Pere Ubu: Classic Or Dud

Same lineup?

Same lineup plus an extra guitarist, I think. I was only half paying attention on first listen but had the exact same thought re: RFTT. Second half of the album seemed more interesting to me but I need to dig in some more.

Same line up, plus Siperko who played on the US tour last yr (and with RFFT) and Kristof Hahn from the Swans on the pedal steel. Guitar Orchestra or some such I believe they are referring to it as.

Continued, underrated Pere Ubu addition: Darryl Boon's clarinet, which is such a perfect foil for Thomas's voice

I've listened to "20 Years In A Montana Missle Silo" a couple of times and find it... inconsistent as David's vocals are often a bit rambling or hard to take. In fact, I'd compare Pere Ubu's 21st century output to The Fall - so much depends on the vocals for me. I think David Thomas has aged much better than Mark E Smith in terms of voice. But like The Fall, Pere Ubu's high points are extremely high whereas the rest is nice-if-unnecessary for me. From this album, I think I'd pick:

Monkey Bizness
Toe To Toe
Red Eye Blues
I Can Still See

What's your take, VTC?

I can get into most of the tracks on here to some extent when I'm listening to the album as a whole, but when I try to pick out highlights afterward, not much sticks with me. I do like where it goes on the last two tracks, especially Cold Sweat. Think my picks would be pretty similar to yours:

Toe to Toe
Red Eye Blues
I Can Still See
Cold Sweat

What is his obsession with monkeys and stuff these days? Feels like cliched wackiness

I'm getting very intrigued by the bunch of Pre Ubu and Cleveland related material turning up on Smog Veil.
I need toget the Hy Maya set and maybe the Alan Ravenstine set. Think the others look interesting too.

really digging hy maya. haven't listened to the ravenstine yet but the cover is fantastic:

https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/0075/9892/products/sv133_97336e56-3dee-4191-b3eb-b8fd3a46d75f_large.jpg?v=1493665431

little ubu listening spree this week for me
i have underrated worlds in collision (tbh i only listened to it once, upon original release)

Tripod Jimmie - A Warning to All Strangers is available as a paid download from ubuprojex site now, btw! Urgently recommended for real

'Goodnight Irene' off Worlds in Collision is one of their best songs.

The final album, "The Long Goodbye", is out in July.

UBU DUB podcast abt the new record, interesting thoughts from Thomas (as always) and he's right about "Bay City" being criminally underrated.

New stuff sounds really glitchy & weird.

UBU DUB

Also Thomas doesn't make it seem like it is the final album, just the "end of a way of doing things", though it was born out of the idea that he was on death's door post the Nov 2017 tour, sounds like he wrote everything himself on synth while he was still sick.

has thomas ever threatened to write a memoir or something? seems like he should.

write a memoir, that is, not just threaten to write one

i feel like he has written something long...?

if nothing else there needs to be an available text of his Ghoulardi lecture from EMP!

oh hey what do you know

https://www.dukeupress.edu/listen-again?viewby=author&lastname=Melendez&firstname=Benjamin&displayName=&sort=title%20duke%20university%20pres%20link%20on%20the%20book&aID=2569558

He has written a couple of book length "liner notes" "Chinese Whispers" about "Lady From Shanghai" and "Cogs" about "Carnival of Souls", neither are exactly straight forward memoirs, more like bundles of lyrics, album behind the scenes, essays, and sort of diary entries about making music.

wow where are those? just listened to 'lady' yesterday.

Was avail on the Ubu site

http://www.ubuprojex.com/ubutique.html

Looks like Chinese Whispers is sold out in the US

No ebooks? :(

First listen to "The Long Goodbye" - it's like one of David's challenging solo albums. I don't object to the electronic additions, it's just that his vocals go against the grain to such an extent that it's hard to enjoy. Can't say it does much for me.

Second listen reveals a bit more. My picks:
What I Heard On The Pop Radio - because it's just so ridiculous
Flicking Cigarettes At The Sun - reminds me of early Pere Ubu
Fortunate Son - excellent spoken word piece
The Road Ahead - another spoken word piece, long but rewarding

It is certainly the least "rock" Ubu record since the Mayo Thompson era...I knew it was going to be weird but it is even stranger than I expected, closer to the recent record he did with P. O. Jⱷrgens "Live Free or Die" and obv an extension of the "Bay City" David Thomas & Foreigners album (which Jⱷrgens also plays on, he plays on this new Ubu record as well)

"Fortunate Son" and "The Road Ahead" are both great, long, winding stories, Ravenstine might not be on the record but his vibe is all over it,ideas pop up from the DT & two pale boys records as well

"Lovely Day" is a beautiful ending.

Ymmv but this record is extremely my shit

Their album covers are often so bad these days it cheapens the music for me quite significantly

Finally got my copy yesterday and the live disc that comes with the cd of smaller quartet doing the entire album essentially in sequence (with Chris Cutler on drums no less) I think is better than the album proper. Like a lot of things in a live setting everything just seems to make more sense. It feels more like a Pere Ubu (or at least two pale boys) record vs the studio session which does feel like a weird Thomas solo record, which I still like, but the live takes just sound better.

