In praise of Pere Ubu

Of course Pere Ubu are the living proof of what a ridiculous misnomer that is because of course they actually pre-date punk.

So presumably that must make them proto-post-punk.

Or something.

Similar bands?

Well no-one really sounds like them; but you should certainly try Bauhaus, Can, Nick Cave / The Birthday Party, James Chance, Ornette Coleman, John Coltrane, dEUS, Einsturzende Neubauten, The Fall, Faust, Half Japanese, Joy Division, Lydia Lunch, MC5, Charles Mingus, The Minutemen, Neu, Public Image Ltd, The Residents, Roxy Music, Silver Apples, Siouxsie & The Banshees, Sonic Youth, The Stooges, Suicide, Sun Ra, Television, Velvet Underground, Tom Waits, Scott Walker, Wire, Frank Zappa, John Zorn and most of all Captain Beefheart, if you haven't already because.... well, you just should, OK?

On the other hand, if you've just discovered Pere Ubu you've got plenty of listening to do with the rest of their catalogue plus David Thomas's solo stuff and other side projects etc.

Take a look here if you haven't already.

But I should warn you not to expect too much that sounds like "The Modern Dance" unfortunately

I've been enjoying the Simply Saucer record of late. There are points of connection there too...

Terminal Tower and New Picnic Time are also pretty much essential - my advice is just to go straight for the Datapanik In The Year Zero boxset!

After that, I'd probably recommend the David Thomas "Monster" box-set (how about this for a bargain!) and "Mirror Man" before anything by reformed Ubu.

1. David Thomas became the musical prime mover in the band, allowing him to indulge in his predilection for Zappa/Henry Cow avant-rock at the expense of the rock 'n' roll elements of the original band.

2. Tom Herman left but, worse than that, he was replaced by Mayo Thompson, a man with an aversion to making records that anyone might want to listen to

That is the place to start. Don't worry if 'New Picnic Time' or 'Songs of the Bailing Man' records don't really sit with you the first couple of listens, they kind of sneak in the back door of your head after awhile.

"OK, how's it look? Not too good."

390 Degrees... *Volume 2* is on the boxset. I believe it's different to the standalone one.

Smog Veil have a current series of Pre Ubu and early Cleveland scene material that looks like it should be worth investigating.
Various future Ubuites in earlier bands etc

Today is one of many days when “Final Solution” is the best piece of music ever recorded.

David Thomas, June 14 1953 - April 23 2025.

David Lynn Thomas, lead singer of Pere Ubu, Rocket From The Tombs and multiple solo projex, has died after a long illness.

On Wednesday, April 23 2025, he died in his home town of Brighton & Hove, with his wife and youngest step-daughter by his side. MC5 were playing on the radio. He will ultimately be returned to his home, the farm in Pennsylvania, where he insisted he was to be “thrown in the barn.”

David Thomas and his band have been recording a new album. He knew it was to be his last. We will endeavour to continue with mixing and finalising the new album so that his last music is available to all. Aside from that, he left instruction that the work should continue to catalog all the tapes from live shows via the official bandcamp page. His autobiography was nearly completed and we will finish that for him. Pere Ubu’s Patreon will continue as a community, run by communex.

We’ll leave you with his own words, which sums up who he was better than we can -

“My name is David Fucking Thomas… and I’m the lead singer of the best fucking rock and roll band in the world.”
(Frigo Documentary)

Long Live Pere Ubu.

Dang. Link for this:

https://www.facebook.com/100045053471162/posts/1230593861785718/?mibextid=rS40aB7S9Ucbxw6v

Suddenly remembering meeting David Thomas at UCLA’s radio station in 1991 and asking him what he thought of Peter Murphy’s version of this. He had two objections: PM took out some of the guitar freakery and he made the lyrics understandable. RIP indeed.

Total legend.

How I wish we could take this moment
and freeze it
To come back again and again and again
To hold it to the light
Turn it in our hands
To study all the angles
To find out how
and Why
it's gotta go the way that it goes

Ah fuck

sorry to hear this, have enjoyed the band since my mid teens. They were among the bands that the Birthday Party got compared to a lot.
So got Dub Housing and New Picnic Time for Xmas 83. Had to wait for The Modern Dance.
Thomas was playing live in London quite a bit at the time so got to see him doing non rock centric versions of songs from his solo career and I think a couple of Ubu songs.
Anyway do love the band.
So sorry to hear of his passing.

Didn't know he lived in Brighton btw.

RIP. This is an odd coincedence because 'Non-Alignment Pact' has been in my head all week.

