We have used a birthday again, as a good place to start an edition of Six Degrees Of Kevin Shields. But, it was a bit more unusual this time....
Last Saturday (10 June) was the 58th birthday of Joey Santiago, but interestingly the same day, it was also the birthday of his former Pixies bandmate Kim Deal - Kim (and by default, her twin sister and Breeders colleague, Kelley) was celebrating her 62nd.
For this one, we will start with Joey Santiago, the Manila born guitarist of US indie legends, Pixies. His family had moved to the US (New York City) when he was seven, before heading north to Longmeadow, Massachusetts at the age of nine. He enrolled at the University of Massachusetts - Amherst, which is where he met future bandmate Charles Thompson IV (soon to be Black Francis). He has described his guitar style as "angular and bent", listing everyone from Jimi Hendrix and George Harrison, to Chet Atkins, Les Paul and Wes Montgomery, as influences. He has been with Pixies for the whole ride, from their birth in 1986 to the first split in 1993, and again from their reformation in 2004.
Pixies: Monkey Gone To Heaven - https://youtu.be/FMH3akt07zs
In those intervening years he formed The Martinis with his (now ex) wife, Linda Mallari. More recently he was a guest guitarist on A Walk With Love & Death, a double album by The Melvins, which comprises one 14 song LP that acted as a soundtrack for a short film by Jesse Nieminen, and the other which was a more routine 9 track LP called Death.
The Melvins had formed in Washington state in 1983, becoming a key player in the pre-grunge and sludge metal movements. They were named after a supervisor in the Thriftway store in Montesano, where guitarist and singer was working as a clerk. Melvin, the supervisor in question, was apparently disliked by his fellow employees.
The band started with Osborne, along with Matt Lukin on bass and Mike Dillard on drums, playing Hendrix, Who and various hardcore punk covers. When Dillard left, he was replaced by Dale Crover, who had previously been playing in an Iron Maiden covers band. On a slight tangent, when Lukin left in 1987 to form Mudhoney, he was replaced by Lori 'Lorax' Black, daughter of Shirley Temple.
The Melvins: Hooch - https://youtu.be/MTAPFcU_l1w
Dale Crover was in a band with Kurt Cobain, which had the unfortunate name, Fecal Matter, who played together in 1985-86. Several years later, he was back to help Cobain out with his band Nirvana, who needed a drummer for a session they were doing. He spent the day, 23 January 1988, at Reciprocal Recording Studios in Seattle, with Cobain and Krist Novoselic. Billed as Ted Ed Fred, he laid down ten tracks, some of which ended up on the first album Bleach (Floyd The Barber, Paper Cuts and Downer) and other that would feature on the B-Sides and outtakes record, Incesticide, before going off with them that night, to play a gig in Tacoma. Crover was also the person who put Kurt and Krist in touch with a certain Dave Grohl.
Nirvana: Floyd The Barber - https://youtu.be/qofd8l27ieY
Dale Crover also showed up on Mike Patton's (Faith No More and Mr Bungle) project called Peeping Tom. Originally started in 2000, it took six long years, owing to Patton's crazy work schedule, before an album came to fruition. Crover had played drums on most tracks, but the rest of it was something of a collaborative wishlist for Patton. The record includes Sucker with Norah Jones, Getaway with Kool Keith and Kill The DJ with Massive Attack. Lead single, Mojo, had a video that featured Danny DeVito, Mark Hoppus (Blink 182) and Rachel Hunter (Rod Stewarts wife, at that time).
Peeping Tom: Mojo - https://youtu.be/gKno6Dp3rw4
Massive Attack are a Bristol based trip hop band, first formed in 1988, originally made up of rapper Robert '3D' Del Naja, musician and rapper Adrian 'Tricky' Thaws, and DJs Andrew 'Mushroom' Vowles and Grant 'Daddy G' Marshall. Their debut album was the hugely successful Blue Lines, which includes one of their biggest known tunes, Unfinished Sympathy. Their early records featured a host of guest vocalists, such as Shara Nelson, Tracey Thorn (from Everything But The Girl), Neneh Cherry and then on Teardrop from number one album Mezzanine, Elizabeth Fraser of Cocteau Twins fame.
Massive Attack: Unfinished Sympathy - https://youtu.be/ZWmrfgj0MZI
Their fourth LP, 2003s 100th Window was interesting as it was their first to include no samples from other works. As ever, vocal duties were shared amongst friends, including reggae artist Horace Andy, Sinead O'Connor and Damon Albarn (credited as 2D from Gorillaz). The vocals for the tour were handled by Dot Allison. When they did the soundtrack for Louis Leterrier's film, Danny The Dog, starring Jet Li and Morgan Freeman, Allison sang the song Aftersun, which played under the films end titles, but strangely did not appear on the actual soundtrack record.
Dot Allison is from Edinburgh and first came to prominence as the lead singer of One Dove in the early 90s. Since then, the singer songwriter, known for her solo work in electronic music, has also worked with artists as disparate as Scott Walker, Arab Strap, Pete Doherty and Paul Weller. Her touring band often contains musicians from other bands like The Fall, the Tindersticks, the Bad Seeds and Massive Attack. While the aforementioned Doherty and Weller appeared on her fourth album, Room Seven & A Half, her debut solo album, 1999s Afterglow was produced by none other than....
KEVIN SHIELDS.
Dot Allison: Mo Pop - https://youtu.be/4UHigNi3fko