Also, in ref to above they just announced another book for this record, 'Baptized Into The Buzz'which per the recent news letter includes 1 chapter of Thomas's autobiography, which he also notes is less exciting than Cheetah Chrome's
http://www.ubuprojex.com/ubutique.html

Ooh cutler I want that live disc

I read the book over the wknd and it was cool, I'm not sure if really changed my overall impression of the record, but it is interesting to read how Thomas see it within the larger scheme of the Ubu oeuvre, nice to have the lyrics in a handy spot.

The album is growing on me, the live record really helps bring it into focus.

And in a very Fall-esque development I went back to 20 Years In a Montana Missile Silo, which I was fine when it came out but haven't spent much time with and of course now I think it sounds great!

JUst came across the Pere Ubu Scrapbook cos they were advertising free small sized tshirts on Facebook. Like if you take a small sized female along to their goodies table at a gig she will be given a free tshirt. May need you to buy something too but they have a surplus of small tshirts.

So that went out on FB as a post and had a link to the Ubutique so I looked through there.
& saw thsi, not really come across books on Pere Ubu before i don't think. They do turn up in a few places, From The Velvets to the Voidoids etc but haven't heard of something dedicated to them.
Sounds like it must be a compiled reprint o fvarious articles and things on the band from 1975-82 but there isn't much said on the site. "Pere Ubu, The Scrapbook 1975-1982
Paperback, A4 size, 158 pages." plus a photo is all.
Anybody read it?

Arrived today. Seems quite interesting various reprints of press from the time plus all the lyrics fro the lps from the era.

Since there is little on the band around it is great to have this,

What is his obsession with monkeys and stuff these days? Feels like cliched wackiness

― Shat Parp (dog latin), Wednesday, October 11, 2017 3:54 AM (two years ago)

have you seen monkeys

Their in house download page Hearpen has been down for a while is slowly coming back on Ubutique, there is a new remaster of the Pirate's Cove 1977 tape, not a full show, some songs cut-off in spots but it sounds pretty great and is only 3 bucks (actually some of the incomplete songs feel like those jarring edits from the The Fall's Palace of Swords Reversed comp)

http://www.ubuprojex.com/download.html

Really forgotten how fucking good Dub Housing is, but won't ever again.

Never went beyond that so changing this...onto New Picnic Time

"The Modern Dance" is essential. The following albums ("Dub Housing" etc) are good, but I can live without them. The later period isn't bad, but somehow just not very interesting either.
― Dr. C
aww, jeez...Dub Housing is actaully "better" but i dunno how you can like one (1) and find the rest not of innerst....i still need to spend more time with disc 3 of datapanik but i already know it's got greatness (looking at you "Birdies")

― epigram addict (outdoor_miner), Thursday, 1 March 2012 bookmarkflaglink

Yeah sorry to pick on this one early post but I'm marvelling at the first five albums up to 1982. The lack of choons (or rock like riffs) gives space to lots of good stuff. And, as discussed Ravenstine was something else - lol at him becoming a pilot. Awesome after life.

That song where DThom bashes a drum randomly and says "Aw, Cmooonnnnnn....."

first era is impeccable
but i also think they did the "pop sellout" thing in the weirdest, least conventional, and cool way w/The Tenement Year and Cloudland

really got into TTY this past year

TTY is my second favorite ubu of all!

Of the first five albums, I think that The Art of Walking is definitely the weakest. The weirdness that was unselfconscious on the previous records suddenly becomes a lot more effortful. After the first two songs it becomes really tedious. "Lost in Art" has one (not very interesting) idea and drags it out for five minutes.

The sterility might be Mayo Thompson's influence, but he is also on Song of the Bailing Man and that seems quite a lot better. Maybe with Anton Fier in the group, they stuck to more uptempo and (relatively) pop formats instead of the draggy instrumentals that bring down the previous record.

I could never get into the 2 really abstract lps that lead up to their retirement. Could actually get into David Thomas live a lot more when I was eeing him in the mid 80s.

do love teh early live stuff and wish the band hadn't taken themselves off the share friendly list for Dime. Had some stuff lost opn a hardrive that messed up.
BUt the '76 Shapes of things offically released set is good.

& i think the Day The Earth Met The Rocket From The Tombs is pretty essential

"Lost In Art", that was it, yes.

such a drag that there's no footage I'm aware of pre Birdies in Urgh a Music War.
Hoping the cache of student films that's been in the back of somebody's closet for 45 odd years finally turns up this year.

I'm not particularly a fan of live albums by anyone, but the late 70s live compilation 390 Degrees Of Simulated Stereo is really a worthwhile appendix to those early albums.

I'd say you need the first three and Terminal Tower and Cloudland.

my ubu poV

terminal tower (or the hearpen singles or anything that has the early 45s on it)
modern dance
dub housing
the tenement year
st arkansas

The Tenement Year continues to grow on me, this might be my favorite Ubu record (that I've heard)

nothing like it

It's an excellent but sadly neglected quasi-commercial quasi-comeback.

Yeah, that whole string of Fontana records were kind of taken for granted and/or neglected, at least outside of cut-out bins.

quasi commercial def., like i can tell that there's the impulse to be more "commercial" without changing the fundamental strangeness of pere ubu...so you get these skewed pop songs percolating with percussion and ravenstine squiggles and thomas being thomas...might be my favorite ubu album now

Are the later remasters of the Fontana records preferable? I know they made some changes to those albums, but I wasn't sure if it was supposed to restore what they would have liked or what.