Pitchfork

Oh so long ago, there was a band from Boston called Pixies. They were very, very good. A guy named Kurt-- who you probably know from another very, very good band called Nirvana-- heard those Pixies, cribbed what he could, added a few more primary influences and plenty of his own touches, and became very famous as a result.

When Kurt's so-called "grunge" band was at the height of their prominence, a bunch of second-stringers thought "hey, why not me?", and just like that, post-grunge was formed. A periodically tolerable but generally unremarkable band called Stone Temple Pilots emerged from this particular genre, recording a string of albums and scoring lots of hits and getting arrested a lot. Then they broke up.

But when the frontman from STP got kicked out of yet another band he was fronting for generally behaving in the way he was accustomed, STP reformed at an economically opportune moment for all parties involved. Which is how we got here, I think.

Onetime Pixies frontman Charles "Some Combination of 'Frank or Francis' and 'Black'" Thompson, fresh off the release of his mini-LP SVN FNGRS, will open a handful of shows on the Stone Temple Pilots reunion tour this summer. The very same Stone Temple Pilots fronted by the fella whose next LP is being recorded by one Steve Albini? Indeed, the same. Could our STP being making their grab at art-rock glory? Is a critical reappraisal of Shangri-La Dee Da nigh? Man, whatever, just as long as Candlebox aren't reuniting or anything. Ah, shit.

In other news, Black plans to issue a recording of an October 2007 gig onto "some USB clips" through his website sometime fairly soon.

Frank Black and Stone Temple Pilots:

06-24 Los Angeles, CA - Hollywood Bowl
06-25 Tucson, AZ - Anselmo Valencia Amphitheatre
06-27 San Antonio, TX - AT&T Center
06-28 Woodlands, TX - Woodlands Pavilion
06-29 Grand Prairie, TX - Nokia Live
07-02 Morrison, CO - Red Rocks Amphitheatre
07-04 Milwaukee, WI - Summerfest