Pere Ubu

I mixed up the letters in their name and got "Beer Puu"!!! Please let me know if I can have some money for having done this.
*special introductory paragraph!
*The Modern Dance
*The Shape Of Things
*Dub Housing
*New Picnic Time
*Terminal Tower
*The Art Of Walking
*One Man Drives While The Other Man Screams (Live 1978-1981)
*Song Of The Bailing Man
*The Tenement Year
*Cloudland
*Worlds In Collision
*Story Of My Life
*Ray Gun Suitcase
*Pennsylvania
*St. Arkansas
*Why I Hate Women
*"Long Live Pere Ubu!" (with Sarah Jane Morris)

Pere Ubu have been called "avant garage" for their mix of straightforward rock chugalug, weird as hell synth bloop/bleeps and singer David Thomas' disturbing whale-like fat warble of a singing voice. Sounds like he's about to puke or cry half the time, the nervous arty guy! They sprouted out of an old Cleveland band called Rocket From The Tombs (not Rocket From The Crypt!), from which the Dead Boys also springed. As of this writing, I'm probably still missing some EPs, live albums and enhanced CDs, but don't keep your eyes peeled because I have no plans to ever purchase them. Have you seen CD rates nowadays? I have no interest in spending that kind of money! So for crying out loud, please unpeel your eyes; you're making me sick just through the Internet with them grossass peeled eyes. Now then, here's what I think of Lere "Ubu" Hagman!


* The Modern Dance - Blank 1978. *
Rating = 10

I honestly don't think it's quite a 10. In fact, an eight and a half is more whereabouts I'd put it. But rounding up is the right of every American and I consider myself the most American American in the American States of America. Let's discuss this matter!

The first Pere Ubu album has some incredibly DIFFERENT things going on, almost like a cross between the progressive rock of the early 70s and the punk rock that rebelled against it in the late 70s. Yet, it's NEITHER progressive NOR punk rock. It's something altogether new and lovely! The songs are very catchy things, similar in sound to 60s rock, new wave pop, dub reggae and even, okay I admit it, a little bit of midtempo punk. But then they fuck everything up with weird bassoon-sounding crazy synthesizer noises piled on top! I don't know if there was any band besides The Fall who went this far out of their way to make their catchy, accessible songs completely unlistenable to FM radio fans who might very well be able to appreciate them if they weren't so irritating! I mean, the goddamned album starts off with a 15-second blast of synthesizer/guitar feedback! You should have seen the look on my Puppy's face!!! Actually, to be honest, the whole album intrigued my little hairy guy (dog, not sex gun). So many weird little noises kept popping out, he couldn't help but look up at the stereo speakers every couple of minutes just to make sure no mischievous little elf was in there banging on spoons, throwing bottles around and inviting David Thomas to sing lead.

Summary: 1978 was the year punk broke, and the year Pere Ubu broke bottles. Any fan of "experimental" rock music needs to pick this one up. Aside from one or two tunes that don't seem to go anywhere at all, you're gonna find a plethora of excellent, odd little post-punk (in 1978???) classics. I appreciate that which is clever, especially if it's catchy too! The Pere Ubus are a naked man of fun!

Reader Comments

Homelessperson22@cs.com (Zach English)
I give this album ten stars. It's in my top ten of all time, and Dub Housing is in my top twenty or so. When I first heard this I had been listening to a bunch of punk/post-punk from roughly this era (X-Ray Spex, Stooges, the Clash, etc.) but this just blew my mind and it continues to do so each time I hear it. Listen to that rhythm section, that wheezing, freezing synth stuff on "Street Waves", the way "Sentimental Journey" breaks into that weird chorus with the bass strings a-buzzin' and David going bonkers. Every time I hear "Laughing" I get these weird images in my head, especially when the "Shoot him with a gun" part comes and the guitar makes mock-gunshot sounds. There are just so many cool parts here, and it never loses its immediacy and power as melodic rock and roll. Actually I give this eleven stars. I love the Fall as much as Mark does, but this is heads and tails above anything they've ever done.

francesco.nunziata@libero.it
This album is a flight overt the abyss...
This album is one of the most important album all over the time...
A FIST IN THE STOMACH!
It's a 10/10.

A fist in the stomach…An incredible mix of punk, new wave, garage, avantgarde and concrete music. David Thomas is a devastating singer; Tony Maimone and Scott Krauss form one of the greatest rhythmic section in the rock history; Allen Ravenstine revolutionizes the use of the keyboards (with noises and atonal melodies); Tom Herman, at last, plays guitar in a very personal way: he combines the rock ‘n roll style of Chuck Berry with industrial resonances...

The result is timeless...and give a sense of disorientation...”Non Aligned Pact” is an overwhelming orgy. “Modern Dance” is a glacial funky with a break of disastrous distortions. “Laughing” start with a free jazz session (!), while “Street Waves” is another great rock ‘n roll with cacophonies and various noises. “Sentimental Journey” is pure avantgarde.

The Modern Dance is a flight over the abyss!!!

bonus_mcgraw@hotmail.com
Well, since I love both fists in the stomach AND flights over the abyss, I think I'm going to have to check this out.

thepublicimage79@hotmail.com
This is a great album. a lot of great songs. Sentimental Journey is prime bullshit, though, and Laughing isn't too great either.

But Humor Me is one of the greatest songs ever written. I don't know if I can do justice to it's pain and brilliance. Seriously, I'm not joking. unbelievable. The album's practically worth it for that alone.

Add your thoughts?


The Shape Of Things - Hearpen 2000
Rating = 6

About 25 of us were in the backyard yesterday cooking up a shoe tree when suddenly my uncle Remus brought out his cheap Radio Shack tape recorder and started recording Pere Ubu, who were performing a live set in 1976 on the other side of picnic table. The band was literally on fire that night yesterday in 1976, playing all their early hits like "30 Seconds Over Tokyo," "Life Stinks" and "Final Solution" (three from Modern Dance, The, four from Robinal Trower) before regaling the Prindle clan and our neighbors the Kuklux clan with a few otherwise unavailable rock and roll originals and spirited, boring covers of The Stooges' "Let Me Be A Dog," The Seeds' "Pushing Me Too Far" and The Velvet Underground's "Heroine." Go Cut Creator, Go!

