They might have jokingly dubbed their music “avant-garage” and been lumped in with the punks, however they’ve proved an entity unto themselves. With their frontman David Thomas claiming they “refocused” prog rock within the 70s, in 2014 we requested: how prog are Pere Ubu?
Pere Ubu fixes issues – that’s what we do,” says Pere Ubu vocalist David Thomas on a video broadcast uploaded to their Ubu Projex web site. “The English prog rock scene was truncated by the company arrivistes of punk rock.
“I used to be decided that we have been going to repair that. In the actual world, the actual Intercourse Pistols was a band referred to as Henry Cow. It’s stated that Pere Ubu refocused rock music within the 70s, however in the actual world what we did was refocus prog rock. Carnival Of Souls then is the album that we do 40 years later. Perceive?”
Properly, not solely, we should admit, however we’re actually intrigued…
Shaped in 1975 in Cleveland, Ohio, Pere Ubu hit the UK scene with a triple whammy in 1978, their highly effective and darkish imaginative and prescient already absolutely shaped on Datapanik In The 12 months Zero, a group of early singles; their debut album The Trendy Dance, obtainable on import on Clean Information; and a second album, Dub Housing, launched on Chrysalis. “We knew it on the time that The Trendy Dance was such a brand new factor popping out of nowhere,” Thomas says.
Their type, which he later dubbed “avant-garage,” married the rock’n’roll clout of the MC5 with unpredictable currents of electronics and saxophone, all buckled into uncommon shapes and constructions. They carried a peculiar vein of darkish humour and absurdity into one thing ominous, jarring and terribly highly effective. “We aren’t experimental – we all know what works and what doesn’t,” says Thomas now, however they have been again then.
They’ve produced 14 albums, which have veered stylistically from the twin percussive complexities of The Tenement 12 months (1988), on which former Henry Cow drummer Chris Cutler teamed up with Scott Krause; the poppier Cloudland (1989); the eclectic, adventurous Ray Gun Suitcase (1995); and now Carnival Of Souls.
“What marks this band other than all the things else is the bravery of what they do,” says Ubu fan Matt Stevens of The Fierce And The Lifeless. “You possibly can outline prog within the nostalgic approach, of being steeped within the 70s. Or you may see it as an opportunity to push boundaries and check out one thing new. If Sure are icons of the previous, then Pere Ubu are heroes for the latter.”
Interviewing Thomas is as disconcerting as listening to the group’s music. He’s articulate and eager to clarify his idiosyncratic takes on the world, that are spiked with humour. He appears virtually diffident, however he can immediately flip prickly. “All journalists are scum,” he publicizes. “No offence. I was one myself.”
None taken. So might you develop in your views on prog and punk?
Pere Ubu songs don’t make a speck of sense, however there may be this natural wholeness to it
“The primary issues that come to thoughts about English musical traditions are the form of solo English folks voice of the early twentieth century, like Walter Pardon. After which Norma Waterson, Martin Carthy and Eliza Carthy, all of that. The second factor is English prog rock: Smooth Machine and Mild Big, Henry Cow, Van der Graaf Generator, Unimaginable String Band, Genesis.
“I don’t assume there may be something extra English than Smooth Machine,” he continues. “It screams ‘That is England!’ and I used to be all the time attracted by that. I bear in mind going to see plenty of these bands once they got here by Cleveland within the early 70s, so I feel that was a fantastic custom that principally was killed off.
“Every nationwide or racial group has their very own strengths and weaknesses, and one of many weaknesses of the British is that they deprecate their very own tradition. Henry Cow was doing completely revolutionary stuff with vastly proficient musicians and it had what I’d name an English naïve socialism to it. Not that you simply imagine in it, however rattling it, these individuals imagine – they’re robust!”
Thomas says that when punk broke, he was already one of many naysayers, prophesying that individuals would remorse it in years to return. One might need thought his group’s visceral music and its influences might need made it a reasonably shut relative – however evidently not.
“I like John Lydon; he’s executed fantastic work,” Thomas says. “However with the Intercourse Pistols it was extra of the English imperialist notion, the place the music wasn’t their music, it was the style and the looks and the floor issues that have been English. There’s no distinction between the Intercourse Pistols and Simon Cowell; and the entire notion of pop idolism is just punk taken to its logical conclusion, the place anyone can do it – we’re all proficient. Properly, fuckin’ hell, no!”
Thomas doesn’t need to be nostalgic about prog, however though artists like Peter Hammill, whom he admires, are nonetheless doing good work, he feels its heyday is gone. “It’s a voice from an especially robust geographical, temporal, cultural world that now not exists, but it surely does communicate to you and it has that Atlantean high quality to it.”
So was Thomas critical about “fixing prog rock?” “I’d counsel that not directly we do keep it up the spirit of it,” he nods. “Not in any stylistic approach. I imply, Pere Ubu is predicated over right here and is basically extra an English band at this level than American, but it surely’s nonetheless pushed by this Mid-western rock groove.