Not a surprise to hear this but saddening all the same. He was, shall we say, sui generis. First two Ubu albums plus the early singles comp remain some of the best music of the 1970s. The solo records he made while Ubu were on hiatus shouldn't be slept on either, when he was collaborating with Red Krayola and Henry Cow people among others.

Consistently excellent, and the most recent albums and performances have been compelling and strange. the performances with an extraordinary amount of energy despite managing illness over a number of years. RIP.

That 1988-1994 period when they courted college radio and MTV produced some bat shit greatness too.

:-(

rip, wish i could’ve seen them, had the chance to see them in greenwich village in 2018 but had to bail

i only saw him once, in 1989. was taken aback by how amusing he was. what a loss.

Thomas in anthemic mode on Breath is triumphant

Not a shock, but massively deflating & sad, the missives coming via the official channels which had been semi-regular had gone quiet recently, so I started to worry. Though also this isn't the only time they've gone silent for a bit and he appeared on the other side.

Since I was 16 and I first heard "Heart of Darkness" they've been a constant companion.

Maybe something that doesn't get noted enough that Thomas, for all his physical unlikeliness, all his eccentricities is the single most magnetic and charismatic front person I have ever seen, even when he was chair-bound and hardly moving. And his voice never wavered, even at the Chicago show I saw when he nearly died afterward.

I had a handful of very brief interactions with him, he was always some level of prickly, once at semi-private gig where he played solo (and also fronted the Suicide Commandos, which was obv awesome) I had chance to lavish praise on him and pepper him with questions for a few minutes. He answered dutifully and then said very firmly "ok I am going to stop talking to you now" and just stepped a few feet away from me. Ha!

RIP

Also I owe Doom & Gloom a big overview of the bootleg series I should get on that

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

He never recovered from Robert Christgau's quip at a 2009 Pop Conference about Britney recording more memorable music in the last decade than Thomas had.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hYqvtHzr48

Incredible performance I've watched a hundred times. RIP.

I don't listen to this band that often, but when I do it often strikes me that they are one of those platonic ideal bands, where as I am listening I think, this is music made just for me.

Pere Ubu as the American equivalent of Wire -- an art project in rock drag.

I was late to the Pere Ubu game. I remembered hearing about how the band's own label wouldn't pay the expenses to play Letterman but I don't think I actually listened to the band until Geffen released the Datapanik In The Year Zero Box Set, which is probably my favorite box set by anyone.

I did catch Rocket From The Tombs in 2015. At the show, David handed me a $5 bill and asked me to buy him a beer. I asked what kind; he said "just beer."

I recorded the band playing "Sonic Reducer," or rather not playing it. Thomas cantankerously chided the guitarist for being off-key and he left the stage in a huff after two aborted attempts.

"Sonic Reducer" and "30 Seconds Over Tokyo" are two of my favorite songs ever. I even started a thread about it here:
OPO: Rocket From The Tombs --- Dead Boys "Sonic Reducer" vs Pere Ubu "30 Seconds Over Tokyo"

RIP you curmudgeon.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hFTwPdOOAc

xp Colin Newman is also a Brighton resident, wonder if they ever hung out together?

Only just seen this news, very sad. The Modern Dance was a massive record for 18yo me, side two especially resonated so hard. Never saw Ubu live but did see Rocket From The Tombs wome years back. My one real regret is that i didn't think to call my gardening business 'Crocus Behemoth' instead of the lame name i ended up with. RIP DT

I kind of thought of them as Roxy Music if everyone was Brian Eno.

I kind of thought of them as Roxy Music if everyone was Brian Eno.

Holy hell!

The longer I dwell on ILM, the longer my must-listen list grows.

He never recovered from Robert Christgau's quip at a 2009 Pop Conference about Britney recording more memorable music in the last decade than Thomas had.

I interviewed him for The Wire in 2006 and he had thoughts about her:

“First we were preIndustrial, then we were Industrial, then we were post-Industrial,” he scoffs. “First we were this, then we were the other thing. It’s all baloney, and the reason there’s so much confusion about it is, we’re mainstream rock. It’s not my fault that the rest of the world has gone off into a bizarre parallel universe where they find comfort in experimental music.”

If that statement seems counterintuitive, it’s because of the dominant, and obfuscatory, role marketing jargon has achieved in artistic discourse. Thomas, having been a professional musician for more than 30 years, sees things clearly and simply – a group playing three-chord songs with guitar, bass, drums and occasional synth is a rock group, not some avant garde art project. It’s those who make their music with computers, in the least organic manner possible, who are the strange ones, to him.