That's what LL Cool J shouted at the band as they continued their riotous Cleveland assault on the senses, specifically smell because Dave Thomas showers with budget-priced used water. Throughout the audiotape, and sure the sound is muffled, but you can hear British-voiced punk rock people in the crowd saying hilarious things like "You know, when I walked in, I knew I was gonna see somebody totally boring. And I did! Isn't that amazing?" and "Yeah, the band seems to be lacking a bit of energy this evening." But Pere Ubu released it anyway! I love bands with senses of self-humor. Who were these damned punk rockers? Are they the same guys who keep repeating the mantra "Tay-Day-Um, Tay-Day-Um, Tedium" at another point on the tape? If so, how on earth did the tape survive throughout the years and finally end up in David Thomas's crusty brown pockets?

Also, another reason you'll totally want to own this is that it has Peter Laughner on it. I don't know what he does on it, but he was still in the band, so maybe that's him making whooshy synth noises or playing the guitar or something. Either way, you can't spell "Laugh" without "Peter Laughner"! As most fans know, Peter quit the band and tragically died shortly therafter, right around the time Aunt Dad brought out her trademark dessert, the Fudge Pudding Penis. Looks like fudge - tastes like a penis!

I can't believe this recording and band were pre-Fall. They sound a LOT like The Fall in some of these. These early songs were so great and DARK!!! Good old The Fall. Unlike the summer, it's great and DARK!!!

Although Donna Summers is great and dark too, if you're going by skin pigment or menstrual flow.

Add your thoughts?


Dub Housing - Rough Trade 1978.
Rating = 6

MAN, what a disappointment after that first one. This one is just a bunch of halfassed nonsense - dicking around, noise making, pretentious goofy crap with hardly any melodies at all. I'm honestly very fond of exactly two of the ten tracks - "I Will Wait" and "Drinking Wine Spodyody." Both are very catchy. Some of the other "aural experiments" have interesting parts. But not nearly enough to sustain interest throughout the record. And wailing David Thomas's annoying vocal approach is already wearing thin. Fuck this and all other albums ever recorded!

Reader Comments

InMyEyes82@aol.com (Zach English)
I'll admit that the second side of this record sometimes devolves into excruciating noodling, but you guys need to listen to this one again. I didn't like it the first time I heard it either; coming after Modern Dance, I complained that the guitar was mixed way too low, the vocals were annoying and some of the melodies were too dinky. But then I started concentrating on the instruments and the way the piano played catchy circular patterns reminiscent of "Waiting for the Man" and the bass is SO GODDAMN CREATIVE. It lopes and fizzes and farts and pounds my fist into my head. Now concentrate again on David's lyrics. What at first sounds like pointless rambling eventually coheres into snapshots of humanistic genius: haunted houses and Jerry Lee Lewis and the mindfuck bizarro dialogue on the fifth song. Each song sounds like "a set of stairs falling down a set of stairs," to quote some obnoxious hyperbolizer of ancient lore. Summary: this album is FUNNY-SCARY while all following Pere Ubu albums are FUNNY-STUPID.

drazy@gatecity.com
Good suggestion; I'll give it another try. I've played this for people who either demand me to turn it off or get all excited about how brilliant it is. I'm in Middle America on this one: don't know what to think about it. The funny thing is, I've had over ten years to try figure Dub Housing out and I'm still on the fence. And here I thought that if you "got" Captain Beefheart, everything else fell into place...

landonmoblo@attbi.com
hey you need to listen to this again. I checked it out from the library (the safest way to explore music) and it is far and away the best shit put out in 20-years; I say "they" even though I think Dave is the only OG member here. Anyway, if it's hooks you seem to be longing for (and it really seems so), they're all over the place! And its really weird, too! And it's hook-laden and weird but in a successful way that works for them like the first record! And the second, for that matter, which really doesn't deserve to be panned, especially if you're into bizarre anglo dub a'la Flying Lizards or Cabaret Voltaire, which you just might be! And if you're not, who cares! Anyone else should! At least an 8.

BillyOzark@aol.com
Now that sounds swell. Now that sounds swell. This record is the best soundtrack to the path of righteous madness that I know. Whoa nelly. My preferred Pere Ubu album, and the one that does credit to the book. Once it gets on my turntable i can't peel if off . And Canada snatched those hockey golds in Salt Lake City. ... go lick your own peyote button, Lucas Fusebox. Now that sounds swell.

nerd.orange@mail.inet.hr
do you hear that sound? listen... ...yes, it's the sound of you breaking my heart. dub housing is my favourite ubu record. extremely insane and dark piece of shit. i love its every blip and scratch and yodel.

isalo120@hotmail.com
My thoughts? First the recording of facts; 1. I bought 390 degrees of simulated stereo when I was a junior in high school in the unfortunate year of 1983. It became my favorite record? Pretty much. 2. Next I bought the Modern Dance, which was good, but the studio! versions were not up to the live versions. 3. Then I bought Dub Housing, which even back then was written up as their greatest? Not in the Rolling Stone Album guide (1st ed.) in which the reviewer said "pretentious art-rock, not excused (?) by the singers' supposed friendship with Johnny Rotten." (or something damn ! similar) Dub Housing was awarded no stars out of five. ;Who wrote that? a further fact; 4. He no longer writes for Bloated Stone, and I doubt he works in the music business, being so out of touch, the poor unfortunate. And that rag he wrote for, Rogan's Bone, so good at whitewashing their own history. While Bean Dong Doris is busy cumming in his own face about X its good to remember they originally gave Under the Big Black Sun one star. Then they gave it four. In the 2nd edition book. Or was that four in the magazine and one in the book? You would think that such essential listening, shoo-ins for the "Hall ov Fame", making music that "matters", would always get good reviews, or at least, consistent reviews.

FIVE

Now they do. The taste maker pseud mag editors agree on the legends they will sell and a bad review is buried. An immature mistake by someone who couldn't read Dipstick Traipses because that torture wasn't yet conceived but now he can see the ballet.

So I listened to Dub Housing about fifty times in ten years. I liked the cover better than the music, I think. I didn't dislike it. In fact I could groove on Codex and Caligari's Mirror, but anything less than 390 degrees part II wouldn't satisfy me. I listened to the D Thomas solo album Variations on a Theme more often than that (a great album, by the way) (perhaps I have the title wrong? Theme? I haven't heard THAT in 10 years. Not too mention an hour of Thomas solo accapella in a N. Hollywood radio station 1984(?)85(?) I let some jerk off Misfits (of all the stupidities) fan borrow. No, worse than that, I FORCED IT ON HIM. My one of a kind impossible to replace cassette that shit for brains never returned to me I HOPE he burns in hell and I WOULD give up cigarettes for a week to have back).

