The Pixies were a shock to the system. Emerging from their first rehearsal held in a squalid Boston basement, they were soon the toast of the UK and Europe - the new saviours of rock 'n' roll. Forerunners of grunge and with a repetoire of seriously weird songs, they made a virtue out of eccentricity. Then when mega-stardom threatened, Pixies' songwriter and singer Charles Thompson, a.k.a. Black Francis, ditched the band, rechristened himself Frank Black and insisted he hated the group...until deciding to reform it for a sell-out tour in 2004!