“When you sit down and actually analyse Pere Ubu songs, they don’t make a speck of sense, however there may be this natural wholeness to it – among the beats have been flipped round, dropped and picked up once more later and it’s a must to bear in mind all that, but it surely all sounds pure. I feel that’s a prog rock concept. However I wouldn’t need to exit and ‘pastiche’. It could be as false as some white band from Birmingham enjoying reggae,” he laughs..
The perennial Pere Ubu trademark – other than Thomas’ vocals – is their mixture of rock music and untempered synth enjoying. It began off in 1975 when Thomas and a bunch of “city pioneers,” as he calls them, moved from the suburbs into the run‑down interior metropolis of Cleveland and into a big home referred to as The Plaza. It was owned by Allen Ravenstine, who additionally owned a modified keyboard-less EML synthesizer, and joined the group principally as a result of “he made cool sounds and he was a cool man”.
Whereas Hawkwind used synths to evoke an image of outer house, Ravenstine’s enjoying conjured up the sound of roadworks, slamming doorways, TV interference, passing automobiles and howling wind. “We have been conscious of the potential of sound, of the issues the Velvets have been doing, Can and Neu! and the synthesizer teams of the day like Silver Apples and Beaver & Krause. A few of the native rock bands thought we have been morons,” Thomas says.
Now the group have two gamers of electronics: Robert Wheeler on EML synth and theremin, and Gagarin on digital electronics. Thomas is obsessed with this conflict of analogue and digital and in addition the introduction of a brand new timbre into the group, jazz clarinettist Darryl Boon.
Carnival Of Souls was initially a reside ‘underscore’ for a displaying of the 1962 horror movie of the identical title on the East London Movie Pageant 2013, though Thomas insists it’s not truly in regards to the movie. Musically, it’s a mixture of compact, aggressive songs like Golden Surf II and extra loosely structured, semi-improvised songs and unusual transmissions like Visions Of The Moon, with Thomas singing, ‘I reside in a field on the moon’. There’s a noir really feel in regards to the album, with quite a few lunar photographs, during which the star exerts one thing of a malign affect.
I feel that query, ‘What does it imply?’ is vital… It does imply one thing; there’s a very particular standpoint
Thomas mentions that he makes use of methods to maintain the musicians contemporary. “I mislead them and alter the goalposts on the final minute,” he shrugs. “[Bass guitarist] Michele [Temple] is good at working issues out, but when she’s labored it out an excessive amount of, I’ll say, ‘That’s not this music, that’s the opposite music‘, and, ‘For this I simply need you to play two notes’. And she or he’ll do it and it is going to be excellent. So that you construct up strategies of throwing the curveball of discomfort. It’s all the time uncomfortable in Pere Ubu. If it will get snug I alter it.”
The group’s title derives from a monstrous character dreamt up by French creator and playwright Alfred Jarry, who first appeared within the play Ubu Roi in 1896. Thomas is a fan of Jarry’s work because the founding father of ‘Pataphysics, the science of imaginary options, the place exceptions are favoured over the norm and the place absurdity is relished.’
On the Ubu Projex web site, Thomas writes that Carnival Of Souls is a few man who discards his garments, slips right into a river and watches the moon by way of the water. He additionally says it issues monkeys and strippers, after which imagines Peter Hammill in a George Clinton position fronting a white Funkadelic. We each giggle on the concept.
“Precisely!” Thomas continues. “However I can conceive of Peter Hammill being him, and if, on this alternate universe, that was this, then Pere Ubu is that this, after which this new album is that this.”
After I provide, then, that Thomas should be throwing in a number of crimson herrings in a pranksterish type of technique to individuals who need straightforward solutions to Carnival Of Souls, his response immediately turns into moderately heated. “When the album is completed, I take into consideration how I’m going to clarify what this implies. Properly, the way in which that you’d describe a non‑logical, anti‑logical work is to make use of one thing that’s in itself metaphorical or allegorical or non-logical.
“I feel that query, ‘What does it imply?’ is vital. It’s not my job, but it surely’s imagined to be your rattling job. It does imply one thing; there’s a very particular standpoint. Activate the rattling TV and they’re all monkeys and strippers. What’s X Issue however a bunch of monkeys?”
You possibly can hint a line from the very beginnings to Brian Wilson to Lou Reed… we’re nonetheless on that line
Given his assessments of well-liked tradition, it’s shocking to listen to Thomas declare that Pere Ubu are literally a mainstream act. “You possibly can hint a straight line from the very beginnings, let’s say Heartbreak Resort, to Brian Wilson to Lou Reed. Into the 70s there was a higher maturity of narrative, of the language of music and the event of approach. Every part was evolving and transferring ahead. Pere Ubu joined that straight line.
“This was not a very good course for firms to go in. Because of this they have been so delighted when punk got here alongside – as a result of then they bought to regurgitate this protected crap. We’re the mainstream, as a result of we’re nonetheless on the road. The remainder have gone like this,” he says sweeping his hand to 1 facet. “And that’s not our fault.”