Then I listened to it zero times for six or seven years because I didn't have a working turntable.

Now I have it on CD. I say it's a great album. A twenty-year slow-burning fuse. Now it's there when you need it. A reason to live.

My question is; Why hang out with Mayonnaise? and What kind of Dork would brag about knowing Johnny Rotten?

thepublicimage79@hotmail.com
No real melodies? We're definitely not listening to the same album. I honestly don't get what the big deal is here - I think that if you liked "The Modern Dance," you should like "Dub Housing" just as much. It's still very entrenched in rock standards - Scott Krauss is still playing backbeats on most of the songs, after all. Tom Herman is still playing riffs. I can catch distinct melodies in all of the songs (yes, even "Thriller!" - listen to the bass - that's a melody, sure enough, and it goes well with the guitar slides; though that overbearing synth noise at the end is irritating and the piece as a whole feels quite directionless. I guess it's meant to act as atmosphere, or some kind of weirdo intermission). Though everyone talks about David Thomas's hooting and glue-sniff arias on this album, and after that graduate to Herman's guitar and Ravenstine's by now truly insane synth stylings, the star of the album is certainly Tony Maimone. The basslines in all of these songs are phenomenal - I always found myself drawn to the bass whenever I listened in the past, and it still holds true. If you listen to only the guitar and soprano sax on "Dub Housing," you're missing the point - Maimone's bass is the lead instrument. If you actually listen to the album, you'll find that Maimone is usually the one guiding everyone through the bizarre changes and the one maintaining the catchiest melody - which is very catchy indeed. Highlights of the album include "Navvy," with Thomas's ecstatic lyrics and vocal ("I got these arms 'n legs that flipflop! I have desire! Freedom!") and Maimone's high-register bass line, "Dub Housing," the truly warped Beach Boys-meets-Beefheart riff of "Ubu Dance Party," the terrifying "Codex," and of course "I Will Wait" and the stunning "Drinking Wine Spodyody" (almost no one in the world would have even conceived of that rhythmic approach, let alone the bassline). This is a great album that you should give another listen to, if you've had difficulty with it. It is really worth getting into - one of the best inversions of rock conventions ever recorded. And it does rock out. Just not all of the time.

Billdude
After falling in love with "The Modern Dance" I really really wanted to hear this on the grounds that it was "darker," I thought I'd get a whole album of "Humor Me" which is the best song on TMD. The album really does continue the debut's gradual descent into urban creepy/surreal darkness; the whole album pretty much has the vibe of "Sentimental Journey" and "Humor Me." What I have to say is a warning: I think this is a really really good album but I hated it at first. It's a very hard album to get into, but it happened--I picked it up in November and it sounds really good while driving (or walking) around in the city at night in the cold so now I totally associate it with that kind of environment particularly when no one's around. I'd have probably given it a lower score than you did at first, but as you said about "Trout Mask Replica," it takes you a beat to realize that EVERY song has a "melody." All of them have patterns going on. It really isn't "just dicking around"--no, no, there's a hook in every song, even "Thriller!". Not that you have to like it or anything, but eventually that dark vibe coupled with the hooks makes it apparent why this album has picked up so much critical acclaim from the Pitchfork/Lester Bangs/Christgau crowd over the years (and such poor sales.) (Also, not that you have to listen to those critics I just mentioned--I think Bangs is overrated and Christgau writes like a total twank.) It also becomes apparent, as you described "Trout Mask Replica" as being, how well all four of the guys with instruments are working together on this album; it's NOT just Allen Ravenstine handling the work as some reviews claim. Scott Krauss's drumming even reminds me of Stewart Copeland on a few tracks (listen to the "crack crack crack" in the back of "Thriller!" or the careful hi hats on the title track.) Tom Herman has quite a few tricks up his sleeve too. David Thomas is David Thomas, I don't see what he does on this album that's any more annoying than on the debut except maybe "Caligari's Mirror." There is also some "ugliness" to be overcome, but gradually the "ugliness" seems to make sense for depicting alienation or whatever it was they wanted to do--I reviled "Codex" as one of the worst, ugliest, most coldly sterile sounding songs I've ever heard since it sounds like a guy who got flushed down a hospital toilet and is now dying and moaning in the sewer, but now I think it communicates that feeling pretty damn well (and check out the sad little piano coda!)

Also it has a great great album cover. Fits the album's sound BEAUTIFULLY. To all potential listeners be warned, this is a tough nut to crack but every song can be catchy if you let it! And it is definitely dark, surreal, underground and creepy.

Except "Blow Daddy-o," which is absolutely worthless. "I Will Wait" is crap, too. The album gets a 9 on your scale, IMO. Never a 10, that's reserved for the debut. Not that you have to change your grade, but this album just needs to be packaged with a "hard listen" warning.

stevec@ricochetdesign.co.uk
Six out of ten? Now this needs a correction. This is altogether a darker, more experimental album than 'The Modern Dance'. The first album was still recognisably a rockist affair, albeit from a deconstructionist's textbook. 'Dub Housing' moves on and reconstructs an alien music that is heavy on atmosphere, space and sheer otherness. I don't honestly think it sounds like anyone else, it's almost as if it was music made by film directors - there is a great deal of imagery in these songs. This stuff is complex for sure but there's nothing wasted, no idle experimentation - it's really quite enjoyable and no track/mood is alike. As an example of a band breaking new ground, completely uninvolved in prevailing tastes, and with a vision of putting on to record the decay of the industrial age meeting the uncertain gleam of the future (as it was in 1978), I claim this to be a masterpiece, simply one of the best records of all time. Thirty years on and you still might not be ready for this: 11 out of 10.

Add your thoughts?

New Picnic Time – Ubu Projex 1979.
Rating = 7

The band on here this one album has started to move into even more abstractical musitictical territories, with most of the melodies hinging on a bass line and some off-color guitar cranklings – meantime, the keyboardist just makes noise and the singer sounds like a fat child molester "getting' it on" with Gary Coleman like Gordon Fell did that time. The best songs sound really smart and exciting – loose as hell like The Fall (yay!) while still allowing a nice singalongable melody to squeeze through the ruckus jams – but too much of the record veers into experimental know-nothing. Screwing around with noises that aren't terribly interesting to listen to. "A Small Dark Cloud" for example. Nothing happens there. It's small, yes, and maybe slightly dark but it's certainly not a cloud. No rain comes out of it or anything. Except the rain of tears you experience as you survey the dibilitated state of our once strong nation of Islam. This self-indulgent streak would get even worse when Mayonnaise Thompson joined the band just one year later. Hold on! Let me go get my Book of Hilarious Shark Jokes! Wait right here!

