Pere Ubu: Classic Or Dud

I heard he was an airline pilot, could that possibly be true???!!?

Ha! (xp)

Fascinating interview with Ravenstine here (from 2010):
http://www.furious.com/perfect/allenravenstine.html

Would be totally amazing to get on a plane and hear "My name is Captain Allen Ravenstine, I'll be your pilot."

lol yeah -- "your inflight music will be a little ditty called '30 seconds over tokyo.' enjoy!"

LOOOL

I really wanna hear that duo synth improv!

And he did "Final Solution." The only contribution I had to that was the moment in there where it says 'guitar's gonna sound like a nuclear destruction' and he (Taylor) had a great big explosion there and I said 'no, that should be the opposite. It should be a vacuum.' And so they made the sound suck itself up and that's my contribution to "Final Solution." That's the only thing I did.

PSF: You played that part on the record?

No, I didn't. I just told them that was what they needed to do at the moment. That's all I did for that song. But then they dumped Dave (Taylor) and then I was back.

man i had NO IDEA ravenstine didn't play on "Solution"

though i guess if i'd looked at the credits that would have been obvious

here's that synth duo thang: http://www.science-with-synthesizers.com/collections/other/products/allen-ravenstine-and-robert-wheeler-city-desk

Taylor is also on three of the live tracks on the B-side of 390 Degrees

Holy crap I need city desk + farm report!

I wish they hadn't vetoed the sharing of their live stuff. Also wish I hadn't had that hard drive that I had whatever of it I had crash.
Would love a load more things like Shapes of Things covering the next 2 or 3 years, since that's 1976 I think, or is it '75? Very early versions of things done live in Cleveland. Sentimental Journey still has a sentence long ttile at the time and they were doing Pushing Too Hard and a couple of other covers.

I think I have a set from London's Marquee in '78 but I used to have a number of dates up to '79. & they were an interesting live band even if Thomas's vocals seemed to be less in control.

But yeah the 1st 3 lps and the Hearthen singles are great. I don't think I've got much into them after that though when I was first getting into them was pre the late 80s Ubu reunion and I would go and see Thomas's solo abstract stuff which is probably more redolent of that later early Ubu. & I did enjoy him doing things like the theory of spontaneous similitude and whatever at the time.

Wish there was earlier video than Birdies from Urgh a Music War. Would love to see them at the time of the 1st 2 lps.

there's a bunch of live stuff available for purchase over yonder: http://www.ubuprojex.com/ubutique.html
haven't heard all of it though....

Oh wow the awesome tripod Jimmie record is available as a digital download now from hearpen! Urgently recommended.

Also the DT solo album Winter Comes Home which I thought he had disowned...

Great little write-up by Jessica Hopper about Dub Housing in the Epiphanies section of this month's Wire.

I've been meaning to post my compilation that you all helped me build. I'm totally enthralled with the quality of the Fontana and Modern Era's but I still think the Solo Era could use some tweaking. Thanks for the suggestions!

The Solo Era:
Crickets In The Flats - The Sound Of The Sand
Happy To See You - The Sound Of The Sand
Crush This Horn, Pt. 2 - The Sound Of The Sand
Pedestrian Walk - Variations On A Theme
Bird Town - Variations On A Theme
A Day At The Botanical Gardens - Variations On A Theme
Hurry Back - Variations On A Theme
Through The Magnifying Glass - More Places Forever
Enthusiastic - More Places Forever
Whale Head King - More Places Forever
Song Of The Bailing Man - More Places Forever
Big Breezy Day - More Places Forever
My Theory Of Spontaneous Simultude - Monster Walks The Winter Lake
Monster Walks The Winter Lake - Monster Walks The Winter Lake
King Knut - Blame The Messenger
When Love Is Uneven - Blame The Messenger

The Fontana Era:
George Had A Hat - The Tenement Year
Talk To Me - The Tenement Year
Say Goodbye - The Tenement Year
The Hollow Earth - The Tenement Year
We Have The Technology - The Tenement Year
Why Go It Alone? - Cloudland
Waiting For Mary - Cloudland
Bus Called Happiness - Cloudland
Monday Night - Cloudland
The Wire - Cloudland
Oh Catherine - Worlds In Collision
I Hear They Smoke The Barbecue - Worlds In Collision
Goodnite Irene - Worlds In Collision
Worlds In Collision - Worlds In Collision
Life Of Riley - Worlds In Collision
Wasted - Story Of My Life
Come Home - Story Of My Life
Fedora Satellite II - Story Of My Life
Kathleen - Story Of My Life
Last Will & Testament - Story Of My Life