“In the early 70s,” he says, “the evolution of rock was very, very, very obvious. Analogue synthesizers and concrete sound and this whole world of synthesized sound was entering into the music. Various people had various strategies, and it wasn’t one thing. It was studio techniques and other things. All of it, to us, was coming to this juncture. And it was very obvious to us that this was what rock music was supposed to be, to make use of this powerful, relatively new narrative voice. That’s why I’ve always said that we are in the mainstream. It’s people like Eminem or Britney Spears who are the weird experimentalists. They are avant garde. They are dealing with weird alternative worlds. If you put our view of the human condition alongside Britney Spears’s, one of them is extremely experimental and weird, and it’s Ms Spears’.”

An account of that 2009 panel here: http://www.shaviro.com/Blog/?p=743

And at the end of the Q&A, Robert Christgau maintained (not nastily, but just in a matter-of-fact tone) that in the last ten years, Britney Spears had produced better music than David Thomas; Thomas nodded and shrugged, but didn’t respond (instead, the moderator called for a few moments of silence so that everybody could cool down).

RIP. One of the first live shows I went to was on their 25th anniversary tour in 2000 when I was 16. It was an incredible show that sent me down the path of music nerdery I am still on today.

Listening to The Shape of Things, a very early Ubu tape from April of '76 — endlessly remarkable how ahead of virtually everyone else they were at this point. And then they managed to stay ahead for the next several years! Thomas was one of the great catalysts, RIP.

only saw him once with the reformed rocket from the tombs in the early 2000s, but he was a delightfully terrifying stage presence.

He's been discussing his end for years; originally he said his death would be unannounced and the group would continue without him, with a "groomed" substitute singer. He's looked unwell for ages, even before his medical problems caused touring issues.

I guess my first exposure was the video for "We Have the Technology" and then I took The Tenement Year out of the library, and I don't think it made much sense to me although I would have already heard Beefheart by then. A while later I heard Dub Housing and for awhile felt like I was living in the world that music created.

I don't know about Ubu vs. Britney but what I've heard of the post-St. Arkansas records seemed very willed, as if he was forcing an unnatural creativity. But I guess there's a time and a taste for that kind of art as well.

Introducing the Central Park Summerstage audience to his "bandmates":

(holds up a theremin)
"This is Leon Theremin's device"
(holds up a towel)
"This is a towel"

He was funny onstage in 2002, complaining the venue made him wear shoes onstage for the first time in years. He had a strange "microphone vest" that allowed him to accentuate the various players by approaching their amps.

My college radio station got a copy of St. Arkansas which I remember trying to swindle out of the programming director -- perhaps the last new Pere Ubu album with any promo push?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnN0Q9xEG20

Also I owe Doom & Gloom a big overview of the bootleg series I should get on that

YES

xpost You know, thank you for reminding me of that -- in that same conversation I mentioned some posts back re Peter Murphy's cover, Thomas did say he enjoyed the Living Colour version.

RIP. Nobody sounded like them. Those early singles invented about 5 genres.

“What a world, what a big world, but a world to be drowned in.”

One of those rare bands that went from "What the hell is this crap" to "All time favorite".

I walked out on a solo David Thomas show in the 90s, regret that now. But somehow there was always an earworm, always someone I respected praising them, that drew me back in to keep trying, until one day I just bought the Datapanik box and that was it, sent me down a long journey to his solo work and subsequent LPs.

An immense impact on music, post-punk before punk indeed.

I bought Song of the Bailing Man when I was 14 or so. It was in a cutout bin and I had no idea what it would sound like, but the back cover was covered in lyrics that were fun and strange and made me laugh...and I think each song listed the instruments as well, so that mix of trumpet and everything else made me wonder about it as well. And then I put it on.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bw9DsEay6Ak

I remember seeing him in the mid-naughties (?) with a full band while he wore a giant orange plastic apron and played a piano accordion. The soundman couldn't get it exactly the way he wanted and toward the end of the set he launched into an extended surrealist rant at him and his abilities which felt real but I've always wondered whether it was part of the show.

He did a similar "I'm just going to talk to someone else" to me as Chris B after he had soundchecked

"Mainstream rock," eh? Well, I get his explanation---but can't forget the tag he provided to his fellow rock writers back in CLE: avant garage. Goes for Ubu, my fave Ubu anyway, among other favorite things. There's never been all that much of it on the good side of the driveway, despite best efforts, but it's worth looking for. Thanks, David/Crocus.

i know it's just a typo and it'll get fixed soon but this is currently in pitchfork's obit:
https://imgur.com/a/xJphZMS

rock music is all about moving heavy black boxes from one side of town to the other.

or something like that.