Okay I'm back. Why did the shark cross the road?

To get to the other tide!!!!!

Reader Comments

specializedvideos@yahoo.com
Dub Housing may not be the masterpiece everyone says, but it is a very good album and I can't believe you give this piece of arty twadle a higher rating. This album is possibly the worst album ever. anybody that gets any entertainment value from this has been taking far too many drugs.

Add your thoughts?

Terminal Tower - Twin/Tone 1985.
Rating = 8

An archival collection, nonlp singles & b sides 1975-1980. Contains the incredible Ubu classic "30 Seconds Over Tokyo" and parallels their career shift from experimental rockers to smooth poppers, which is weird considering that they were actually still experimental rockers in 1980 and didn't become smooth poppers for another 9 years or so. Isn't that weird? Man, that's just crazy odd!

I'm still freaked out by it. I can't get over how just plain bizarre it is. Jeez, I mean. Hoo!

I have nothing more to report. The album has lots of good songs on it, but a few that are so listener-friendly, they can only be considered dippasointing condisering Ure Pubu's flank-grabbing nut sack of funny noises usually wielded like a battle-axe during those economically tight Carter years.

Remember that show Carter Country? I don't. Did they show tits?

Reader Comments

InMyEyes82@aol.com (Zach English)
Actually I've never been too fond of "...Tokyo." The proto-Sabbath lick and plodding tempos are really pretty leaden and I hate how that radio feedback makes my wall vibrate. But "Heart of Darkness" and (especially) "Final Solution" might be the two greatest rock songs ever recorded. These songs are so incredible in so many ways: sonically, lyrically, rhythmically, as historical archetypes for Sonic Youth and Pavement. "Darkness" is a mixture of big beat boogie and Midwestern hate punk, effectively rendering the Coppola film and the Conrad book irrelevant. "Final Solution" shows that these guys were never part of that plastic, disingenuous "quirk rock" contingent defined by Devo and the Cars; it's every bit as scary and funny and sexy as the Stooges at their Dionysian peak, but much more literate and aesthetically sharp. Again, with Ubu, you've got to admit to yourself that the later stuff will always sound crummy compared with their earlier material, so the last two/three songs here are probably useless. Though I should probably admit that I've never actually heard this particular album (all of my Ubu experiences have been gleaned off of the Holy Grail 'Datapanik' box set).

stephen-cleary@lineone.net
Apart from the box set, where else can you hear Final Solution? - one of the most powerful singles ever released in the entire history of rock. The other tracks on the album - mainly their initial independently-marketed singles - are equally brilliant. Pere Ubu should be mentioned in the same breath as the Beach Boys or the VU - their originality, ambition and achievement are comparable. The Modern Dance is good but the best early stuff is here. I envy anyone hearing these tracks for the first time. Come on you Yanks, get into the real good stuff - you created it.

specializedvideos@yahoo.com
"Final Solution" and "Heart of Darkness" are two of the best songs ever. "My Dark Ages" is a step below and "30 Seconds Over Tokyo" fits in nicely, but besides "Not Happy", a very entertaining change of pace, the rest is crap.

irontyrant@earthlink.net (Michael Grefski)
In My Eyes could not be more correct..."Final Solution" is perhaps in my top ten songs ever and I can't even really explain why. In fact all of Terminal Tower....which is actually an expansion of the EP "Datapanik In The Year Zero" is just awesome...maybe as good as The Pink Fairies "Kings Of Oblivion." Maybe, maybe not.

thepublicimage79@hotmail.com
I don't have all of this - I only have slightly more than half of it, but that doesn't matter.

Basically, if you decided to make a CD with six tracks from Terminal Tower and six tracks from The Modern Dance, you would have - absolutely and unquestionably - one of the great rock records, a record chock-full of tremendous songwriting, revolutionary and unique experimentation, and searingly intense performances.

So how's about this:

1 30 Seconds Over Tokyo
2 Heart of Darkness
3 Final Solution
4 Cloud 149
5 Untitled ("The Modern Dance" - alternate version)
6 Heaven
7 Non-Alignment Pact
8 Street Waves
9 Chinese Radiation
10 Life Stinks
11 Real World
12 Humor Me

Now...THAT is an album. I think I need to get the rest of Terminal Tower before I review it.

Add your thoughts?


The Art Of Walking - Rough Trade 1980.
Rating = 5

Mayo Thompson from The Red Crayola has now joined the band, and the music has become experimental to the point of not even really being pop or rock music at all. More than half of these songs are aggravating little bloopy smishity smish avant jazz type deals that purposely never go anywhere (except for the occasional foray into Annoyingasshitville). Most be some sort of artistic statement. At very least, it's an attempt to separate themselves from "normal" pop/rock conventions by defying laws of 4/4 rhythms, melodies, reasons to exist, etc. They say it best themselves with the song title "Lost In Art."

I say it best with my song title "Please Stop Making That Irritating Noise, You Fucking Assholes."

When they actually DO get around to playing music ("Go" and "Birdies" and... hmm. That's really about it!), they sound as appealingly quirky and wired as on their first album. The other "songs" are a poopshoot though. Sometimes you find yourself mesmerized by their repetitive key-jabbing, noise-flapping and cymbal-smashing. Other times, you fall asleep, miss your job interview and wind up a homeless, worthless loser like Marilyn Manson will be in a couple of years.

This is an outlet for discussion, so let's discuss something important. Here's what I'd like to discuss: Hate. Why is it so goddamned hard to control our own personal hate? I get so bitter about the stupidest things. A guy with a mohawk makes me bitter. WHY? WHY SHOULD I CARE??? A nerdy guy who talks about himself too much makes me so angry I trash him behind his back endlessly. WHY DO I CARE? Why can't I just ignore it and be happy about all the good things in my life? Now it's your turn. YOU TELL ME ABOUT HATE AND WHY IT'S SO HARD TO CONTROL. Because I ain't no frickin' social scientist and/or proctologist (though I do enjoy sticking my finger up guys' asses as a little joke for laughs and such).

