Yesterday RS.com photo editor John Gara and I learned a valuable lesson: being Frank Black for more than 20 minutes results in a sore throat. Because I've written a book on the Pixies and John is the owner of a vintage Pixies shirt, we felt most qualified to demo the new Doolittle songs that will be added to Rock Band later this month. For an hour of pure bliss, we learned which lyrics might be embarassing to yell in front of a co-worker ("Whores in my bed!"), and that we could indeed pant in harmony ("Tame"). Keep reading for our breakdown of the game's (pretty damn cool) new additions.

John, who describes being Frank Black as "hairless and painless," says "Dead" was the hardest to handle in terms of speak-sung lyrics, while "Here Comes Your Man" was the easiest. Fans of Pixies live albums, beware. For instance, on Doolittle Black says "Rock me, Joe" to guitarist Joey Santiago on "Monkey Gone to Heaven," while John prefers "Rock me, Joseph Alberto Santiago" from the Live at the BBC version, which does nothing for the game. Another tricky moment: the high harmony on "Monkey" isn't actually the lead vocal, so you've got to sing lower to get the points. Adds John: "The Overdrive vocal parts are fun because they occur during parts of the songs where nothing vocally is going on and you can just say dumb crap like, 'We are out of the fish special and there is a Celica with its lights on in the parking lot' and the crowd goes wild as long as you say it with chutzpah." Walking back to our office, John realized that all the screaming and barking had totally gutted his throat. Our hats are off to you, Charles Thompson.

While John was magically transforming into Frank Black a few feet to my left, I handled David Lovering's parts on "Monkey" and wondered why everyone says he's such a great drummer. Then I switched from "easy" to "medium" for "Debaser" and said "aha." Moving over to bass to pretend I was Mrs. John Murphy (a frequent pastime), I was reminded how much Kim Deal's thumping basslines anchor songs like "Tame" and "Hey" when I dropped a few notes and screwed everyone up — which highlights a great point about Rock Band: there's a much higher shame quotient than on Guitar Hero, where you're really just ruining your own good time if you suck. The game hits you with factoids about the band's early career while songs are loading (like how their early shows were often at Boston dive the Rat), and there's something fantastic about being able to play weirdo Pixies tracks like "Crackity Jones" on a mainstream video game. "Debaser" is awesome fun on guitar, and special props go to John from Rock Band who held down vocals on that one (though everyone was free to yell "Chien!") and nailed Lovering's smarmy croon on our set closer, "La La Love You." Thank you very much, Boston! Good night!

[Photo: Blakesberg/Retna]