The Breeders
The Breeders began life as the high-school band of twin Ohio sisters Kim and Kelley Deal. By the late '80s, Kim was playing bass in underground icons Pixies, but her songwriting was increasingly being pushed aside by frontman Black Francis. Kim decided to use some of the songs she had been writing to fuel a side project, and enlisted Throwing Muses guitarist Tanya Donnelly, Slint drummer Britt Walford and Perfect Disaster bassist Josephine Wiggs to flesh out the Breeders' first record, Pod, without her twin sister.
Three years later, the Pixies were no more, disbanded officially when Francis sent a release to the press. When Kim heard the official word, she was on her way to California to record the Breeders' second album, Last Splash, which would ironically go on to outsell each of the Pixies albums in good time. The band now reintroduced Kelley, as Donnelly moved on to start Belly. Walford was replaced by sticks stalwart Jim MacPherson.
The group found big success and toured Lollapallooza with George Clinton and the Smashing Pumpkins that summer, but had trouble keeping the ball rolling, disintegrating into the Amps, the Kelley Deal 6000, and other groups over the next few years. Kelley had bouts with heroin addiction, MacPherson bolted for Guided By Voices and then family life, and Kim struggled to write and record a new Breeders album many times. But in 2002, the sisters finally got it back together, and with the help of three friends from their new home of East Los Angeles, Breeders MK 3 released Title TK and wrote another chapter in their musical careers and lives.
Album reviews
Title TK
Elektra (2002)
Straight outta East LA, it's the new-form Breeders.
Last Splash (Recommended)
4AD/Elektra (1993)
Relatively forgotten for a multiplatinum smash, Kim Deal's shining moment is way more than a footnote to the Pixies' legacy.
Safari
4AD/Elektra (1992)
Well, OK, the Breeders were never about being "important". But they are a damn good band, in all their many incarnations. And this is one of the best.