at a glance...

Hometown: Cleveland, OH
First Recordings: 1975

Members:
David Thomas -vocals, radio, swirl horn
Jim Jones -acoustic guitar, rat pedal
Eric Drew Feldman -upright piano
Tony Maimone -acoustic guitar, electric bass
Scott Krauss -drums, percussion

Bands In The Family:
David Thomas & Two Pale Boys, David Thomas and foreigners, Home & Garden, The Red Krayola, The Golden Palominos

Notes:
Pere Ubu formed from the ashes of Rocket From The Tombs, a little-known Cleveland avant-garage band led by vocalist David Thomas and guitarist Peter Laughner. The two, intent on preserving a couple of RFTT songs, convened a handful of fellow rock and roll misfits to record a single. That session yielded "30 Seconds Over Tokyo" and "Heart of Darkness," perhaps the greatest single made anywhere in the USA during the '70s. Suitably heartened, the band soldiered on through innumerable line-ups (Thomas leads the band today; Laughner died as a consequence of excessive personal habits a couple years after the band began), periodic break-ups, and myriad stylistic changes.

It's funny how one's memory of a concert can differ from a recording of that same event. I was present when this album was recorded on Pearl Harbor Day, 1991, and my memory is of a splendid and joyous performance, one of my favorite Pere Ubu shows ever. This CD is good, but not that good.

What's missing? For a start, the non-musical circumstances that always influence one's experience of a show; the drink in your hand, the friends by your side, the visual aspects of a performance. And band leader David Thomas is nothing if not a striking performer; he looks like Jackie Gleason in "The Honeymooners" (and even pays tribute to Gleason on "Busman's Honeymoon") and sounds like a love-struck billy goat. But what is missing from this particular CD is the context that made the show stand apart from all the Ubu shows I saw around the same time. It was recorded on an off night during a tour on which the band supported the Pixies, and came one night after I saw them do a particularly rote regurgitation of songs from their less than impressive Worlds In Collision record. But this show was different; it was billed as "acoustic" (or as acoustic as you can get when the guitar player has a fuzz box and the bassist is plugged in) and played before a devoted audience in a small club.

The band took requests, bantered with the audience and each other, and very evidently enjoyed what they were doing. Obviously, you can't see that on a CD, but you can hear the quintet digging into older songs, b-sides, and a few of the better tracks from Worlds... with fire and wit. Thomas, in particular, sounds like he's having a ball, yelping his way through the jaunty rocker "Misery Goats" and hosting "My Theory of Spontaneous Simultude" like a an old-time TV variety show host.