Black Francis
Nonstoperotik
In 2003, I moved to Los Angeles mere months before the 2004 Coachella Festival. As the line-up was announced—Radiohead, Pixies, Kraftwerk, the excitement was palpable. Then one day a few weeks before the show, a package arrived at URB HQ. In the envelope was a a bunch of CDs labeled John Beaver Coachella DJ mix. Those CDs took me all the way out to Indio for the first time, and every year since, I wait for the Beaver mix (now Beaver and Radman) to carry me out to the desert. Download this double disc set and let it carry you as well.
So, the story has it that songwriter Shawn Christensen (guitar, vox) became the default lead singer and frontman of Stellastarr* because the band couldn’t fill that role way back when they joined up in 2000. However, it’s a role he seems completely at-home in. At Spaceland on Saturday night, he was poised and emotive, and thrust his whole being into the show. His vibe is unaffected. The band could be playing at an even smaller venue or a huge one, but he would still exude his particular brand of warmth that only a kid raised on post-punk and the likes of Talking Heads and the Pixies.
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