With Pixies having disbanded the previous year, their erstwhile frontman greeted 1993 with a utilitarian new name, swapping the mystical, guru-like Black Francis for Frank Black, the man you need for all your plumbing needs. He also had a new self-titled album, brimming with new songs. At one point, Black had looked like dipping his toe into solo-dom with an album comprised entirely of cover songs, but in the event, he appears to have energised himself for the new challenge by following a trait from his Pixies days and giving most of the songs on his new album a space/sci-fi slant (cf Motorway to Roswell)
It’s not immediately obvious from the lyrics, but as Black admitted, the inspiration for Old Black Dawning came from a visit he made to the then recently completed Biosphere 2 in Oracle, Arizona. If humanity ever does colonise other planets, then structures like Biosphere 2 are what it’ll be living in. More likely, I suggest, will be the building of biospheres across this planet if/when Earth becomes uninhabitable due to climate change making it so.
That’s for the future, back then and on into the mid 1990s, it’s wider cultural significance - outside of the Frank Black album - was for its association with the 1996 comedy, Bio-Dome, which was one of those movies alongside Joe’s Apartment, Coneheads, California Man and Cool World which I perpetually used to linger over and then ignore on trips to the video rental store because I simply wasn’t ever going to be stoned enough to fully appreciate them.
Having been an enthusiastic supporter of Pixies during the late 80s/early 90s, Peel found himself caught between the past and the present now that Black had struck out with a solo album. His views at this point were mixed: Without wishing to get into a Morrissey vs The Smiths style debate, I do prefer the work of The Pixies in general. However, he did have reservations about his reservations and reckoned that he would listen to Black’s album a bit more closely before making judgements. I haven’t listened to enough of either to be able to make a considered preference, I just know that I like what I’ve heard of both so far. And had I heard Old Black Dawning back in ‘93, it would have most likely led me to feel reassured rather disappointed.
Video courtesy of CaptainSpankington.
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