Pere Ubu: Classic Or Dud

Modern Dance > Dub Housing >>>>>>>>> everything else

The Wooden Birds - "Blame the Messenger"
Rockets from the Tombs
& the Peter Laughner disc.

-David Thomas solo records are also great, if you like 'Sentimental Journey'
-Home and Garden records are spotty, but I really love some of em.

xpost...

Pere Ubu = teh classik.

The later stuff varies from meh (Cloudland) to very good (Ray Gun Suitcase), with The Tenement Year being a personal favourite, even tho nobody else seems to like it much - too prog or something, with the doubled drums and accordion and all.

Uh, if you don't count Mushroomhead....

Love the more "rawk" oriented early stuff like Final Solution and Heart of Darkness. And the funky shit that came after, circa The Modern Dance and Dub Housing. Fact, I love both them two records about the same. Dub Housing is darker and woozier, but it totally rules all the way through. Funny, scary and fascinating.

I've got The Terminal Tower and a boxed reproduction set of the first four singles on vinyl (put out by T/K records a decade or so ago). Terminal Tower sucks in comparison.

After "Dub Housing" I dunno that anything the band did is truly essential. I like "New Picnic Time" and "The Tenement Year" well enuf, but almost never play 'em. On the other hand, I spin the early stuff all the time...

only saw them live once, doing the music for roger corman's the man with the x-ray eyes. interesting and funny, especially how they slotted in some of their better-known songs (e.g., playing "the modern dance" during a shot of people dancing at a party). david thomas attempted to "conduct" the band, which meant he made flailing arm movements that they completely ignored. great show, though.

The "reunion" show I saw in 1987 was indeed a return to form for DT but I sorta lost track of all the albums released since then.

what's the ILM buzz on the Rocket from the Tombs reunion? I've got bootleg tapes of RFTT from 1975 that are crazed takes on metallized proto-punk. But my favorite UBU is another bootleg tape from 1976, the last gigs with Peter Laughner. from his bedroom to the baroom.

ah the avant-garage. so many people followed in these guys footsteps it's hard to imagine just how isolated/unique it all was at first.

My favourite moment on Night Network...

more exciting are the Home & Garden Mp3s and these websites:
http://www.homeandgardenmusic.com/index_main.asp
http://www.homeandgardenmusic.com/index_multimedia.asp
http://myspace.com/homeandgardenmusic

and the release of History & Geography on CD ..

after the insufferable mayo thompson joined (did adrian belew really need to be cloned?),

I may not love the Pere Ubu stuff with him on it, but insufferable? Forget the version of Horses done with Pere Ubu and listen to the original. Amazing.

Wow, Tom Herman, haven't thought about him in about 20 years. I auditioned for him around the time of "Long Walk Off a Short Pier". He played some very nasty slide guitar. I wasn't called back.

Saw Ubu on the Urg tour w/The Members, Dead Boys, and Magazine. Devoto was a putz. Thomas should get over himself but I still dig his work. He makes himself such an easy target... and I ain't talking about his size.

Mercury UK has reissued the long OOP first bunch of Ubu Mk II albums. (Tenement Year, Cloudland, Worlds In Collision, Story Of My Life).

I can take or leave the other three, but I've always loved Tenement Year, which IMO yields only to the early singles and first two LPs. But it always sounded like shit, gray, cluttered and muddy. Got the remaster and it sounds fucking marvelous, all the fidgety detail of the double drummers exposed, Ravenstine's synth disclaimers sounding thick and rich, etc etc. I'm very happy to have this album un-lamed.

Cool! That's good to hear. The only time I saw them they were touring that record iirc. Thompson deliberately ruined "Final Solution" by wailing all of the lyrics in an incomprehensible yowl, which was at least, uh, interesting.

No mention of Tripod Jimmie on this thread that I see... Tom Herman's post-Ubu band. They have at least one fantastic album that I still own, archival stuff that came out in the 90's, but I am 2000 miles away from my records right now so I can't look it up.

I like some of Dub Housing, almost none of New Picnic Time. Tenement Years and Ray Gun Suitcase are pretty good also, I imagine Ray Gun is oop after the meltdown on T/K Records (also home of the needs-so-bad-to-be-reissued Peter Laughner double LP).

Ray Gun Suitcase has been reissued on either Smog Veil or Hearpen, can't remember which. It's on eMusic, too.

Someone upthread implies that they auditioned for Tripod Jimmie, actually! I was a big fan of TJ's Warning To All Strangers LP. I'd buy that in a minute if it was on CD. "There ain't NO WAY I'm gonna put MY HAND in THERE without my box."

Luckily Tom Herman was back in the lineup when i saw Ubu in 2003; it was really nice to see him in action.

Pere Ubu is one of those bands that I've wanted to like for quite a long time, but I can't really get past Thomas' voice.

I resemble that remark. It amazes me that people can like this but hate, for instance, Phish, because of their squeaky voices and endulgent "noodling." How do these criticisms not apply to PU (good abbreviation!)? Beats me (and I'm sure many of you would like to right about now). Oh well, I don't have to like or understand everything.

I've never owned Cloudland and have wanted to for years. This is good news.

I interviewed Thomas for a Wire cover story last year, and he mentioned there was some talk of reissuing those discs. Glad to hear they're back out there.

A very enjoyable interview, too. Fun guy to talk to about the mechanics of record-making and live performance, etc. Philosophical "meaning of rock" stuff, not so much. Keep it quotidian and you'll get a great conversation out of the guy. Try to get arty, or fetishize the past, and he'll slap you down in a heartbeat.