The Modern Era (95-02):
Beach Boys - Raygun Suitcase
Turquoise Fins - Raygun Suitcase
Three Things - Raygun Suitcase
Red Sky - Raygun Suitcase
Down By The River II - Raygun Suitcase
Obsession - Erewhon
Planet Of Fools - Erewhon
Nowheresville - Erewhon
Woolie Bullie - Pennsylvania
SAD.TXT - Pennsylvania
White Room - Bay City
Charlotte - Bay City
Man In The Dark - Surf's Up!
Night Driving - Surf's Up!
The Fevered Dream Of Hernando Desoto - St. Arkansas
Slow Walking Daddy - St. Arkansas
333 - St. Arkansas
Home Phone Jonah - St. Arkansas
Dark - St. Arkansas

The Modern Era: (03-14):
New Orleans Fuzz - 18 Monkeys On A Dead Man's Chest
Numbers Man - 18 Monkeys On A Dead Man's Chest
Little Sister - 18 Monkeys On A Dead Man's Chest
Golden Surf - 18 Monkeys On A Dead Man's Chest
Prepare For The End - 18 Monkeys On A Dead Man's Chest
Caroleen - Why I Hate Women
Flames Over Nebraska - Why I Hate Women
Mona - Why I Hate Women
Texas Overture - Why I Hate Women
Mandy - Lady From Shanghai
And Then Nothing Happened - Lady From Shanghai
Musicians Are Scum - Lady From Shanghai
Road Trip Of Bipasha Ahmed - Lady From Shanghai
414 Seconds - Lady From Shanghai
Golden Surf II - Carnival Of Souls
Visions Of the Moon - Carnival Of Souls
Bus Station - Carnival Of Souls
Road To Utah - Carnival Of Souls
Irene - Carnival Of Souls

cool, what's the concept behind the comp?

Make a box set companion to Datapanik.

That and there are certain artists whose work I prefer to cherry pick due to inconsistency or simply not wanting to have to wade through a dozen or more albums.

Monster Dreams of the Days He's Going to Sea
^^^ is that the title? In any case, a track from Monster Walks... that needs to be in yr box. So beautiful.

"Monster Thinks About The Good Days". Excellent suggestion, I missed that one.

That bass melody comes into my head all the time

I'm confused about "Monster Walks", though. How many versions of it are there, didn't it get reissued yet again recently? I've read it's "radically remixed" for the "Monster" box set. Which version is the one to hear?

I "learned" it from the LP, and I don't remember the box set version jarring me the way the box set version of More Places Forever did. (I have the first version of the box set, with the live disc)

I listened to Long Live Pere Ubu again for the first time in a few years... Man that record has a vibe like no other record I know. Some incredibly strange, grotesque sounds.

Saw them the other night. They'd departed from recent Moon Unit/Carnival of Souls stuff, and delivered a very rocking set selected from their recent albums. I've seen the more attenuated stuff quite a lot, both from before and after the release of CoS so this was a v welcome departure and was very good too.

D Thomas seems extremely frail and unwell though, more so than at other times - he said he'd just come out of intensive care, which may have been typical posturing but certainly didn't look like it.

A session on Vic Galloway earlier this week, which I didn't hear, but I believe iplayer radio is now doing full replay (and download on apps) for recently broadcast content, as with its tv stuff now.

He's having health problems? I had no idea :(

i posted this link on the jackie leven thread but i should put it here too. best interview.

http://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/jul/23/pere-ubu-david-thomas-music-interview

Why have you started singing from a chair?

Because my legs don’t work any more. To sing the way I want to sing, you have to get right in there and I noticed I was spending a lot of mental energy worrying about falling over into the drums.

Found a recent photo accompanying this review of one of this week's shows.

http://m.theargus.co.uk/news/13440077.Pere_Ubu__Komedia__Gardner_Street__Brighton__Thursday__July_16/

I see what you mean, fizzles.

With early Ubu, the fact that you can’t quite hear the words and your voice is almost one of the instruments gives it a tremendous mystery and power.

I used to say that the bass player is actually the band’s guitarist, the guitarist is the bassist, the synthesiser is the vocal and I’m the horn section. Then I changed my vocal approach and it became more extreme, almost hysterical. Lately I’ve been going for legibility.

You’ve written hundreds of songs, but hardly any of them follow the pop convention of confessional lyrics: “I met Mary and fell in love” etc.

Self-expression is evil, so we don’t do confessionals. I use the first-person narrative almost exclusively, but that’s not because I’m talking about myself. I find the singer-songwriter confessional crap truly irritating. What do I care what you think about something? I don’t care about your [spits] feelings. I want ideas. I want to see how things look. We use the first person in the same way Picasso drew flowers. The point of the painting was not the damned flower. It was Picasso’s state of mind.

I used to say that the bass player is actually the band’s guitarist, the guitarist is the bassist, the synthesiser is the vocal and I’m the horn section.

