Pere Ubu was arguably the nerdiest nerd band to ever walk the earth. They made records so rife with oblique oddness as to make offerings by comparatively more celebrated weirdos like Devo and Talking Heads sound as daring as Supertramp. And like both Devo and Talking Heads, while Pere Ubu was certainly born “of” Punk, one would be hard-pressed to call them a Punk Band, or at least not in the more codified manner the term now implies. By the same token, you’d be equally hard-pressed to find a more Punk Rock opening line to a song than “Girls won’t touch me `cos I got a misdirection,” which ushered in their signature single, the unfortunately titled “Final Solution.”
The first several times I heard them – usually courtesy of fellow geeks – I found them difficult and shrill. I’m not sure when the penny finally dropped, but I finally managed to de-code Pere Ubu, and became a reverent acolyte, seeking out their further-flung recordings. Suffice to say, you couldn’t always find their stuff at your local Sam Goody.
I eventually tracked down copies of Ubu records like The Modern Dance, Terminal Tower and Dub Housing, each one sounding completely different from the album that preceded it. I remember putting a couple of Pere Ubu tracks – notably “30 Seconds over Tokyo” and “Sentimental Journey” -- on a mixtape for my friend Ed, and his girlfriend commenting, shortly afterwards, that “Alex only loves serial killer music.”
Pere Ubu never had a hit single. Their albums can’t be found on most jukeboxes. Their songs are not immediately suitable fare at your local karaoke bar. I only got to see them play once – in 1993 at Central Park’s Summerstage, of all places, opening for their fanboy upstarts in They Might Be Giants. They closed with the song, which compelled me to go buy one of their shirts, which I still have.
Their newly late lead singer Dave “Crocus Behemoth” Thomas was, by all accounts, a complicated character, but he was a strikingly unique artist the likes of which we invariably will not see again.
Go buy this Pere Ubu record today. You won’t find it on Spotify.
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