Poll Ubu! (See What I Did There?) The Modern Dance

BTW, my 2 cents worth as to worthwhile post-Dub Housing Ubu records:

--The Tenement Year. They really came back inspired. And this has actual genuine Allen Ravenstine all over it instead of a dude being Ravenstine-y. The only later Ubu record I can say for sure belongs up there with singles/Modern Dance/Dub Housing.

--Raygun Suitcase. Not thoroughly awesome but a nice return to a charging straightahead attack with Non-Alignment wailing.

--St. Arkansas. Marred by 2 or 3 duds but there are some superb O.G. Ubu style tracks on here. Also you get Tom Herman all by himself (no Jim Jones) sounding very much like himself. And this record has a really interesting band-in-a-room sound. There's a dirge tune on here that goes on way too long but worked nicely live.

(after reading Greil Marcus on the Pennsylvania album I really tried to like it but it just gave me a case of the blahs. Something about the sound. I heard this got remixed lately?)

not ubu, but i was stunned by how much i loved that 18 monkeys album by david thomas and two pale boys (2004, i think). stunned i tell you! such a cool record. definitely one of the best ubu-ian things i've heard in years.

but then we should also mention "surf's up" the other david thomas and two pale boys album. imagine the beach boys at a winter's night in cleveland. great stuff.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_UQsqFiyw9k

Humor Me for me, with Non-Alignment Pact a close second. I haven't heard this album in ages, need to give it spin as soon as I can find it. It's really rather good.

very consistent album, there is not one song i could drop. i think i'll go for laughing as it has got this little improv jazz vibe. it sounds a little like music which has been imprisoned for many years and has just been liberated.

something i always wanted to talk about but i never found the occasion. what about david thomas as a jehovah's witnes? did this ever show in his music or his lyrics? the jehovah's witnesses are totally crazy. much more so than scientology. they really believe in evangelization. something opposite of tolerance. i can't stand them at all. why can't they all turn into buddhists? why can't they just shut the fuck up and stop their pseudo-discussions.

i am torn between laughing, sentimental journey and humor me. it feels like a torture in the middle ages. there are three horses which gallop into three different directions and i am in the middle, attached to each of them by a strip.

This thread has inspired me to make the Datapanik box today's soundtrack. (My wife has retreated to the living room.)

xpost

is DT still a witness? he "got religion" sometime after peter laughner's death and from what I've read/heard this had a lot to do w/the breakup of the classic UBU lineup that produced modern dance, dub housing and new picnic time. there's a song on NPT called jehovah's kingdom comes but other than that I couldn't say where else religion surfaces in his work. it's an interesting question: in all the horsecock that greil marcus has written about david thomas is there any discussion of this?

xpost haha, i was thinking about doing the same thing, and then thought: "my wife would not be pleased with that." as noted upthread, does Pere Ubu have any female fans?

well, isn't all that "horsecock" that marcus has written positing that Thomas is kinda like an old testament prophet lost in the wilderness of the modern world? dunno if it references jehovah's witness stuff, but ...

I put "heart of darkness" on a mix tape for an old girlfriend years back and she liked it but calling her a fan would be a stretch. Betcha Ubu have more female fans than the MC5.

keep in mind their last album was called Why I Hate Women.

haha yeah. but of course the current incarnation has a woman in the band, right?

My GF likes Pere Ubu more than most of the stuff I play around the house. As in actively likes. And I know at least one other woman who's a fan.

My buddy got a female caller when he played Ubu on the college radio station and that led to a date. They were together for a few years.

As far as the Witness thing, I know that Thomas refused to perform "Final Solution" for quite a while but the last time I saw Ubu they played it and I was thrilled.

yeah, and he sure played the hell out of it with the reunited Rocket From the Tombs ...

I've just played the original 1977 Hearthan 7" version of "The Modern Dance" (recorded on August 7th 1977, according to the label) back to back with the LP version (from the original UK Mercury/Phonogram release). There's only one difference that I can immediately make out: the LP version omits the high pitched "doll squeak" noise (as Wiki aptly terms it), which runs steadily and rhythmically all the way through the 7" version (excepting the two solo guitar/vocal FX breakdowns), before gathering speed in the final bars. Personally, I prefer the squeaky 7" version, but it's no biggie. (I didn't pull out the UK Radar 12" Datapanik EP, as it would have involved shifting furniture around.)

Never heard the squeaky toy version. Damn.

Squeaky Toy Version is the new Butcher Cover.

I put "heart of darkness" on a mix tape for an old girlfriend years back...