Reader Comments

rcbmc@bentonrea.com (Frances Burger)
What do I hate? I hate it when people trash on music that I love. See, I'm very fond of music in general, and like anyone, I associate my taste with my identity and my intelligence, and people who come along and say that things I enjoy are horrible and worthless not only make me feel less intelligent and discriminating but make it harder for me to continue to appreciate them, so I enjoy life in general that much less, because I can't enjoy the music I love.

And you, in particular, Mr. Prindle, are more guilty of that than most- I love your writing style, but 90% of the time, your taste in music is totally fucked. I'm not going to bother defending Marilyn Manson, Genesis, Crowded House, or Monster Magnet, but I will say that I love them, and when you go talking about what shit they are and then practically deifying stuff I can't stand like The Ramones and Kiss, that hurts, confuses, and irritates me.

Not that I'm asking you to stop, of course, that's a risk I take when I choose to read music criticism. If I were saying this instead of writing it, it would be with the utmost cheerfully neutral geniality.

And you actually sort of liked a couple of Mr. TP songs, gotta give you credit for that. I can't believe you didn't like "Feline Privates," though.

And I do like it when you criticize Limp Bizkit.

richbunnell@home.com
I agree with Frances' response in a very large way and echo his sentiments. The kind of people whom I can't stand are people who live in their own little musical "sphere" and trash everything that lies outside of it. I myself generally stay in the area of late '70s/early '80s postpunk and new wave, but that doesn't mean that I'm going to trash Dylan, the Stones, or other "rootsy" bands, even though I personally don't listen to them very much at this point. On this site, I've seen fans of roots-rock who hate all prog, fans of prog who hate all metal, fans of metal who hate everything that's played below 300 bpm, etc, etc. Though everyone is obviously going to have his or her musical preferences, I just wish they'd stop pigeonholing entire genres of music as crap in the process. I personally don't care for rap at all, but I'm not going to post flames and death threats to the Beastie Boys and Public Enemy pages declaring the genre to be completely worthless.

I also hate being told what I should and shouldn't like based on some unspoken musical creed that all of the cool people in the music world have adopted. I shouldn't like Depeche Mode or the Pet Shop Boys because they're wussy synth-pop. I shouldn't like Steely Dan because they're old-fogey '70s AOR. I shouldn't like Peter Gabriel because he's a pretentious old fart. I shouldn't like They Might Be Giants because they're nerds with nasal voices. I shouldn't like Radiohead because they're a highly-rated critic's darling. Blah blah blah. The fact remains that I love all of these artists, and it really irks me that the supposedly-educated reviewing community is telling me why I shouldn't.

Finally, people annoy me who seem to hate music chronically. I listen to every album I buy or borrow with an open mind and try to assess its good points, but there seem to be some people who go straight for an album's bad points and wind up hating 90% of the friggin' music they listen to. Why listen to music if you're going to be completely pessimistic about it? Isn't it more fun to like things than to hate them?

stephen-cleary@lineone.net
'Horses', sung by Mayo Thompson, is good.

rottingcarrot@hotmail.com (Brion Briggsh)
good question prindle. I don't know either but here are my thoughts on the subject. I believe hate is just a natural emotion that humans have to deal with. I also believe that resorting to hate is a way to comprimise situations we don't want to analyse. For example, when we try to understand militant islamics it is easy for us to come to the conclusion that the muslim religion is a hateful organization that condones the killing of inocent people. This is so easy to believe because: terrorists use islam as an excuse for genocide and hate, muslum people constantly burn the american flag, and the fact that most conflicts in the world today involve muslims. Because these facts are upfront and obvious it is easy for us to believe we KNOW what islam is all about: sand niggers intent on destroying AAAAAmeeeeeeerica! and we gots to stand up and show the rag heads what were made of!

Unfortunately things aren't that simple. If we want to truely understand the situation we must look at it from all sides. We must realise the fact that the muslim religion does not condone violence, most muslim countries are incredibly poor and the majority of the people are uneducated (and probably don't understand their religion), the governments of these countries do not follow islamic laws and are corrupt do to greed and fear of losing power, islamic terrorists counter the fundamental basis of their religion.

So we shouldn't hate osama bin laden? Of course we should! I believe human society should come together and hate child molesters, senseless murderers, men who rape their 12 year old daughters, etc. And (once unquestionable proof is provided) we should BRUTALLY destroy them in creative ways!

My point is that when we see people (maralyn manson, britney spears, the cast of friends, ally macbeal, fred durst, etc.) doing things that we find completely assanon we (myself included) only look at the bad aspects and this can cause the extreme emotion of hate. But if we CHOOSE to act in an enlightened manner and rethink the situation in a logical way we realize that there is no reason to have such destructive emotions when thinking about something so insignificant. Unfortunately acting in an enlightened way in the face of strong emotions requires a lot of effort so I suggest that you save your enlightened thoughts for important issues and go on hating insignificant things (like the god damned car commercial i just fucking saw. Ford can suck my fucking siphilis infested dick for thinking that im stupid enough to find their mother fucking comercials funny. FUCK ford trucks FUCK THEM UP THEIR STUPID EXAUST PIPES. FUCK THEM!!!!!)

specializedvideos@yahoo.com
It is more fun to like things than hate them, but I hate this album. How can a band that has produced some incredible music release such tuneless, precious garbage. I changed my mind this is even worse than New Picnic Time. The worst album ever recorded.

slayerrob@yahoo.com (Rob DelMedico)
Some of you need to grow a spine then. There's a difference between something being outside your sphere of taste and thinking something is actually musically deficient. By assuming that the album reviewer falls into the former rather than the latter just on the basis that he didn't like the album, you are guilty of the same "elitism" you accused him of, making you hypocrites.

thepublicimage79@hotmail.com
I'd give it a six. Half of the songs are very good. "Go," "Misery Goats," "Loop," "Rounder," "Birdies," and "Horses" are all insane and swinging, very fun for fans of Ubu. "Rhapsody In Pink" is also just funny - I don't know, it makes me laugh. But the other songs are just utterly dreadful. Hideous avant-noise toilet drippings. This band was capable of so much more - I mean, they included two different versions of "Arabia?" Just awful. I mean, even Mayo Thompson hates this stuff - "I persist in thinking their best records are Datapanik [In The Year Zero EP] and Dub Housing. And the records that I'm on--Art of Walking has a few good tunes, and Song of the Boring Man, as I call it, is a seriously flawed record in my view." What more of a condemnation do you need than that? If Mayo Thompson thinks it's too scattershot and avant-garde, you're really in trouble. (Note: I actually do like Thompson's output - "God Bless The Red Krayola" is a brilliant and farsighted album - but some of his stuff is just astoundingly horrendous.) So this is a pretty bad Ubu record. But some of these songs are really good. I would recommend downloading at least "Rounder."

