What's The Deal?

Happy birthday, Kim Deal.  Half her life ago, she started as bassist for the Pixies, a band that was never hugely popular, but very influential. ("Smells Like Teen Spirit" was Kurt Cobain doing a Pixies number.) In a more rational world, they would have been big.

Deal was their only female member, and her backing vocals helped form their sound.





While the Pixies were on a break, Deal formed her own band to express herself. It was the quirky alternative folk(ish)-rock Breeders. When the Pixies split up because of differences between Deal and leader Black Francis, the Breeders became her main gig.

They released the album Last Splash which, against all odds, was a solid hit, going platinum, and even had a single that charted



The album had a lot of fun tunes.



They might have gone on to bigger things, but due to exhaustion, rehab and other hassles, the band sort of fell apart, though they continued to play and record in different permutations.

Last decade, both the Breeders and the Pixies reunited. The Pixies went on tour and a generation that had grown up under their influence turned out in droves. Who knows what Kim Deal's next 51 years second has in store for us?