Black Francis Pillages West Coast, Jack Sparrow Tours The Caribbean

Ragged rockstar Frank Black and cooler-than-thou actor Johnny Depp may have more in common than you think.

Sure, the two rebels might make the girls scream for entirely different reasons, and Black doesn't exactly measure-up in the, uh... well, "hair" department. But still, damned if they aren't both ego-maniacs, damned if they aren't both cult figures that seem to make their target audience swoon no matter what (and considering that whole Charlie and the Chocolate Factory thing, that's saying a lot), and damned if they aren't both more or less unintelligible when delivering their most famous roles.

Yup. It's hard to believe, but the only real difference between these two sons of bitches (besides the hair and level of beauty) is that old boy Johnny Depp only acts like a crazy-ass pirate when the cameras are rolling, but Frank Black just dials up the lunacy whenever the hell he feels like it.

Case in point, the ever duplicitous Black will be sailing down the Pacific coast after re-donning his much more dubious and decidedly more mercenary-like stage name "Black Francis" (an alias which the mad singer hasn't employed since his days captaining Pixies' ship in ye olde 1990s) to promote NOT a Pixies Record, but none other than his newly fashioned solo record (also recorded under the "Black Francis" moniker), which was recently released via the Cooking Vinyl label and contains just about as many gruff growls and crack-mouthed snarls as even the most consumptive of 17th-century pirates would utter.

And the record's name? Bluefinger.

See? Sounds like pirate talk to me.

But just to make things a little weirder (i.e., a little more like At World's End), let me remind all you land-lovers that Captain Black Francis' new album was reportedly influenced by the deceased Dutch painter/musician Herman Brood, who Black says was the "Dutch personification of 'sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll.'" So, I guess this is some sort of racial thing? Hmmm...

Either way, the dates below only pillage the West Coast, but Black's ship is at the mercy of the trade winds, so keep your spyglasses peeled for additional dates as they develop.

Yarrrrrrrrrr:

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