Monkey Shines Again

Side 2 of a mixtape, originally compiled 2nd September 1990. I posted Side 1 in August last year and I hadn't intended to leave it quite so long to follow up with Side 2. However, after a weekend of being shaken, rattled and rolled by Storm Eunice (Saturday and Sunday were far worse than Friday) and the prospect of Storm Frederick landing overnight, then it's time to fight back with Boston's finest...and no, of course I don't mean Boston the band.

Similar to yesterday's spotlight on The Sugarcubes, at the time this C90 was compiled, Pixies still had one more album to go, with 1991's Trompe Le Monde, before they split. Unlike The Sugarcubes, Pixies reconvened as a regular live concern and, twenty three years after that last album, released a new one, 2014's Indie Cindy. 

 

Unfortunately, by the time of the studio recordings, Kim Deal had left the band and, whilst good, 21st Century Pixies are a different proposition to the original version that emerged in the late 1980s. 

So here then is a second slab of sonic perfection, drawn from Come On Pilgrim (1987), Surfer Rosa (1988), Doolittle (1989) and Bossanova (1990), plus an excellent track from 1989's Monkey Gone To Heaven EP. All tracks are the album versions, unless stated. If I'd been more prescient all those years ago, I may have included Stormy Weather...

As Black Francis screams in Manta Ray, awwllllll-right!

 

1) I've Been Tired (1987)

2) Blown Away (1990)

3) Velouria (1990)

4) Wave Of Mutilation (1989)

5) Break My Body (1988)

6) Levitate Me (1987)

7) Manta Ray (Single Version) (1989)

8) Is She Weird (1990)

9) Monkey Gone To Heaven (1989)

10) Where Is My Mind? (1988)

11) Mr. Grieves (1989)

12) The Happening (1990)

13) Ana (1990)

14) I Bleed (1989)

15) Crackity Jones (1989)

16) Isla De Encanta (1987)

17) Broken Face (1988)

18) Dead (1989)

 

Side Two (46:12)

Side One here
 

Monkey Shines

Side 1 of a mixtape, originally recorded 2nd September 1990. Enough downtempo sounds for this week, time for some noise. This was compiled as a batch of hastily recorded essential mixtapes to accompany me on a year in Australia, 19 years old, travelling solo for the first time. Bossanova had come out a few weeks earlier and I had all of Pixies' albums and 12" singles up to Here Comes Your Man at that point. I had wanted to include the single version of River Euphrates but I couldn't fit it into the cassette's running time. For this recreation, I've had to swap the live version of In Heaven from the Gigantic / River Euphrates 12" for the original demo version as I haven't yet ripped the former. This brings back lots of happy memories, though I did discover yesterday that it's not the best soundtrack for a commute to a work meeting. After three quarters of an hour of driving and 'singing' along with Black Francis' primal howl, I arrived at the meeting to find that I'd nearly lost my voice. "Your mouth's a mile away"? You ain't kidding.

 

1) Bone Machine (1988)

2) Tame (1989)

3) La La Love You (1989)

4) Cecilia Ann (1990)

5) Bailey's Walk (1989)

6) Caribou (1987)

7) Hang Wire (1990)

8) River Euphrates (Album Version) (1988)

9) Rock Music (1990)

10) Dancing The Manta Ray (1989)

11) Ed Is Dead (1987)

12) Cactus (1988)

13) Brick Is Red (1988)

14) Gigantic (Album Version) (1988)

15) Gouge Away (1989)

16) Allison (1990)

17) Something Against You (1988)

18) No. 13 Baby (1989)

19) In Heaven (Lady In The Radiator Song) ('The Purple Tape' Demo, 1987)

 

Side One (45:46)
 

The mixtape title was inspired by the 1989 single Monkey Gone To Heaven (it's on Side 2) and lifted directly from George A. Romero's 1988 movie adaptation of the 1983 psychological horror novel by MIchael Stewart. I haven't read the book and only saw the film once, which I think was possibly one time too many. The cassette cover is very loosely based on the Bossanova album sleeve, with a point knocked off for using 'the' in the band name on the sleeve's spine.