Information From The Original Kickstarter Campaign

My name is Sean T. Rayburn, and a lot of you may know me. In 2004, Ray Dolber and I started PixiesMusic.com as a fan site. Obviously I am a fan of the Pixies, and for years I’ve tried to hook up as many people as possible with news, touring info, tickets, special behind the scenes information, ANYTHING I thought a Pixies fan would want to know about! Flash forward nine years later to 2013, and PixiesMusic.com is the official band website, and I am working with the band more closely than ever.

Sometime in 2011, we started posting some “vintage” photos on the Pixies’ Facebook page. The response was incredible! There were so many ‘Likes’ and comments and shares on Facebook, and several of the photos got picked up by various music news outlets. Which got me to thinking, wouldn’t it be COOL if we had a nice hardcover, coffee table sized book of all these rare, never-before seen photos, maybe with the story behind each photo, told by someone who was there? Wouldn’t it also be pretty cool if we reached out to some photographers who worked with the band in the 80s and 90s, and had them revisit their work, making it all available to the fans for the first time?  How cool would it be to talk to the family members of the band, and include some of those truly awkward family photos everybody likes? I know I would buy that book, and I think a lot of other fans would too.

 

Some of you may be wondering, “so Sean, WHY do you need a Kickstarter to put this project together?” The answer is that book publishing is very expensive, especially to do it right. To make this a great project, I am meeting with hundreds of people from all over the world, people who have worked with the band, labels and press and managers, and roadies and fans. I am also going to be meeting with the band members themselves. And their families. Pretty much anyone who has a story and some photos or memorabilia, I am coming to see you. Speaking of which, if you have a story to tell, something that would be great for this project, I want you involved! I am starting a website to handle submissions and additional project info, so if you have something to contribute and would like a free copy of the book and some contributor credit, look for an announcement in the coming weeks.

Then of course once I get all the pieces and imagery and everything I want to include, my graphic designer Aaron Tanner has to put it all together and make it awesome. When we get everything packaged and put together, it’s got to be printed and shipped out to all the project  backers.

So what is all this leading up to? Very simply, I am working on a book, celebrating the early days of the Pixies. A visual history.

I see this project spanning the time period from 1985, from right before the time when Charles and Joey met Kim and David, to recording and touring and fame, until the eventual breakup in 1993. That would be the first book. The second book would touch on their various solo projects after the band split (Frank Black, The Breeders, The Martinis, The Everybody, etc.) and continue on to 2004 and the amazing reunion, the continued touring and popularity, until the present day.

Will there be some surprises in here?

Absolutely!

If you are like me, you get a kick out of limited editions. I admit I am a sucker for the packaging, the extras. This edition will be exclusive to this Kickstarter/PayPal campaign, and can be considered the definitive edition of this book.  At some point we may release a trade edition of the book, but any future editions will not compare in quality.