I Had So Many Problems, And Then I Got Me a Walkman

Friday. Yeah! I have been extremely busy today. First thing this morning I found my email box literally full of job order approvals. I had to move stuff out because I had exceeded my space limits due to all of their mess. Of course, every single order is hot and has to get out the door pronto, so instead of the relaxing morning I had anticipated, I got quite the opposite. Once that was finished I had the pleasure of working on my Friday spreadsheet report regarding what items fell of the website from the previous upload. Nothing like scrolling through about 12,000 line items looking for discrepancies. I would like to say that my afternoon will be better, but since I was greeted the instant I got back from lunch by people in sales flipping out over their orders, I am not holding out hope. At least it's Friday.

As faithful readers (yeah, right) know, on Fridays I usually listen to something groovin' to get my Friday started off right. However, instead of kicking, say, the Beastie Boys or Sublime, I chose to listen to Frank Black by Frank Black. Not that it wasn't rockin', because trust me it was, but maybe my Friday has turned sour because I deviated from the standard formula. I couldn't help it, though. I obtained the album last night and I was too excited to wait until Monday to review it.

This album was my first exposure to anything Pixies. I remember being a freshman in college helping select music to play at a house party some friends of mine were throwing. One of the guys who lived there was all excited about this new Frank Black CD he had just bought and told us to play Los Angeles. The song went over well with the crowd. Who the heck was Frank Black? I thought I was pretty well versed in music (no pun intended. Ok, so it was. You caught me) but I had never heard of him. I later found out he was in the Pixies but never followed up in any further investigations. I did like that song, though. Which brings us to today, many years later when I heard the first song on Frank Black, which of course was Los Angeles. This solo effort from Frank Black definitely sounds different than his previous work with the Pixies. Gone are the melodies and surf-guitar sounds of the early Pixies. Black seems to be taking on a more serious side to his craft. It is a masterful album, but I miss the fun of the Pixies. Frank Black is a genius, but I would only recommend this album to people who have already checked out the Pixies first.