Pere Ubu

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mudshark
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Pere Ubu

Postby mudshark » 11 May 2022, 02:43

Don't think this band has ever been discussed. I just listened to their recently re-released Carnival of Souls. My word, they're still a tour de force. Their very first single (that I know, at least) is Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo, and it's a classic. It still moves me. Their early albums (Modern Dance, Dub Housing and another one) must have been a huge influence on the post punk and 'industrial' music that followed. I'm sure that the lads of Joy Division et al listened a lot to PB's albums and took a lot of feathers out of their caps. I think they broke up in the early 80's, but reformed in various formations thereafter, always with the indomitable and unavoidable David Thomas as the driving force. With the likes of John Lydon and Kevin Rowland I think Thomas is a genius, having created wonderfully innovative music with a plethora of different bands, instruments and assets, while always maintaining his recognizable identity.

The first 3 PB were ground-breaking, in my opinion, and should be considered placed in the same echelon as the first 3 VU albums. After regenerating and re-regenerating they came up with albums such as Ray Gun Suitcase (awesome), Pennsylvania (good), St. Arkansas (very good) and the aforementioned Carnival (surprisingly good)

And when Thomas was not with the band he did wonderful things too. The Sound of the Sand & Other Songs of the Pedestrian is an avant-garde classic and his work with the Two Pale Boys is genre-breaking. Apparently the man has moved to Britain. Must have been the wife's doing. David Thomas and Pere Ubu are quintessentially Industrial Northern Ohio. And Brilliant at it. Send him back, please.
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Matt Wilson
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Re: Pere Ubu

Postby Matt Wilson » 11 May 2022, 03:54

Yep, great band. At least all of the '70s stuff, which is all I know. Those first two especially, and the singles which preceded them - all brilliant.

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ConnyOlivetti
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Re: Pere Ubu

Postby ConnyOlivetti » 11 May 2022, 06:53

Fab band, love all their albums.
I recommend their five vinyl box sets, Thomas have remixed all the albums, and they sounds great. And you get download links to Bandcamp.
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ConnyOlivetti
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Re: Pere Ubu

Postby ConnyOlivetti » 11 May 2022, 10:31

Charlie O. wrote:I think Coan and Googa are right.


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Artgar
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Re: Pere Ubu

Postby Artgar » 11 May 2022, 11:24

The first album is a masterpiece.

The second album is very good.

The third to fifth maps a journey from barely-listenable-with-moments-of-brilliance to absolute-shite.

The comeback album - The Tenement Year - is pretty good, the one after (Cloudland) is uncharacteristic (and mostly fine) pop music, and then I get lost. There are a lot of albums through the nineties and later that show a bunch of talented people basically messing around with noises. But I definitely agree with the OP's assessment of Carnival of Souls - have a listen to this thing, it's fucking extraordinary



it gladdens my heart that it hits me the same way something like 'Street Waves' did - the same type of frenzy, that wonderful vocal intact - without sounding at all forced or fake. And this came forty years later.


I saw the band in 2016 in Berlin and they were interesting rather than great or anything like that. There was too much of the piddling around and not enough rock and roll for my liking. DT didn't leave his easy chair and they didn't play 'Non-Alignment Pact'. But you could see there was still a desire to make strange, magical music, and there were plenty special moments.

I love that they're still going (and VERY active on some social media) and treasure those early records like little else.
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Charlie O.
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Re: Pere Ubu

Postby Charlie O. » 11 May 2022, 18:31

Pretty sure I've told this story here before, but whatever...

The first Ubu record I heard was the "Not Happy"/"Lonesome Cowboy Dave" 45, bought sound-unheard ca. Spring 1981. I'd read good things about the band, plus I had just discovered The Red Crayola's first album, so the fact that Mayo Thompson was involved was enough to make me fork out my cash.

I took it home, listened to the A-side, HATED it... flipped the record over, listened to "Lonesome Cowboy Dave", liked that a lot... flipped the record over again, listened to "Not Happy" again - loved it. That's the way it goes sometimes, if you're lucky.

Then I bought The Art Of Walking. I know most people think it's crap, but I was immediately intrigued and... I won't say I loved it from the start, but I quickly came to. I was 15 years old and had never heard anything like it. Come to think of it, I still haven't.

I worked backwards and forwards from there - 390 Degrees Of Simulated Stereo, David's The Sound Of The Sand (which may have been the first record I ever bought that featured Richard Thompson!), and so on. Pere Ubu was HUGE for me through high school and beyond. I'll grant that The Modern Dance is the most overall-satisfying of those first generation albums, but I dug 'em all.

I kinda stopped keeping up after Cloudland - not sure why (I did enjoy Cloudland). I've heard bits and pieces since - some I've liked, some not so much. But I love David and I'm grateful he's still around, and I hope he'll continue to be for a good while yet. (His tome The Book Of Hieroglyphs is great fun.)
Last edited by Charlie O. on 12 May 2022, 06:54, edited 1 time in total.
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mudshark
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Re: Pere Ubu

Postby mudshark » 11 May 2022, 19:08

Thanks for that Charlie.
Did you check out Carnival of Souls? I'm curious to know what you think of it.
I haven' t heard any of the albums they recorded after Sing of the Bailing Man (which I didn't like much) until 1998's Pennsylvania (which I like very much). I need to get hold of The Tenement Years and Cloudland, for starters.

The Red Krayola. Quite a story. That band started in the '60s as part of the Texas Psych scene (think 13th Floor Elevators), but Mayo kept and keeps the band going. This year is the band's 55th year in existence! I only have their eponymous album from 1994 and it's really nice. To be honest I bought it because I was on a Jim O'Rourke trip (his Eureka album is delicious). I was hoping to find some more Krayola LP's in the Houston record stores (it's the band's hometown) but so far no luck.
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Charlie O.
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Re: Pere Ubu

Postby Charlie O. » 12 May 2022, 06:50

mudshark wrote:Thanks for that Charlie.
Did you check out Carnival of Souls? I'm curious to know what you think of it.

No. I'm... ambivalent about the track Artgar posted. The aspect I most enjoyed was the synthesizers; while I've always liked their use of synthesizers, I can't remember that ever being the main attraction before!
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ConnyOlivetti
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Re: Pere Ubu

Postby ConnyOlivetti » 12 May 2022, 12:10


Pere Ubu performs "What Happened To Me" with Louden Wainwright
on Night Music (previously called Sunday Night) in 1989.
Charlie O. wrote:I think Coan and Googa are right.


Un enfant dans electronica!
Je suis!

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ConnyOlivetti
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Re: Pere Ubu

Postby ConnyOlivetti » 12 May 2022, 12:12

One of my favs from recent years.
Charlie O. wrote:I think Coan and Googa are right.


Un enfant dans electronica!
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Re: Pere Ubu

Postby Darkness_Fish » 12 May 2022, 15:58

One of those bands I have a few things by, they never really clicked massively with me, though they obviously had a few tracks I love. The Terminal Tower comp is probably the thing I dig out most, the blisteringly dark post-punk of "Heart of Darkness" and "30 Seconds" to the bouncy stupidity of "Not Happy" and "Lonesome Cowboy Dave", it's top notch and diverse in a really nice way. The debut I always see as a sister album to Devo's Q: Are We Not Men, which I think is slightly more focused and successful in its aims, but treading a similar path. What was in the water in Ohio?
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