Pere Ubu: Classic Or Dud

I quite like those two Rocket from the Tombs reunion CDs they did early in the 2000s.

My band has done a few gigs with Craig Bell, he's a cool dude. Bell lives in Indy and has a couple bands called The Down Fi and Deezen while still doing shows with David Thomas and sometimes Cheetah Chrome in the Rocket from the Tombs, playing shows with the reformed Mirrors and also playing with the reformed 70s Bloomington punk band The Gizmos. It's definitely worth exploring if you are a fan of the old Cleveland punk bands like Ubu, Dead Boys, Peter Laughner etc. Fyi.

man I love The Gizmos

those Tripod Jimmie records are great

the backward guitar riff on "street waves" is something i have yet to get over all these years later

Do you mean the solo? Was trying to figure out if that was backwards or just played that way. Either way, amazing song and performance.

Do you mean the solo? Was trying to figure out if that was backwards or just played that way. Either way, amazing song and performance.

Why I still kind of love youtube - watch enough Pere Ubu clips and it eventually links you to this :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQIJiIQjoRU

Oh wow!!!!

I saw a really fantastic local production of Ubu Roi a few years ago. Right before the lights went down, they played "Final Solution" in full over the soundsystem.

Hey Jon, I finally got around to hearing the two Tripod Jimmie albums, fantastic weirdness in the tradition of early Ubu. These desperately need to be reissued!!

I've actually never heard the first one.

Death is not the end:
Pere Ubu: The David Thomas Death Protocols

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Pere Ubu: The David Thomas Death Protocols

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JUST NOW

the Classical 11 minutes ago
THE DAVID THOMAS DEATH PROTOCOLS

Members of the Ubu Projex bands shall be informed three months after the event, not before, and will at that time receive an instruction pack. No one else is to be informed, including record company and agents.
David will continue to 'answer' his email and all social media will be regularly updated - if anything there should be an uptick in posting frequency. All interviews shall be by email - since the questions rarely change there is a sufficient backlog of answers that can be cut and pasted.
A Pere Ubu album shall be produced. Keith Moline is to be in charge of assembling lyrics and vocal performances from pre-existing material. A tour will be booked to coincide with the album release. At an appropriate point a band photo with David's replacement shall be released.
Someone is bound to ask, 'Where's David?'
The response shall be 'Oh, he died two years ago.'
Q. 'What happened?'
A. His body stopped working.
Q. 'What was the cause?'
A. 'Death.'
Q. Why didn't you say anything?'
A. 'It's none of your damn business.'

lol
pretty strange to think of someone replacing Thomas

<3 and everything, but yeah that's not ever going to work, is it?

He's said that he already has his replacement identified...

haha, really? does his replacement know? is it ME?

Pretty sure the replacement is Steve Mehlman the drummer for Ubu & RFTTT, at least that seems to be what was hinted it at.

This is all very strange and very Ubu and I'll be very sad if he is dead

ha, i actually didn't even consider that he might be really dead ... thought this was just one of his weird pranks

I didn't either and now I'm worried

At first I was like, huh funny, but the more I thought about it, the more I thought maybe he was really dead.

Who knows! I've really loved like every record he's ever made basically, I'll be gutted.

There is a spring European tour scheduled with tom herman in the lineup and a career retrospective set list. Assuming dt is still with us that sounds like it will be amazing. NB I do not live in Europe :(

he also just played last week in london ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDdrJAu_xfM

Yeah the Herman tour! I was just day dreaming those dates the other day...

Was just listening to "Bay City" his solo record with the Foreigners from the 90s.

Dead or alive I legit love this weirdo and his amazing voice.

amen

Enjoying "Carnival Of Souls" this evening. Any word from the world of Ubu regarding their next project?

They are getting ready to tour the US and they got some vinyl box sets of the original albums coming out was the two communiques I remember seeing from Ubu Central.

The North American Coed Jail! tour of a concert set featuring songs from 1975 to 1982 is scheduled for June 16 to July 2. Dates are announced.
• 'Pere Ubu, The Scrapbook 1975-1982' is a 158-page, A4-sized book produced by Communex. It will be on sale at the merch table at Coed Jail! concerts.

I'd be interested to know what the contents of the book are.
Would also really love somebody discovering some early footage of the band that's been sitting in the back of a cupboard for 30 years. I think the earliest stuff in circulation is that Urgh A Music War version of Birdies.
Hope somebody can come forward and tell me I'm wrong though.

Tripod Jimmie's "Unclaimed Freight", a CD of outtakes and leftovers, is kicking my ass tonight.

Where does one get that and did the studio albums come out on CDs?

I got it cheaply from Amazon. The studio albums have only been given a digital reissue from the Ubu store.

I have one Tripod Jimmy cd I picked up in the 90s. Got it without cover. & not seen it in a while.

A long walk off a short pier was the cd title . I thought I remembered the word pier being in it.
& the spelling is jimmIE which I couldn't see from the writing opage my phone takes me to. Looks like there was a Tripod JimmY too

To be honest, I''m still trying to understand them. I came up with a good best-of, I think, caveats included.

good list, over tokyo

great list although I think Dub Housing is their best and most accessible 'classic' album

you figure the classic period runs up through song of the bailing man in '82? whatever the case, it'll always be the modern dance afacic. and that only cuz the datapanik collection was originally incomplete (& not properly an album besides).

I do, yeah.

I'd say Cloudland is their most accessible, by some distance.

do correct "30 seconds over tokyo" tho

I think David Thomas refers to 78-82 as the classic era, 88-93 as the Fontana or major label era and 94-present as the modern era. And stylistically they work well when compiled as such.

Album peaks after modern dance and dub housing are, for me, the tenement year, cloudland, st Arkansas, and Thomas' monster walks the winter lake

New Picnic Time is still pretty great. Getting abstract and arty but not as much as the Mayo Thompson era that follows it.

Found some of my live sets since I mentioned losing them. Wish there was more available.
& really wish there was video before Birdies on Urgh A Music War. Would have been great if the early arty scene in Cleveland included film makers. Would love mid 70s footage of all the bands on that scene.

the tenement year, cloudland, st Arkansas, and Thomas' monster walks the winter lake

love the former two, guess i need to track down the latter

Wasn't there a These or Recommended box of the Thomas solo mid 80s stuff? Think I saw it in listings.
Had interesting sidemen like Richard Thompson and Chris Cutler on too didn't it. The latter's in late 80s PU too.

Yes, the "Monster" box: https://www.discogs.com/David-Thomas-Monster/master/425902

I find it very inconsistent but the high points (as discussed upthread) are terrific.

Monster is well worth having for More Places Forever, Monster Walks..., Blame the Messenger, and the bonus Pale Boys Live disc.

I forgot to list More Places Forever in my peak albums list, if anything it's even better than Monster Walks... Art Bears + Ubu I mean come on!

listening to the datapanik cd box for the first time. someone brought in a copy for trade. does anyone know why there is no laughner solo stuff on the terminal drive disc of ubu-related stuff?

not sure about the specifics for that box, but laughner material is in all kinds of weird legal limbo — there's been an archival reissue project in the works for almost a decade that's been postponed over and over.

just seemed like a pretty glaring omission.

they do have a Friction track on there that is on the take the guitar player for a ride collection.