When David Thomas shifted from absurdist gossip columnist and ruthless music reviewer for the Cleveland Scene into the equally abstract position of composer and yodeling vocalist for Rocket From the Tombs, then Pere Ubu, he carried the first twilight’s gleaming of pre-punk rock on his back, as far the Midwest was concerned. While NYC had its New York Dolls and Suicide, Los Angeles its Runaways and early versions of the Germs, the Midwest’s Thomas—the real Midwest, not the bleak north of The Stooges and MC5—forged the self-described "avant-garage” sound of Pere Ubu, first, from the rawest elements of Beefheart skronk, musique concrète, free jazz, primal-scream therapy, tinny analog synth scrawl, ’60s biker rock, Dadaist texts, and the drone-noise industrial environments of his Ohio hometown.
On top of all that, Thomas was a big guy (he used the moniker “Crocus Behemoth” when he started Rocket) and an imposing figure whose warbling voice went from an impenetrable, thundering growl to a whispery, floaty trill, the latter of which was doubly menacing—like watching Peter Lorre move silently through the streets of Berlin, hunting for prey, in M. And with each passing experimental recording beyond their first two singles on their own Hearpen label, Pere Ubu only grew bolder until reaching the bombed-out sounds of their first album, 1978’s The Modern Dance; its darker, denser follow-up that same year, Dub Housing; and the brutally oblong New Picnic Time of 1979.
Pere Ubu circa 1988 / photo by Debra Trebitz for Enigma Records
Early-day Thomas solo albums such as 1981’s The Sound of the Sand and Other Songs of the Pedestrian and 1983’s Variations on a Theme, along with latter-day Ubu albums such as 1988’s The Tenement Year and the swooshing synth-pop Worlds in Collision from 1991, may have held quieter sounds and lively melody in which to host the lyricist’s emotional abstractions, his music was no less ferocious, unique, and strangely beautiful. With the tragic news that Thomas passed away earlier this week at the age of 71, here are just a handful of our favorite Pere Ubu moments captured (but never confined) on video and YouTube to remember him by.
“Final Solution” (1976, 2016)
The first take (without a video) is a primer to PU, that half-step between the garage slop of Rocket From the Tombs into what Pere Ubu would become. Take notice of Thomas’ gruff, commanding vocals, too. Then listen to the ominous industrialism of its 2016 live version—still crushing and still imposing, despite the fact that Thomas is seated for the performance.
“Caligari’s Mirror” (1978; performed here in 1980)
Thomas was fond of traditional sea shanties—go figure—and this 1980 live version of the Dub Housing track (alternatively titled “What Shall We Do with a Drunken Sailor?”) holds a haunted key to what is, essentially, a song about punishment.
“Small Dark Cloud” (1979)
Thomas’ other obsession was birds, lots of birds, so this disturbing Hitchcockian bit of avant pop is made weirder still by its video’s editing of material from Messiah of Evil—all part of the famed, lovingly devoted Ubu Projex.
“Breathe” (1988)
Between 1988 and 1990, nasal mainstream-music-making saxophonist David Sanborn let his freak flag fly with his curation and hosting of a network late-night television show, Night Music. Why wouldn’t you welcome Pere Ubu at their most viciously flanged doing the breathless “Breathe”?
“Oh Catherine” and “I Hear They Smoke the BBQ” (1991)
With Worlds in Collision, David Thomas—already on what he considered to be a more mainstream trajectory—made the sultriest of synth-pop albums with strummy guitars and Pixies producer Gil Norton for the Universal label offshoot Fontana. This is as sleek as Pere Ubu would ever get, and both tracks are still courageously curdling—especially Thomas’ trembling whispery vocals on the former.
“Folly of Youth” (1995)
This could be the closest that Thomas and Ubu ever got to something resembling a dance track, complete with its long-driving introductory bass line. Then again, theirs was a “modern dance” to begin with, so don’t use this for your next party’s mix—unless the MDA already kicked in.
“What I Heard on the Pop Radio” (2019)
Still thinking about “pop” and “radio” nearly 50 years into Pere Ubu’s existence, Thomas makes driving, sinister chamber rock with a dense bottom for their penultimate album, The Long Goodbye, with a voice as ferocious and fearful as he was at Rocket From the Tombs’ takeoff.
Photo by Beth Herzhaft, circa 1989 for Contrast Magazine.