I'd play "Heart of Darkness" to anyone. That break is like WHOA!

I never understood why Radar faded it on the Datapanik 12"

something i always wanted to talk about but i never found the occasion. what about david thomas as a jehovah's witnes? did this ever show in his music or his lyrics?

"Kingdom Come", last track on "New Picnic Time"

The latest album by these guys is fast becoming my album of the year.

has there been a new one after "why i hate women?". what i heard of that album wasn't very thrilling.

Luv this album. "Street Waves" is that dream Velvets/Beefheart fusion that all those mid-70s Ohioans tried to achieve

Peter Laughner lives!

Yes! If he lived, this band would have had a much different career path. They needed somebody like him to balance out DT's artsy-fartsy tendencies.

dog latin are you talking about the album of songs for the stage production?

Yes I am. The album's called '"Long Live Pere Ubu!"'. It's had a fairly mixed critical reception so far, but I think it's awesome. Obviously very Dada, absurdly disturbing in only the way David Thomas can. Some tracks are just ambient soundscapes with Thomas (as Ubu) burping and belching all over them. Others are experimental synth/percussion things that somehow still manage to etch their atones into my brain. There are even a few (almost) straight-up punk tracks with rousing choruses. Apparently the input Thomas had over the music was to string together 20 decaying apple macs in his front room in Brighton, and then set up some kind of automatic phone line so that when the band were rehearsing on the other side of the pond, he would just dial a number and go "That, play that!". All the band would be able to hear would be hissing and clicking and maybe a car going past the house, but they'd play anyway and Thomas wouldn't seem to mind too much.

Thanks that sounds great will be picking it up when I can find it

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Anyway, I gave my copy of the Hearpen singles box set a listen (why is it called that, when every label has it as Hearthen, and every sleeve as well, apart from one front cover has it as Hearpan (or thereabouts))

Anyway, I can exclusively reveal that the version of "Modern Dance" sounds exactly like "Final Solution".

DAMN IT!!!

Hearthan I mean

Get your Ps and Thorns right

I found out why:

http://www.ubuprojex.net/pix/hrlogo.jpg

The Story of Hearpen Records

David Thomas made Hearpen Records in 1975 to put out Pere Ubu records. The name derives from an anglo-saxon word for harp. The p is a transliteration of the anglo-saxon thorn, a letter that was pronounced th. HEARTHAN (pronounced hay-are-than, rhymes with van) gradually gave way to HEARPEN (pronounced hay-are-pen) as the label's name. The logo got designed on a day it was HEARTHAN. A rule evolved that written the name is Hearpen while integrated into a design it becomes Hearthan. Hearpen is the favored pronunciation in all cases. Confusion was the foundation on which our business grew.

Shame there wasn't much love for Chinese Radiation, it's just so sad and the crowd noises are just so unexpected.

This is such a classic but on the whole I like Dub Housing more. I really like New Picnic Time too especially how he sings "It's me again"on The Fabulous Sequel, it's such a perfect start to the album.

Didn't realise "Humor Me" was so popular!

So I mentioned the mispressing to the shop I bought it from (online), and they have others and are shipping me it straightaway, don't even want the wrong-un back!

Which is brilliant of them!

Didn't realise "Humor Me" was so popular!

It's one of the great final tracks.

That box:

The replacement arrived (a while back), and I recorded it onto CD, but I still can't make out any 'doll-squeak' noises.

Still, I'd forgotten how great all of it is. (Except Final Solution, which is just dumb apart from the music, really)

I played it to the kids, they .. mmmm, listened...

Final Solution rules, u crazy.

yeah that is nutty! NUTTY!

So.... is it worth me catching these guys in February?

Yeah, you should go. I've seen them twice in the last six years, both shows were great, but I'm a pretty big fan.

final solution is one of the greatest songs of the 20th century.

Buy me a ticket to a sonic reduction

So.... is it worth me catching these guys in February?

I hated the Ubu Roi play they did a while back, but the audio of it is f'ing great. Seeing them next week (songs from the play and The Modern Dance) and v much looking forward to it, as they've been extremely enjoyable whenever I've seen them.

Will report back.

Yeah I'm a huge fan of the "Long Live" album but I've heard the live version is a bit lacking. Maybe they've honed it a bit? Here's hoping.

Shame there wasn't much love for Chinese Radiation, it's just so sad and the crowd noises are just so unexpected.

If Thomas was telling the truth, those audience sounds were recorded at a legitimate Grand Funk concert.

God now all I want to hear is Chinese Radiation.