Sunday, April 27, 2025

Song(s) of the Day # 4,074 Pere Ubu

 


ART ROCK !!! WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR !!! Well plenty frankly. And David Thomas is a pretty good place to start. . He was lead singer of Pere Ubu. The Cleveland noise assault. Who made and released their debut album The Modern Dance in 1978. One of the albums that genuinely changed me.When I came upon it a few years later. When I needed change. And direction.

On Friday, hearing the news of Thomas' passing I listened to it. Now I'm going to listen to it again. Not the kind of record I generally go for first thing. But I suspect it's going to energise me. Here we go. 'I'm gonna make a deal with you girl !!!'

Thomas or Crocus Behemoth was hardly a conventional Rock & Roll figure. Quite the opposite . If he turned up at the door brandishing a bunch of flowers, any right minded girl would surely have slammed the door in his face. But the interesting girls, the ones worth romancing are actually searching for guys like Thomas. The ones worth holding out for.. And pledging your emblem to. Planting your flag in their sand.

Pere Ubu and Television were bands that changed me. Tom Verlaine. Richard Hell. Richard Lloyd. Thomas, Allen Ravenstein. Lonely Planet Boys. And Peter Laughner. Just as Hell is the ghost that haunts Marquee Moon, so the restless spirit of Laughner stalks the restless urban wasteland of The Modern Dance. And makes it somehow different from anything they produced thereafter. You only produce one debut album of course. And Marquee Moon and The Modern Dance are as indelible statements as Rock & Roll has or will produce.They stand apart. 

Thomas is a remarkable figure. Perhaps the outstanding figure in Rock history who bridges the great Rock & Roll impulses. To rock and to make a lasting statement. His message, like Television's is a simple one. Be yourself ! And some said they weren't Punk. 

2 comments:

  1. The Modern Dance is incredible. A friend at university introduced me to it (as he did most things at the time). It still sounds like nothing else you've ever heard. The future. I was lucky to see them in the late 80s and 2010s. They were still pushing boundaries.

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  2. I imagine. I never saw them sadly.

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