“The whole process was such an addictive musical buffet that I couldn't stop.” Frank Black to play North American, UK and European shows performing his second solo record, 1994's Teenager of the Year, in full (2024)

The tour will commence with two shows at iconic San Francisco venue The Fillmore on January 15 and 16, and take in nine more US venues, plus shows in Canada and France, before winding up at The Palladium in London on February 6.

Originally released in May 1994, the 22-track album is commonly regarded as the best of Black's post-Pixies solo records, and features Pixies guitarist Joey Santiago guesting on five songs.

Looking back on the album, Black says, "Sometime in the early '80s, I'd have to look up the date, I matriculated high school. This school held an awards banquet for some of the departing students at the school. I received an award called the TEENAGER OF THE YEAR award; my brother received the same award the following year. Our award was a 50 dollar credit for textbooks, a TEENAGER OF THE YEAR medallion (my mother still has this), and also the banquet hall dinner, soup to nuts. My brother and I had no complaint about the award (it was given for being all-around-good-guy as best as we could determine). But for such a grand title to be given as TEENAGER OF THE YEAR, I felt the glory had not been amplified enough.

"In 1993, I was doing “solo recording” sessions with Eric Drew Feldman in Los Angeles.We had settled on a core band with Nick Vincent and Lyle Workman, occasionally augmented by Joey Santiago and Moris Tepper. Though we had to change studios numerous times for actual forest fires and earthquakes, the whole process was such an addictive musical buffet that Eric and I couldn't stop.

"We did some vocals at a studio rumored to be owned by Sergio Mendes; in the control room was a wall of television screens broadcasting the brush fire which crept toward us. We eventually evacuated to someplace else. We never met Sergio but we saw him perform a few weeks later when we vacated to Las Vegas after the Northridge earthquake, which had trapped the TEENAGER OF THE YEAR tapes in a studio vault for some time.

"Our zeal plus empathy from our financiers, safely observing our travails from London, was enough to keep the money flowing until Eric and I relented and declared “Consummatum est”.We tried to make it grand. 22 in 62. I called it TEENAGER OF THE YEAR. It is 30 years old now, and the original band will perform the record at various venues in early 2025."

Black also revealed that 4AD has remastered the album for "a fresh printing",

Jan 15: San Francisco The Fillmore, CA
Jan 16: San Francisco The Fillmore, CA
Jan 18: Los Angeles The Orpheum, CA
Jan 19: El Cajon The Magnolia, CA
Jan 22: Denver The Paramount, CO
Jan 24: Minneapolis TBA, MN
Jan 25: Chicago The Metro, IL
Jan 26: Chicago The Metro, IL
Jan 28: Detroit St Andrews Hall, MI
Jan 29: Toronto History, Canada
Jan 31: Boston Citizens House Of Blues, MA
Feb 01: New York Brooklyn Steel, NY
Feb 04: Paris Le Trianon, France
Feb 06: LondonThe Palladium, UK

Tickets for the North American dates go on sale on Friday, July 19, at 10am local time. Tickets for Paris and London are on sale now. Details here.

Paul Brannigan

Contributing Editor, Louder

A music writer since 1993, formerly Editor of Kerrang! and Planet Rock magazine (RIP), Paul Brannigan is a Contributing Editor to Louder. Having previously written books on Lemmy, Dave Grohl (the Sunday Times best-seller This Is A Call) and Metallica (Birth School Metallica Death, co-authored with Ian Winwood), his Eddie Van Halen biography (Eruption in the UK, Unchained in the US) emerged in 2021. He has written for Rolling Stone, Mojo and Q, hung out with Fugazi at Dischord House, flown on Ozzy Osbourne's private jet, played Angus Young's Gibson SG, and interviewed everyone from Aerosmith and Beastie Boys to Young Gods and ZZ Top. Born in the North of Ireland, Brannigan lives in North London and supports The Arsenal.