Music Arcades: Pixies: Surfer Rosa Come on Pilgrim

A couple of days ago, Gideon Coe played two tracks from the Pixies' May 1988 Peel Session on his show. I guess the original broadcast of that session may have been where I first heard of the band.

I've got a vague memory of buying this CD and not being sure how much I'd like it. Of course, it blew my socks off. I used to put it on and jump around the room. No more. (The floors in this house don't feel sufficiently solid.)

I saw them play at the Octagon in Sheffield in May '89. I'd expected Joey Santiago to be leaping around like a wild thing — or at least like me in my flat — when tearing into those incendiary guitar lines on Something Against You and Vamos. But he stood stock still and, as far as I could see, expressionless.

It was over 15 years until I saw them again. Lucy paid silly money on eBay to see them at the first London shows at Brixton Academy, but I was never as big a fan as her. Fortunately they added another date at The Forum a month or two later in August 2004, and we were able to go together. I had a text message from her saying "I'll do *anything* if you get tickets for that", which I kept for nearly four years as an un-cashed-in promissory note. But when I changed my phone, I lost it.