The Pixies were a shock to the system. Emerging from their first rehearsals, conducted in a squalid Boston basement, they were soon the toast of the U.K. and Europe - the new saviors of rock 'n' roll. Forerunners of grunge, they made a virtue out of eccentricity with their seriously weird songs. then when megastardom 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! John Mendelssohn's definitive biography of the legendary group also examines how Charles Thomson's music forever changed the lives of Pixies' fans.