POP MUSIC REVIEW : Pixies’ Francis Rants to Raves at Club Lingerie

Black Francis looks a little like Rick and Dave Nelson’s wholesome frat brother Wally on “Ozzie and Harriet,” but he’s really a pudgy package of neuroses who’s become an underground rock star as the leader of the Pixies.

Francis (real name, Charles Thompson) has returned to live in his hometown after launching the Pixies in Boston, so now L.A. fans will get the benefit of his periodic solo performances. At Club Lingerie on Thursday, Francis strapped on an electric guitar and wailed, yelped, yodeled, shrieked, moaned and gasped his way through a string-busting, emotionally purging performance.

Solo gigs by band members usually promise a chance to see a star being casual and spontaneous and maybe to get some musical insights by hearing the songs in their skeletal form. But Francis hardly ever broke character (remote, concentrated), and what he played were fully realized interpretations whose complex dynamics created maximum dramatic impact.

As he played both obscure and familiar Pixies songs from all periods, the revelation was that the density and tension of the Pixies’ music is there in the fundamental conception, not in the guitar, bass and drum parts that come later.

Are there other reasons to check out Francis when he plays McCabe’s on March 15, rather than wait for the next Pixies tour? Well, there is a special charge to the intimacy, and his expressions of alienation, obsession and escape assume a different edge when they issue from a solitary figure on a club stage. It felt a bit like spying on someone ranting in his cell.