Pere Ubu's "classic" lineup live circa 1977. Left to right: Tom Herman, Scott Krauss, David Thomas, Allen Ravenstine and Tony Maimone.
"I consider Pere Ubu to be a pop band, totally the same as Wings, or The Music Explosion or The Archies. Its just that we are doing more modern and therefore better pop music."
—David Thomas, from an interview with Search & Destroy magazine in 1977
Pere Ubu are an American rock band active since the mid-1970s. Founded after the collapse of seminal Cleveland protopunk group Rocket From the Tombs (and taking its name from the infamous play Ubu Roi), Pere Ubu have had several lineup changes, with the only consistent member being frontman and primary songwriter David Thomas. They were also pioneers of Indie Rock, self-releasing four singles before signing with a major label.
The band refers to their unique sound as "avant-garage" - the mixture of straightforward American Garage Rock with the abstract synthesized weirdness of Avant-Garde Music, and could be considered a Trope Maker for Post-Punk. Despite their relative obscurity, their music has been critically acclaimed and highly influential, and records such as The Modern Dance are considered classics.
Details on the band's discography, lyrics, and more can be found at their website Ubu Projex
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Studio Discography:
- The Modern Dance (1978)
- Dub Housing (1978)
- New Picnic Time (1979)
- The Art of Walking (1980)
- Song of the Bailing Man (1982)
- The Tenement Year (1988)
- Cloudland (1989)
- Worlds in Collision (1991)
- Story of My Life (1993)
- Ray Gun Suitcase (1995)
- Pennsylvania (1998)
- St. Arkansas (2002)
- Why I Hate Women note (2006)
- Long Live Père Ubu! (2009)
- Lady from Shanghai (2013)
- Carnival of Souls (2014)
- 20 Years in a Montana Missile Silo (2017)
- The Long Goodbye (2019)
- Trouble on Big Beat Street (2023)
The Modern Tropes:
- Careful with That Axe: David screams the entire time on "Life Stinks", devolving into Angrish at one point.
- Concept Album: According to David Thomas, every one of the band's albums from Dub Housing onwards is one of these. Though what exactly an album is about is always abstract.From this page: For example, the album The Tenement Year might be described as about Leaving Home. Nowhere is that made plain. The songs, instead, are about Leaving Home physically or spiritually or metaphysically. They may be about places to be left or poignant memories of events in those places. It may be about the nature of a Leaving. On and on.
- Cover Version: Only a few.
- A flexidisc released with CLE magazine includes the band's 1976 live version of The Seeds' Garage Rock classic "Pushin' Too Hard". (This was later reissued on the Boxed Set version of Datapanik in the Year Zero.)
- "Life Stinks" is something of a self-cover version. It originated with Rocket from the Tombs, a pre-Ubu band that included both Peter Laughner (who wrote the song) and David Thomas. Laughner was also an early member of Ubu, but left after playing on their first two singles due to Creative Differences; he remained an active member of the Cleveland music scene until his death in 1977.
- Mayo Thompson's first album with the band, The Art of Walking, includes a version of his song "Horses", which he first recorded for his 1969 solo album Corky's Debt to His Father.
- Raygun Suitcase includes a rendition of The Beach Boys' "Surfer Girl".
- Trouble on Big Beat Street includes a cover of The Osmonds' "Crazy Horses".
- Electronic Music: Ubu has made synthesized sound effects an important part of its music from the beginning.
- He's Back!: "The Fabulous Sequel!" (and by extension, the album New Picnic Time) start with David announcing "It's me again! Hey, hey, it's me again!"
- I Am the Band: David Thomas is the group's founder and only constant member, and the one who controls the musical direction of each album. By his own admission, Pere Ubu isn't exactly a democracy.
- I Need a Freaking Drink: Quoted verbatim (minus the word "freaking") in "Life Stinks".
- Intentionally Awkward Title: Why I Hate Women. Thomas has explained that "It comes from the title of a [Jim] Thompson novel he never wrote."
- Large Ham: David Thomas is what would have happened if BRIAN BLESSED was the frontman of a rock band. Just watch him here as he manages to steal the scene from Deborah Harry with his manic antics.
- Lighter and Softer: Cloudland and Worlds in Collision have the band's catchiest, most radio-friendly songs and slickest production.
- Noise Rock: Not a straight example of the genre, but much of The Modern Dance is proto-noise. The album's elements include non-musical electronic effects, saxophone playing influenced by free jazz, and guitar work that ranges from Chuck Berry riffs to atonal screeching.
- Obsession Song: "Codex" is a passive example.I think about you all the time
I did this and I went there
and I think about you all of the time.
...
Step after step
Block after block
I think about you. - Post-Punk: Considered the Ur-Example, although the band emerged at roughly the same time as Punk Rock itself.
- Revolving Door Band: As noted, David Thomas is the only consistent member of the band over its decades-long history. However, some musicians and lineups have lasted longer than others.
- Shout-Out: David Thomas loves to title his songs after films, books, or already-existing songs, usually from The '50s and The '60s:
- "30 Seconds Over Tokyo"
- "Heart of Darkness"
- "Sentimental Journey"
- "Caligari's Mirror"
- "Drinking Wine Spodyody" (after "Sticks" McGee and His Buddies' 1949 blues hit "Drinkin' Wine Spo-Dee-O-Dee")
- "West Side Story"
- "Goodnite Irene" (after the American folk standard "Goodnight, Irene")
- "Beach Boys"
- "Woolie Bullie" (after "Wooly Bully" by Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs)
- "Fortunate Son"
- "Final Solution". No, the song is not about the trope, Nazi Germany or The Holocaust; the title is a reference to "The Final Problem", the famous Sherlock Holmes story about the detective's confrontation with Professor Moriarty at Reichenbach Falls. The actual lyric is a teen angst anthem a la Eddie Cochran's "Summertime Blues".
- The albums Lady From Shanghai, Carnival of Souls, and The Long Goodbye.
- Ubu has used the title Datapanik in the Year Zero twice — first for a 12" EP of early singles in 1978, then for a career-spanning Boxed Set that was first released in 1996. The title is derived from the 1962 Roger Corman film Panic in Year Zero.
- The narrator of "Life Stinks" says (or rather screams) that "I like The Kinks!"
- Mudhoney's 2023 album Plastic Eternity includes "Tom Herman's Hermits", a tribute to Ubu's original lead guitarist which also mentions, yes, Herman's Hermits.
- Something Something Leonard Bernstein:
- At least 95% of Ubu's oeuvre is indecipherable due to David Thomas' squawking, blubbering vocal delivery and the band's bizarre, often esoteric lyrics.
- For added fun, track down a Pere Ubu record, try writing down what you hear, then go to their website and look up the lyrics. Compare results.
- Ubu started to include lyrics on their releases in The '80s, but stopped a few years later. Band leader David Thomas explained his reasons in the liner notes of the 1995 release Raygun Suitcase:We printed lyrics in 1982 because we couldn't think of anything to put on the back cover of Song of the Bailing Man. Then compact discs happened and it seemed you had to fill up those booklets. We allowed ourselves to become confused. We drifted with the herd. No more. To print lyrics is a Bad Thing.
