If Man Is Five

***[Ed. note: The song file is back up. Originally it was hosted by the label, but I don't think they were used to our kind of traffic. It happens. Thanks for your patience.***]

I remember that Matthew posted a track from this album many months ago, waaaay ahead of the curve. Which is rad. I was promised this one from Erik at SpinART, and having a personal connection to Charles I figured I'd hold off until this approved cut came through.

The track is mellow mellow mellow. Somehow it retains the spooky intensity of the first one, but in a wholeheartedly different way. The instrumentation wanders dangerously close to TMBG at times, but it doesn't hurt the song, and you can see what the band was up to. I like it.

Anyway, Frank is putting out a self-titled 2CD on October 12th through SpinART, compiling an original tape demo he cut back in '86, as well as new versions of old pixies tunes done with the Two Pale Boys. According to Frank Black Francis, here's the story on what we're hearing:

"Sometime back in 1986 I think, the producer for what would become the Pixies first record, Gary Smith, asked me to drop by his apartment in the Allston section of Boston, just down the street from the building I was born in, to play some songs into his cassette walkman. Gary and the band were scheduled to go into his studio, the original Fort Apache in the Roxbury section of Boston, the following day to record Come On Pilgrim, although it did not have a title at that time. Gary wanted to have some audio notes on the songs for the session... The project sat around for a couple of years, mostly because my manager, Ken Goes, and I always felt a little uncomfortable about releasing only that tape to the buying public, as it was not a planned performance, a little casual, and very bootleg in sonic quality. Sure, the uberfans would be happy enough about the content, but we both felt that a potential new fan might feel a bit ripped-off. Ken suggested I re-record some of the old repertoire in some new way, especially a well recorded way, so as to balance this product out a bit. I realize some fans or critics might feel like I’m messing with the gospel here, but really these are the reasons for all these recordings here and now. ... I like these [Two Pale Boys] a lot. Sure, we’ve messed with the gospel, but I am satisfied with it."
-Frank Black Francis.

***
In other news, I'm back from vacation. Thanks to my man Blair for keeping things real around here, and thanks to you for not giving up on us. We're getting more and more support from labels, artists, distributors and publicists. It's crazy, and you can expect continued goodness from us here at the robots. And like Matthew, I'll be speaking at the CMJ conference on October 15th at 12:20 p.m. So any of you stalkers can come get a glimpse of my hottness for reals in NYC. There might be some sort of crazy geek mp3 blogger summit at that time as well. So watch out. If you're period's droppin', the Roc is catchin. Werd.