3dsunglasses@gmail.com
that guy that says the ramones suck is a dumbass. is he just angry that they can make a good song without making it difficult to digest

carbona not glue is an AWESOME FUCKING SONG, yet theres only like 5 chords and 25 words, and its still awesome and fun to listen to

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One Man Drives While The Other Man Screams (Live 1978-1981) - Rough Trade 1989
Rating = 6

Reader Comments

thepublicimage79@hotmail.com
Best review you've ever done. No question.

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Song Of The Bailing Man - Rough Trade 1982.
Rating = 6

This one's just as noise-reliant as the last one, but tight rhythms at least give the surrounding noise less of an abstract, so-far-off-the-cuff-it's-flying-across-the-room-and-poking-some-guy-in-the-ear feeling. David sounds like he's completely out of his mind, yelping out what I guess he would consider vocal "melodies" (and others would consider the sing-songy jibberish of a guy who talks to rocks). And yes, there are more of what you might call "MUSICAL IDEAS" this time around, from the neato bass line of "Petrified" to the creepy repetitive vacuum cleaner noise of "Stormy Weather" around the mailbox to the ridiculously cartoonish "Big Ed's Used Farms" right on down the big smelly hill of marijuana to the wicked cool Asian-sounding vibe/xylophone-type theme in "A Day Such As This." Certainly not every single weirdo idea will appeal to the general population, but at least it sounds like they're trying to create art in the form of pop/rock music again, rather than just all making swishy, dumb noises at the same time so Knitting Factory patrons will consider them worthy of note.

Speaking of personal bitterness, what's with those Knitting Factory douchebags? John Zorn really isn't that interesting a human being. Bill Laswell? Sure! He produced a Ramones album! MJ Harris? Hell yeah! He was in Napalm Death during their grindiest of grindcore days! But John Zorn? Isn't he just some dirty old man who farts into his instrument and nobs every starstruck Japanese girl he can get his hands on? Sure he is. Let's accept this unconfirmed accusation and move on to my brilliant, incisive The Tenement Year review.

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The Tenement Year - Enigma 1988.
Rating = 4

Boring indie rock band plays generic melodies you've heard a million times before. Piles synthesizer noises on top. Pretends it's doing something interesting. It's not. NOT AT ALL. Very sad attempt to rekindle the anarchic rockin' buzzin' magic of their debut. But there's no mystical forces at work here. Just gutless and creatively empty musicians, a guy making a bunch of senseless racket on a stupid electronic machine and David Thomas hemming and quivering away on top. The few times that they strike riches ("George Had A Hat" and "Miss You" especially), it almost seems like an accident.

Why do critics like this album so much? To me, this just sounds like American Everyband Circa 1987 with irritating crap sprinkled all over it. Are my ears simply a figment of my imagination?

Reader Comments

isalo120@hotmail.com
I agree with you Mark.

Tenement Year Blows.

noparkingpictures@sbcglobal.net
Yeah, your ears are a fragment of my regurgitation. Pere Ubu hits it square once in a while, which is more than most bands (or people) can say. "George Had A Hat" is pure joy.

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Cloudland - Fontana 1989.
Rating = 5

No longer even pretending to be avant-garde, DT here presents PU as a straightforward pop/rock band. Like Bossanova-era Pixies but much less interesting and more predictable! Like, the last Pererererererererererer Ubu album was like the Bodeans or some generic guitary crap, and this one is like Crowded House or some generic smooth keyboardy slick crap. Still, DT shows that his PMAs haven't DITD, because several of these RGSs are RGSs!!!

I changed my mind; it sucks. Starts off tasty as a patootie with shining pop gems aflutter in the audial breeze, but the entire second half (aside from the excellent final track!) should be thrown off a cliff and then, as it lies bleeding to death in the canyon, a guy should walk up and kick it in its shitpop balls.

Mmmm, Shitpop Balls. Isn't that that candy that killed the little fuckhead from the Life Cereal commercial?

Or am I thinking of Skittles?

More like SHITtles, if you ask me!!!

That's not true. I actually like Skittles quite a bit.

I guess the album is okay.

Reader Comments

richbunnell@home.com
Whew...you had me worried there for a second with that Skittles comment. I would've had to kill you.

Screw those Life cereal commercials. "Unless they're WEIRD, your kids will eat it!" What the hell kind of a slogan is that? Were they trying to alienate every child in America who didn't happen to like cereal that looked and tasted like a bunch of cut-up tree branches?

drazy@gatecity.com
It's a pop album, not doubt, but it's a pop album with Dave at the helm. No matter what he does (or who's producing) it's still gonna sound like Pere Ubu. If memory serves me right, Debbie Gibson, Tiffany, and their ilk were all over radio around about this time. I'd take "Waiting For Mary" over "Electric Youth" any motherfucking day of the week. Taste the rainbow and give it a seven.

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Worlds In Collision - Fontana 1991.
Rating = 6

Same style as the last album, but slightly more consistent with its smooth poppy throwaway goodness. I can't imagine any oldtimey Pere Ubu fans being too much into this. There's just not much going on aside from some catchy singalong melodies every once in a blue moon. It's kind of the same sensation as watching a romantic comedy. It may make you smile and keep you occupied for a short period of time, but you're not going to remember it an hour after it's over.

But then again, most Fall fans started hating them once they got slick and I grew to LOVE all that pop/dance crap (btw, The Fall hasn't been slick for about seven or eight years now, in case you were all worried and curious about it). So I'm a-supposer that your enjoyment of these Pere Ubu records is going to be based much more on how much you ALREADY like the band than on the actual quality of the work, which I personally think is pretty negligible. Again, some of the melodies activate the emotional sensors of the brain, but not as well as primo U2 or something could.

Reader Comments

UBUPear@aol.com
This is where I started with Pere Ubu (when I saw them on Letterman) and then I worked myself backwards. This is still my fave Pere Ubu CD. Great melodies, great guitar lines. I think it holds as an entire work better than any of the other Ubu albums. Oh, Catherine is one of my favorite songs of all time. It is more pop (by ubu standards), but still has that edge. I give this 8 1/2. You can find it in bargain basements everywhere.

jorgestudios@yahoo.com
Mr. Prindle, don't compare Pere Ubu to U2. I'm not even that big of an Ubu fan outside the first two records, but honestly, U2? I firmly believe that U2 is one of the worst things to happen to humanity, next to organized religion, the holocaust, slavery, and the republican party. Pere Ubu just smashes bottles and has a really fat guy that sings like a kazoo.