He was/is a hero.

saw him twice: late 90's, Pere ubu did a show at the Knitting Factory with Wayne Kramer sitting in for the whole show: absolutely thrilling; and in 2015, Rocket from the Tombs was at the venue FMU has on the street level of its building in Jersey City, and the band had this younger metalhead on the drums: Thomas was WITHERING towards this guy for the whole show, humiliating him, and I wondered if this guy, staring daggers at Thomas all the while, had previously heard of or liked this band, of if it was just a gig, helmed by some weirdo in a wheelchair.

I don't know about Ubu vs. Britney but what I've heard of the post-St. Arkansas records seemed very willed, as if he was forcing an unnatural creativity. But I guess there's a time and a taste for that kind of art as well.

some of it has definitely been more successful than other parts, but i do think recently he was feeling extremely creatively ambitious. in a sense - the more disconnected he became from the world of music, the more out there the creative landscape he was operating in. that was mainly visible in his surprisingly frequent performances, unless until recently, and the outputs of that period are most visible on the last two lps: i think Trouble on Big Beat Street is great and if you’ve got the physical cd of The Long Goodbye the live disc 2 cd recorded at Montreuil is really something else.

i saw them play quite a lot - both the moon unit improvised gigs (not really improv in the genre sense) where DT had a sense of the creative landscapes - geographical, cultural, psychic - he wanted to explore and wrestled and wrangled with his musicians as they explored it live, which would turn into more structured Pere Ubu albums and gigs.

performances were generally a cut above the albums, a disastrous recent-ish gig in canterbury with a v temporary return of chris cutler aside, chris cutler just couldn’t get with what DT was aiming for. the audience was tittering at DT’s frustration but it was genuine - he was upset and rightly so as to anyone with ears it was self evidently bad - and it remains a bit of mystery.

that aside performances would sink deep deep into his vision - set out in some of the books like hieroglyphs and carnival of souls, which are well worth reading.

he was as several people have said a really compelling front man - v funny, properly mordant, with great timing.

i still recall being mesmerised by their performance of dark when i first saw them, and heart of darkness, non alignment pact (all of the modern dance really) and final solution are of course all time hits.

it’s really great he was making music right up to the end, and i’m looking forward to the album when it’s released.

oh when i heard this off the last album with its refrain of “don’t cry when you see me go” even then it felt like it would be apposite at some point in the not too distant future. sadly that time is now

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8D9EYDSRIw

oh and whoever mentioned upthread his underrated solo stuff - the track The Long Rain off Blake the Messenger is wonderful imo. purged from youtube and other places apparently but do have a hunt for it!

*Blame the Messenger

lol I just fired up Non-Alignment Pact and had to immediately turn it off because my cat (sleeping on the couch next to me) was very distressed.

i hope you were telling them THEY’D BETTER SIGN IT.

There are a handful of things I can't really listen to around the cats, like Autechre. I'll have to try out Pere Ubu tonight.

i usually don't listen to "non-alignment pact" with company haha but when i do i skip 30 seconds (don't hate me david thomas)

lol I just fired up Non-Alignment Pact and had to immediately turn it off because my cat (sleeping on the couch next to me) was very distressed.

― paper plans (tipsy mothra),

A couple hundred people at noon sang "Codex" in front of Biscayne Bay. It rippled.

*Blame the Messenger

― Fizzles, Thursday, 24 April 2025 19:44 (twenty-seven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Ta for new dn.

lol. i did think oh that’s apt…

Pretty shitty going to bed after hearing the news following a long day. I enjoyed Pere Ubu to the very end - their three were quite good IMHO - but the earliest records are epochal. And the more accessible late '80s, early '90s records are wonderful too - I play them more than any other Pere Ubu record except for the early singles and those first three LP's.

There were a couple of years where I was living with an incredibly conservative relative who would incessantly complain about anything I'd put on. This extended to Frank Sinatra and Joni Mitchell - she openly hated their voices. But there were three and only three instances where she didn't complain: Elvis Presley (who she loved) and U2's The Joshua Tree, both of which she complimented, and....Pere Ubu's The Modern Dance which played in its entirety while she sat in the same room doing some kind of chore. Not a word or disproving look came out.

*their last three albums were quite good

I suppose you could say that you temporarily, and unconsciously, signed a non-alignment pact with this person. It might not have been a final solution, and you didn't penetrate her heart of darkness. Something something dub housing, something sentimental journey.

