and chain smoking. I ate a tense Japanese meal with “Charles” (Black Francis) and Joey Santiago. He explained the inspiration behind “Monkey Gone To Heaven’s” famous “if man is five” lyrics (essentially: seven rhymes with heaven) while folding his boxer shorts in a Parisian laundrette. I experienced these things. I watched them play “Bone Machine” from behind the stage in Paris. I cried. Because they were back. And maybe what we lost was back too. If “Charles” and Kim could bury the hatchet, maybe I needed to call up some ex-es? But five years on there’s none of the same anticipation. They played me some new music in Europe in ’04. Joey did, on his i-Pod (he also played me Donovan’s “I Love My Shirt”) and I figured a new Pixies album, or two would have surely happened by now. I worry about the imminent Pavement reunion, which also promises no new recording or touring. I don’t think you can have the full experience, or really consider a band… alive again, unless they are writing together as well as playing the old songs. A vital Pixies, circa 1992 is what we really need. Otherwise, we leave these venues just feeling – old. Satisfied. Happy but wondering what it means if the heroes we choose to reflect our best selves are content to go a half decade half cocked. In 1992 I could have conceived of dying of a heroin overdose so much easier than say, an auotpilot Pixies or Pavement (not fair, I guess to say this about Pave yet but they have stipulated that it’s not a full return to activity). God bless the Smiths for not doing this to us. Could you imagine? Five years of festivals, and Meat is Murder in its entirety but no new music. Could Moz/Marr even resist writing together if they were like… rejoined and in close proximity for more than a secret tea? I loved the show last night. I’m not griping. The sensation, however, of watching them play that record so… cleanly, was not unlike watching The Baumer sell phone plans on TV. Aren’t you supposed to be killing yourself to Elliot Smith? Why did I do all those drugs? Someone isn’t keeping their end of the tragic/romantic bargain. Yes, I’ve gone relatively straight, but not creatively or spiritually. There’s something still alive in me, as a fan, and sometimes, as a profiler of these artists, that may be dead or dying in them and it keeps me from fully enjoying a perfect Doolittle live (except “There Goes My Gun” and “Silver” I full enjoyed those).