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Story Of My Life - Imago 1993.
Rating = 6

I'll certainly give 'em that they try to keep their sound diverse, alternating between accordians, heavy grunge guitar, jazzy Robert Quine-like noodle guitars, keyboard flourishes, ad infinity! Nice mix too, with lots of different interesting elements popping in and out of the mix -- not in a haphazard 'Pere Ubu'-type way, but a well-produced Heartbeat City sort of major label-sounding thingamajig failed hit single manner. So even when the melody is nothing special, it SEEMS like something speckle!

Let me break the action for a second -- I was just at the Barnes & Noble (or, as Jello Biafra "hilariously" calls it, "Buns & Nubile") and I ran across a new book by Robert Christgau. That man is a fuck. A worthless fuck. Read what he says about Unrest. He doesn't GET Unrest, so he panics and trashes their fans as idiots who need to "get a life." He's a fool. A pathetic old man. Ignore every word he says.

Now back to the review! The Perry Ooboos write some songs that appeal to me, and some songs that don't. I especially don't like when they try to be funny (as in the title track here). I find it stupid and self-indulgent, my own self. But again, if you like Frank Black but would prefer that he were more normal, this Pera (Pere era, ok that didn't work as well as I'd hoped) might very well appeal to Ewe!

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Ray Gun Suitcase - Cooking Vinyl 1995.
Rating = 5

Enough smoothness. Back to a harder-drummin', tea-whistle-in-a-compost rock-and-noises sound. Still awfully hit-and-piss songwriting though, even if "Three Things" sounds just like The Fall. Which it does.

I'm seriously considering just selling all my Pere Ubu CDs on ebay. Do you want them?

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Pennsylvania - Tim/Kerr 1998
Rating = 6

It's the same story every time. I stick it in thinking it's gonna be great, the first few minutes pump and throb with ecstacy and then SQUIRT! It peters out into a sticky puddle of bad music about halfway through. Don't know why the Ubus can't keep it up for a full 45 minutes. There's just not enough meat to these songs! The best songs sound like Fall copies (which is why they're so good!) and the others have like a two-note bass line, a boring couple of chords and David Thomas bouncing off the walls like John Wayne Gacy in his clown uneyform. What a disappointing excuse for a band. I thought they had so many good albums, but what I was remembering was collections of 4 or 5 great songs surrounded by loads of nothing. Drat casserole. At least they're better than Monster Magnet probably!

Sorry I lost interest in the sex metaphor. It just seemed so childish, and I'm a grown man with political beliefs involving incest and tobacco. Would it make you feel better if I ended my review with the exclamation "Fiddle-de-penis!"? Because if it would, I would do that. Please send me an email letting me know if that would make you feel better, and include five dollars in the text of the email. I'll print it up and spend it at my local brewery where they make and sell carbonated piss.

At least, when I sneak into the kitchen they do. Heeeeeeeeee! Doodle-oodle-oodle-oodle-oodle!

(That was the sound of me peeing into the beer. Sorry if I'm being a little sophisticated here; I thought I'd try adding a sexy adult edge to my literature).

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St. Arkansas - SpinArt 2002
Rating = 7

Best Pere Ubu album in 22 years. Heck, maybe since their debut. Really Fall-esque, if you're into The Fall (and let's not forget to remember to forget that Pere Ubu and The Fall had certain similarities in their early days too!), with a really DARK rock mood -- all mid-fi production, stinging guitar, dead but melodic bass, and drums mixed so raw and boxy as to be some guy in his basement pumping rhythmic material via satellite to Pere Ubu in their fancy recording studio (an impression supported by the fact that half the time he never actually bothers playing a backbeat, instead just shuffling around dicking his feet together). There are NO moments of tepid synth adult pop and only a few examples of their ever-aggravating "avant-garde anti-music" side, leaving fans of melody with an awful lot of suspenseful Dragnet/"Muzorewi's Daughter"-style surf/spy and '60s garage crank to fuck out to. You heard me! "To fuck out to!"

Do you guys keep dreaming that you never actually finished high school and now you're 31 and you have to go back and finish one grade even though you graduated college in December '94 and have held full-time jobs for eight years? I had yet another one last night. Satan was in one of my classes (in disguise, of course!) and kept making horrible things happen. However, one really cool thing that came out of it is that my Independent Study teacher Mrs. Butler learned how to become invisible whenever she wanted to. She demonstrated for me, and told me that I could do it too if I concentrated. That was years ago though, and has nothing to do with the dream I had last night.

So yes -- St. Arkansas features some of the greatest Pere Ubu compositions ever, comparable even to "Final Solution," "Eight Years Until I Get To Tokyo" and that sort of thing. All minor-key, in-your-face, recorded-in-the-city-streets-late-at-night murky bassed-up tone-dead film noir music for detectives smoking cigarettes in the dark shadows with their trenchcoats pulled up tight. A few less sluggish artsy moments and you've got a hit single to wow 'em in Liverfield. But what is it with Pere Ubu's sudden obsession with American states? First Pennsylvania, now Arkansas --- what's next, Pere Ubu Plays The Greatest Hits of Chicago?!?!

I doubt it. Chicago's not a state. But if it were, can you IMAGINE!? That would mean that all the other cities in Illinois would be up for grabs! First come, first served! I get the Poster Children!

No hang on, the Poster Children aren't a city/band -- there I go mixing up my c's and sh's again!

On a related note, would you mind spraying some Lysol around? Your shunt smells like a dead fic shovered in cit.

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Why I Hate Women - Smog Veil 2006
Rating = 7

Here's my impression of this album: "Hay, I'm a drumbeat. Would you like to play a dark, forboding bass line along with me?" "Heck yeah, that'd be great. Here I go." "Hey guys, I like the murky, moody sound you've got there, and I'm a guitar. Can I add some Americana-style Gun Club/Thin White Ropey midwestern noir lines to what you're playing?" "Say, that sounds great. Do that!" "Okay, I'm doing that now!" "Hey wow, we all sound really good together! Let's try some faster punkier tunes too." "Wow, we're really 'tearing it up' now, huh?" "Yes, I think we're all in agreeance that this is some great music we're playing. In fact, let's invite a few of our friends over to add a few parts - a saxophone, a harmonica, a trumpet, you know that sort of thing." "Yeah, that sounds great!" "Excellent. Look, now we have 45 minutes of really good, dark music noir! Sure, a few of the songs aren't that great, but a lot of them really have 'IT,' don't they?" "God yes! We've got some powerful melancholy material, some pained angst, a bit of moody, a shot of blues, and even a peppy uptempo tune to close out the whole shebing-bong!" "I know! And it's all mixed really raw and real and dark and threatening. Good for us, I say! Let's all go home to our homes for the evening." "I agree. Good night, everybody!"