I'm surprised he lasted. I remember reading an interview with him about a decade ago in which he had to be helped onto the stage. There's a flavour of it in this Reddit post from seven years ago.

"After one or two more songs the young drummer gets up, walks over to DT, and talks into his ear. It takes about 10 minutes as a few members of the band pull DT up, lower him onto a second chair, and then transfer him back to the first, where he sprawls out and catches his breath. While this is happening an audience member caringly yells, "David you don’t have to do this. We love you. You don’t have to perform for these people." DT tells the man to shut up and the man backs off, "all right, all right." DT’s body is now fully visible in its final incarnation. His legs are like tree trunks and he can only shift them by picking them up with both hands. Above his waist he is only sagging skin. Only his hands look strong and he gestures quickly when he jokes and tells stories. He is dressed in all black with a blazer and red suspenders. Somebody must dress him. Somebody must do everything for him."

Imagine the remains of Pere Ubu teaming up with whatever remains of The Fall. The stories they could share.

I've always wanted to visit Tokyo. Not because I'm interested in the place. But because I have the opening paragraph of the eventual blog post mapped out. It would be a string of Pete Ubu references, starting with "Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo". Which is presumably something that happens when you fly to Tokyo. Unless the airliner lands outside Tokyo. Or unless it goes over Tokyo real fast.

granted it was more than 20 years ago now, but Thomas definitely played up being a bit feeble when I saw him — I think he even got onstage using a cane ... but then absolutely exploded once the music kicked in. it was great theater.

Modern Dance and Dub Housing huge albums for me; never saw Pere Ubu live, but saw RFTT and DT+the two pale boys, both were awesome. RIP legend

Saw him back in the 90s with 2 Pale Boys in some crappy room behind Peckham town hall. Halfway through the performance a dog suddenly wandered up onto the stage between songs and disappeared into the wings. Everyone had a good laugh about it. Then to David's huge displeasure the dog's geezerish owner appeared from somewhere and followed it across the stage. I think he worked there? They got into a big ding-dong and David spent the rest of the gig fuming about the whole thing while everyone tried to hide their amusement.

Rocket From The Tombs reunion show at Maxwell's, June 9, 2003, with Richard Lloyd expertly filling in for the late Peter Laughner.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_LJM2V-XRg0

A fun 'Birdtown' live in Cleveland, with Richard Thompson. For all you fellow Lakewoodites:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95hU6ictWgg

another one who saw Rocket From The Tombs but never Pere Ubu. I foolishly thought I'd get round to it eventually. RIP

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXx5F7OyI7s

lol "we're going to take your tape!"

Keith Moliné's post about working with Thomas over the last three decades is a wonderful read. Would also recommend these posts by Roshi Nasehi and Rolo McGinty -- collectively I think they speak to a way that American audiences possibly missed just how active and busy he kept based over in the UK all this time.

A buddy of mine had heard of the band but never heard them, so I played him a bunch of their '70s stuff. He thought it was super cool, of course, so I told him how wild it was for the band to eventually take a turn for the poppy. He wanted me to play him an example of that, so I was bummed (though maybe not shocked) to learn that those late'80s/early '90s albums (Cloudland, Worlds in Collision, Story of My Life) were afaict not being streamed.

I noticed that too. The original CD's are cheap so get them while demand is relatively low. (The 2007 reissues are much more, but they also may change the albums quite a bit.)

There's also this boxed set, available as a digital download: https://pereubumusic.bandcamp.com/album/les-haricots-sont-pas-sal-s-1987-1991. Unfortunately Story of My Life wasn't included due to licensing issues, but it does include The Tenement Year (also absent from streaming services) as well as 10 tracks they're calling "songs from The Lost Album," which are really a collection of b-sides from that era plus two tracks from Cloudland that aren't part of the Cloudland tracklist in this set, for some reason. Some of the b-sides are GREAT -- there's at least one ("Wine Dark Sparks") that's probably better that anything on Story of My Life, fwiw.

Tremendous Ubu / Thomas tribute happening now on KSPC. The show will also be archived.

https://spinitron.com/KSPC/

I can't play this song often enough:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCvgEdyk3UI

The most conventional video they ever shot:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-fmQTBZIMU

Their transformation was very reminiscent, sonically, of Wire's.

25 years ago i got that 5cd monster box set that cost the same as an album and a half, insanely good deal for that time. would have been worth it just for monster walks the winter lake (still my favorite thing i’ve heard by him!) and 2 pale boys cover of surfer girl.