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Baker's Dozen

Planets Of Sound: Joey Santiago Of Pixies' Favourite Albums
Laurie Tuffrey , May 22nd, 2014 10:43

With Indie Cindy out and their headline slot at Field Day on the horizon, Joseph Alberto Santiago, Pixies' lead guitarist-cum-noise implementer, rocks us with his 13 defining records

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PiL - Album
Jesus Christ, that album is just stupidly good! I didn't know this, but a lot - Ginger Baker, Tony Williams, who played drums for Miles Davis, Steve Vai - it was a supergroup! It's a perfect record, it's like the perfect, cool record.

The guitars on it, it just sounds like it's flying! It's like, "Wooo, there goes Steve!" There'd be divebombs - he had a Floyd Rose whammy bar - it just tanks - it goes down and then it goes up, up into the stratosphere, and then he'd go really down on it. Jesus Christ - talking about sonics! And it's surprising how many of the drum riffs that I like are by Tony Williams: the first song ['F.F.F.'] on it is just awesome; I would've thought that was Ginger Baker. I guess the producer employed two jazzy drummers!

I was listening to this pre-Pixies. I listened to it a lot with my brother, my little brother who's excellent with the guitar. I still lived at home at the time and we would just flip out in my bedroom. He would actually show me [how to play something], because I would be so frustrated: "Goddamn it! What is this?!"