Frank Black

Frank Black, also known by the stage name Black Francis (real name Charles Michael Kittridge Thompson IV, born April 6, 1965 in Boston, Massachusetts), is an American musician. He was one of the founding members of the alternative rock band Pixies. Thompson was raised in Harbor City, California. He studied in the University of Massachusetts, before taking off to Puerto Rico as part of an exchange program. It was there where he reportedly spent six months in an apartment with a \"weird, psycho, roommate,\"(Timeline 1) who inspired the song \"Crackity Jones.\" Many of the Pixies\' early songs refer to Thompson\'s experiences in Puerto Rico, most notably \"Isla De Encanta,\" incorrectly named after the island\'s motto, \"Isla Del Encanto\" (Island of Charm). Thompson finally left his studies after thinking whether he would go to New Zealand to view Halley\'s Comet or to start a rock band with his former roommate from Massachusetts, Joey Santiago.

The Pixies were active from 1986 to 1992. They found success (primarily on college radio)(Timeslines 2) in America and became very popular in Britain and throughout Europe. They have kept a following, and have since been seen as one of the best and most influential rock groups of that style.

His lyrics are noted for their sometimes weird references to unusual topics like outer space, unexplained phenomena such as UFOs, and even The Three Stooges. He has also used the Bible as a source for his stories, most known in the tale of \"Nimrod\'s Son\" and the stories of Uriah and Bathsheba in \"Dead\" and Samson in \"Gouge Away\". Lyrics with a focus on science fiction were mostly used on his three solo albums of the mid-1990s which were Frank Black, Teenager of the Year, and The Cult of Ray.(All Music 3) With the Catholics, his lyrics have more often tended towards historical topics; for example, on Dog in the Sand, there is a song called \"St. Francis Dam Disaster\", which is about the catastrophic collapse of the...