Pixies for nixies

Nirvana were the global break-out act of the early '90s but The Pixies (frontman Frank Black pictured) were the soundtrack of any inner-city or suburban hipster party in the closely-preceeding late '80s. Certainly that was the case in Sydney.

Personally, I wasn't fussed about or fascinated with them, either way. I owned "Dolittle", which was flogged to death on the (then listenable) 2JJJ, the youth-orientated Aussie broadcaster whose reach hadn't yet extended nationally and thus wasn't as homogenised as it is today. The Pixies were an OK listen, mainly because their guitars bristled. They were way preferable to A Flock Of Sausages, Pseudo (as in "Fraud") Echo and all those crappy Euro-synth bands, but I had my head in another musical space.

The point is that the reformed Pixies have a world tour happening, as well as a nearly sold-out run through Australia, and that'll take all those once-upon-a-time hispter kids back to their yewf and have everyone asking whether they really had a haircut like that back in the '80s. You'll also get to download each gig, or walk away from a show with a copy on a USB stick.

More immediately, there's a free download of a Paris concert here and everyone likes shit that is free, don't they? Tell me if it's any good.