(*three hours pass*)

"Hay I'm a gigantic tone-deaf buffoon walking into a recording studio late at night. I wonder what's on these tapes? Holy mackarel, this stuff sounds great! I think I'll warble some atonal nonsense on top, if I can manage to emit any noise through the tiny breathing passageway buried beneath my two gargantuan, flabby cheeks." "Say! I'm a bunch of annoying squiggly synthesizer noises, and I have to tell ya -- what you're doing right now is sounding GREAT! It's sounding GREAT!" "Thanks man. Say! I've got an idea. Why don't you take a big squiggly shit in the foreground of every single track? But whatever you do - DON'T PAY ANY ATTENTION AT ALL TO THE ACTUAL KEY OR EMOTIONAL TONE OF THE SONG!" "Hay man, that's a GREAT idea! I'll DO it!" "Wow, this sounds great! We're artists!" "I agree! We took boring old 'rock music' and with no effort whatsoever (and I do mean 'no effort whatsoever') turned it into 'experimental art'!" "Quick, let's release it before the other guys come back."

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"Long Live Pere Ubu!" (with Sarah Jane Morris) - Hearpen 2009
Rating = 6

In 1896, Alfred Jarry wrote a play called Ubu Roi whose main character was a loathsome scoundrel named "Pere Ubu." In 1975, a Cleveland rock band decided to name themselves after this character. Then in 2009, this very same band created a theatrical production and radio play based on the very play from which they took their name!!!! Do you realize how self-referential this is!? It would be like Tiny Tim writing a mini-series based on A Christmas Carol! Or Steely Dan directing a feature film based on The Naked Lunch! Or Fall Out Boy performing an amateur puppet show about a bowel movement! Beating all these artists at none of their games, Pere Ubu then released this production's original songs on a CD entitled Long Live Pere Ubu With Sarah Jane Morris that also has some punctuation in the title and stuff.

I was poised to hate this album based on three enormously conceited quotes attributed to David Thomas in the press material:

1. "It is, in fact, the only punk record that's been made in the last 30 years."
2. "It's long past time for rock music to grow up and move past the simpering platitudes or Tom Joad cant that passes for serious thought."
3. "If you're not going to listen to this with the same effort you'd devote to a literary novel, you're wasting your time."

However, after listening to the record, I'm no longer sure that he wasn't being facetious with these statements. It's a very funny record, and these comments -- if taken seriously -- really don't fit its tone at all. However, if he was being serious, I think we need to make the following conclusions:

1. He's never heard Blood, Guts And Pussy.
2. He's never read any Bad Religion lyrics.
3. He's aware that Long Live Pere Ubu! sounds like complete shit unless you listen closely enough to follow the story.

I would describe this record as combining the typical late-era Pere Ubu sound (guitar-based alt-rock and senseless synthesizer squibbling) with Broadway-style songwriting, absurdist dialogue, Tom Waitsy Three-Penny Opera and martial drumwork. Much of the story is told through speech or speak-singing, with David Thomas portraying Pere Ubu, weirdly "old man"-voiced Sarah Jane Morris playing his over-ambitious wife, and the other band members contributing additional voices when necessary. And silly? Oh, the funny!

The story is based on Francis Bacon's MacBeth, with Mere Ubu convincing her husband Pere to kill the King of Poland so that he can rule the country. After he does so, he ignores all her advice, kills the Nobles and destroys the country's finances before being forced out of the country by an invading Russian army. But check out some of these great lines:

Mere: "You deserve the Crown of Poland. Kill them all. Kill them all. Kill them all. Have a ball."
Pere: "If I were King, I'd have a big sombrero!"

Pere (on how to assassinate the King of Poland): "We should poison the King with a turd in his lunch!"

Pere (on his "success" handling Poland's economy): "As we were saying, the finances are going passably well. A considerable number of dogs wearing wool socks prowl the streets every morning."

Pere (giving his army a 'pep' talk prior to the Russian invasion): "We will carry the day! And we must be clear on this point -- by 'we,' I mean me."

Mere (pretending to be an Angel, speaking to her delusional husband): "Are you married, Mr. Ubu?"
Pere: "Yes. To a horror!"
Mere: "She's not unfaithful to you!"
Pere: "No one would have her!"
Mere: "She doesn't drink!"
Pere: "Not since I hid the key to the wine cellar."
Mere: "Your wife is a paragon, and you are a monster. You killed Venceslas!"
Pere: "That's not my fault! She promised me a big sombrero."

Some Gay Sailor In The Last Track: "Set the foreski- uh, foresail!"

Musically it takes a little while to get going, but by mid-album you hit some wonderfully bizarre rhythms, hooky bass lines and interestingly nervous guitar riffs. Still, the emphasis is clearly on the lyrics and vocals and, as David Thomas warned, "If you're not going to listen to this with the same effort you'd devote to a literary novel, you're wasting your time." But how often do you get the urge to pull out a literary novel that you've already read? Is "Long Live Pere Ubu!" intended to be listened to a single time and then filed away next to Thing-Fish for the next two decades? On the one hand, there are some great and evocative pieces of music on here -- particularly the mid-album four-shot of melodic bass-driven "Bring Me The Head," punky "Road To Reason," sorrowful and anxious "Slowly I Turn" and angry rock riffer "Watching The Pigeons." On the other hand, you have to ignore endless reams of dialogue and speech-singing (not to mention BELCHING in at least two songs) to focus on any of it.

I'm very glad I listened to it twice -- first to focus on the music, then to follow the story -- but will I ever listen to it again?

Before you answer that, keep in mind that I haven't listened to any Pere Ubu album after reviewing it. In fact, I sold most of the pieces of shit on ebay years ago, the fuckers!

I mean, I'm really happy for them and I'm gonna let them finish, but The Fall put out one of the best albums of all time!

Best,
Kanye West
Holder, Guinness Book World Record for "Least Talented Human Being Ever To Receive A Recording Contract"

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