^^^ I actually hear this

yep

/ And he did "Final Solution." The only contribution I had to that was the moment in there where it says 'guitar's gonna sound like a nuclear destruction' and he (Taylor) had a great big explosion there and I said 'no, that should be the opposite. It should be a vacuum.' And so they made the sound suck itself up and that's my contribution to "Final Solution." That's the only thing I did.

PSF: You played that part on the record?

No, I didn't. I just told them that was what they needed to do at the moment. That's all I did for that song. But then they dumped Dave (Taylor) and then I was back. /

man i had NO IDEA ravenstine didn't play on "Solution"

(and some great synth work too)

That Guardian interview is entertaining:

Hi David! What’s happening in Hove? (1)

It’s sunny at the moment, by the sea. I stay in my flat, go down to the local pub. That’s about it.

I hear you don’t do much on the road either – no reading or watching television. Is it important to clear your head?

My head is usually damned clear, but the whole day is focused on the performance. That’s why we forbid radio, TV, noise or talking. You’re allowed to say “Toilet!” and we will stop the bus.

Thomas has been diabetic for years - not a surprise that he's having problems at his age.

He's a great interview; I did a cover story on him for The Wire in 2006 or so and was scared as hell going in, because of the hostility factor, but he turned out to be really interesting to talk to. We had a long discussion about the whole anti-confessional thing; his attitude is that he's a performer, he's there to perform for you, not to read to you from his diary, so if you take a first-person lyric as a confession, you're the idiot. It's theater.

I used to say that the bass player is actually the band’s guitarist, the guitarist is the bassist, the synthesiser is the vocal and I’m the horn section.

at the risk of sounding (too) literal-minded, when i saw pere ubu in '79 tom herman and tony maimone would trade gtr/bass at times so yeah

DT sounded more like a flute/clarinet/bassoon than sax or trumpet though

Sometimes when I listen to early Ubu I think it's the coolest music ever made, totally aligned with my tastes, but fortunately (ironically?) I don't listen to it that often, so that when I do listen to it it remains fresh and inspires the same reaction.

That's what I posted a couple of weeks back, anyway. They are one of my Platonic ideals.

Listening to monster walks... this morning for the first time in ages. A lot of its tracks are up there with the most breathtaking stuff in the Ubu universe. "Bicycle" gave me cosmic chills. It's such a great ravenstine showcase album too.

Xposts

Yeah he is definitely a reed instrument and not brass.

Ok a casual perusal of and comment in this thread has sent me off digging back into my copies of the box and Tenement Year, scrounging what's available on Spotify and begging friends to share copies of the OOP and hard-to-find entries in their catalogue. It's not really healthy.

A few observations:

These guys have next to no duds in their catalogue. Everything is interesting in its own right – the difficult, downtown-y post-Dub Housing records w Mayo, the pop era, the aughts records w Wheeler and the reed player. I still have some gaps, but it seems that all of it is at least worth digging through.

The "pop" records—Cloudland, Worlds in Collision (or, as Letterman called it when they performed in '91, Worlds in Collusion) and Story of My Life, are incredibly solid. I still don't have a copy of the former but these records are like a model for what art bands should do when they try to reach the masses. Ubu had always been catchy, even at their most abstract, but in some ways it took this era to reveal the extent of it.

Even after having records by them for 20 years, I still feel like I am only scratching the surface of Ubu and Thomas.

I am feeling totally overwhelmed at the moment.

And yet...

I really want Monster.

One question after reading the Guardian piece:
Is Thomas' distaste for self-expression related at all to his background as a Jehovah's Witness?

listening to the Manhattan Max's recording from 1977 that comes w/ the new box set. killer, but why isn't the whole thing included? you gotta download the rest over here: http://www.hearpen.com/hr169.html

Naive Teen Idol have you ever heard A Warning To All Strangers by Tom hermans power trio Tripod Jimmie? A totally essential piece of ubu-satellite debris

The recent live BBC radio appearance was both funny in the interview segments and on point musically.

Thomas is about the most magnetic front person I've ever seen.

Naive Teen Idol have you ever heard A Warning To All Strangers by Tom hermans power trio Tripod Jimmie? A totally essential piece of ubu-satellite debris

The only thing I know by TJ is "Autumn Leaves" on the box rarities disc – but Herman is really fantastic. See it's available on Hearpen. Hmmm...

(PS, "Autumn Leaves" is fantastic)

I go to the dances almost every friday night
I do the dances that everybody likes
OH, MISS?!?

Ok Jon, now you gotta make a playlist called "Ubu Satellite Debris" containing the best non-Ubu/Thomas material.

I don't really know the other satellite stuff, sadly. Have never heard jim jones band or the ravenstine wheeler thing. Or that band two pale boys come from. Was Michele Temple in something notable before Ubu?

I desperately wish more of this stuff were on Spotify.