Alfred, a phonograph player and a three dollar copy off ebay could have done the job nicely! : D

Ok, slight tradeoff for the much-improved sound on Tenement: A very different mix of one song, "Dream The Moon," is used this time. Bass/Drums/Guitar sound the same, but totally different vocal track. Can't tell yet how I feel about the alt. mix, just 'cause I'm so imprinted on the old one. I'll probably tag the original mix onto the end of the reissue in my library for good measure.

The two B-sides included as bonus tracks are really fun. Two Peel sessions as well.

xpost to unperson-- I read that! Really good article, man.

(Wow-- Peel version of "Miss You" kicks ass...)

Alfred, here's the lowdown on the Cloudland re-ish/remaster.

The album was originally mixed by Paul Hamann at Paisley Park Studios, Minneapolis MN. Subsequently four tracks were re-recorded in London and the others remixed for the 1989 Fontana release. This reissue substitutes in the running order the following Paisley Park mixes by Paul Hamann: Monday Night, Lost Nation Road, Nevada!, The Wire, The Waltz, and Pushin. Five extras have been added: the UK b-sides Wine Dark Sparks and Bang The Drum, the Paisley Park mix of Breath (never previously released), Bus Called Happiness recorded live in the studio for the John Peel Show (never previously released), and a dance remix of Love Love Love.

CLASSIC! Just saw them live over here in Oporto, and they were fucking amazing - some sound problems in the begining, and Dave Thomas seemed sort of SCARY, running offstage and barking at his backing players, but it all got sorted out and he seemed to realise the absurdity of his own position - total charmer through the rest of the set.

The latest album, 'Why I Hate Women' is totally worth getting. Great title too.

I think I lost that album or something. I went looking for it as I'd been doing periodically since I got it and it was nowhere.

I liked it but couldn't totally make up my mind how much. Nothing seems to come close to the Modern Dance and as a result is skewed by it's shadow.

If it's a pissing contest for essential CDs, I'll take 'Terminal Tower' over Modern Dance, but I find everything on the boxset a must. I also have a soft spot for 'Worlds In Collision' - nice pop songs, and a contender for worst cover art ever.

I'd always ignored the four albums that came before Raygun Suitcase, despite the fact that I saw them in '93 and they were hugely entertaining. Seemed to have more story songs. I made a note to re-listen to some of that stuff but never did. With last year's remastered reissues dipping down to $11 + $3 shipping at Importcds & Caiman via Amazon, I think it's time to try out Tenement Year and Cloudland.

Oh boy, Cloudland.

just got ray gun suitcase

damn this is great! i think i like it as much as the real early stuff

upcoming album is pretty awesome :-)

anyone heard it yet or seen the performance? it's all based on Alfred JArry's "Ubu Roi" and was composed using the hum and click of 220 decaying apple macs.

I went on the first night at the South Bank (last year was it) and it was dire. Thomas did later apologise for it, saying it had been underprepared. That it certainly was, but seemed also excruciating in conception. Like something a six-form drama group would come up with to be performed at the end of the lesson.

I actually skipped the second half because I felt I'd rather be in the pub. But others I went with stayed behind and said the second half was 'very, very slightly better'.

It was a shame because the last live gig I saw Pere Ubu do was incredibly good.

A friend has been downloading some sort of podcast related to the performance and is hoping that the recorded version will be less intensely awful - he's actually quite hopeful in this respect, and I suppose not having to see them go through their dismal manouevres on stage can only be a good thing. And sometimes these things set free of their mundane shackles to float in aural spaces can be transformed.

Here's hoping.

I went on the first night at the South Bank (last year was it) and it was dire. Thomas did later apologise for it, saying it had been underprepared. That it certainly was, but seemed also excruciating in conception. Like something a six-form drama group would come up with to be performed at the end of the lesson.

more details plz

the pere ubu box set is £7.79 on amazon right now, for some reason.

It's a worry: SaraJane Morris ....

xpost which box? The singles or the albums?

Man I would like to see them on stage with maimone and ravenstine!!!

Here's a glimpse of them at LPR in NYC covering 'Kick Out the Jams' for obvious reasons.

Don't sleep on the recent live album, "By Order Of Mayor Pawlicki (Live In Jarocin)". It's relentlessly great.

Oh yes. And highly good-natured.

Dave T is *funny*

(Always knew this)

There is a guy that's PISSED on my tl about seeing a show on their current tour and calling it "creativity bankrupt"!!

Don't sleep on the recent live album, "By Order Of Mayor Pawlicki (Live In Jarocin)". It's relentlessly great.

― Blood On The Knobs, Friday, 30 June 2023 06:14 (ten hours ago) link

Great record, greater stage banter

"I'm not yelling at you...yet"

been enjoying the album on this swampy uk morning. i’d been feeling it takes a worried man got in the way of the album, sucked the energy into a not particularly outstanding track, but this morning it worked. the bass provided the swampy feeling appropriate to the mood - the chains around the heart, ‘i asked the judge what might be my time’, death and love again, thomas’ psychic landscape overlaid onto the music and geographic spaces of the south.

in general tackling this album i’d been turning round the view that the music is better than the DT element. A precondition or implication of this is that the music is separable from the DT element, which is ofc RONG. the interplay is complicated though, it’s almost like a (very successful) extrapolation and interpretation of the DT’s mental landscape.

Anyway, good listen.

oh and the last seven tracks really add some murk and strangeness, as a sort of side 3 coda. i don’t think they’re really intended to perform that function as such, but they feel pretty essential tbh. odd, intriguing album.