On Saturday, April 24th, DMX took his last ride through the streets of New York. Flanked by thousands of motorcycles, his blood red casket sat atop a monster truck with the words “Long Live DMX” emblazoned on the side as it made its way from his hometown of Yonkers to the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, where friends and family were gathering to celebrate the life of the late rapper who died April 9th at the age of 50. It was a legendary sendoff for an artist who poured his soul — with all its conflicts, its traumatic pain and its fierce love — into his music, forever bonding himself with the millions of people around the world who listened.
As the procession arrived at Barclays, the motorcyclists, many wearing leather vests bearing the Ruff Ryders logo, popped wheelies and burned their tires into the street, sending a thick fog of smoke into the air above the intersection on Flatbush and Atlantic. As fans danced and sang along to enduring DMX hits like “Ruff Ryders’ Anthem” and “Party Up (Up In Here),” enterprising sellers hawked commemorative T-shirts, and members of the Nation of Islam passed out newspapers with a portrait of the rapper’s face on the cover. On the big screen outside of Barclays, a picture of DMX with angel wings appeared next to a line from his 1999 song “Fame”: “We each have a star, all we have to do is find it/ Once you do, everyone who sees it will be blinded.”
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Pixies have unveiled four previously unheard tracks, all written during the period when the band were putting together ‘Bossanova’ and ‘Trompe le Monde’.
The four recordings come from between 1987 and 1991 and are now available across all digital streaming services for the first time. They originally appeared as two bonus 7” singles included with the limited-edition remastered pressings of ‘Bossanova’ and ‘Trompe le Monde’.
Among the tracks is the Steve Albini version of ‘Dig For Fire’, recorded in late 1987 while the band were working on ‘Surfer Rosa’. The song was later reworked before appearing on ‘Bossanova’ almost three years later.
The collection also features ‘Punk Loop’, an unreleased jam recorded during the 1991 sessions for ‘Trompe le Monde’ and originally labelled ‘Punk Loop’ MSTR. Another addition is ‘Brackish Boy’, a track first written with Pixies before being rerecorded by Black Francis for his self-titled solo debut in 1993. The newly released version was mastered directly from the original album session tape, without any additional post-production.
The fourth track is ‘Go Man Go’, written by Black Francis and Kim Deal while the band were recording ‘Bossanova’ and The Breeders were working on ‘Last Splash’. The song did not make the final tracklist of either album, although The Breeders performed it live on a few occasions in the years that followed.
The track made another appearance in 2023 when The Breeders included it in the 30th anniversary reissue of ‘Last Splash’.
Pixies have marked their 40th anniversary throughout this year, including a UK and European tour over the summer. During a conversation with NME at Mad Cool Festival earlier this year, guitarist Joey Santiago revealed that the band were still making progress on new material.
“We’re always in the works. Same formula,” he said. “We have a break coming up in October and we’re gonna get together and piece more songs together.”
The band's latest studio release is 2024’s ‘The Night The Zombies Came’, which marked their first album featuring bassist Emma Richardson. They are also scheduled to tour the US with Queens Of The Stone Age in 2027 as part of the upcoming tour.
