Pere Ubu Featured on NPR's World Cafe Show 3/1
By: Tori Hartshorn Feb. 02, 2018
A live performance and interview by seminal American art-punks Pere Ubu will air on NPR's World Cafe program Thursday March 1. World Cafe can be heard on over 200 radio stations nationwide. The complete carriage list is available at http://wx.pn/wcstations. Fans can check their local station's Program Schedule for the World Cafe broadcast time. Pere Ubu's segment will be archived for on-demand streaming at WorldCafe.NPR.org at approximately 5pm ET on the day of broadcast. We will send you the dedicated URL for their NPR post closer to or on the air date. I'm hoping you'll consider covering the group via feature or album review. Please let me know if you need the music.
The album opens the doors of the avant-garage to reveal the hardworking mechanics hammering away at the fundamentals of blue-collar rock. A three-guitar revision spans the state of the art for guitar-based rock in the year 2017. Keith Moliné is joined by Cleveland guitar legend Gary Siperko and Kristof Hahn in the now familiar orchestra of analog and digital synths, clarinet, drums and Thomas' unquestionably unique vocals. 20 Years In A Montana Missile Silo is released by Cherry Red distributed by MVD.
It follows on from their release in 2015 of Carnival of Souls, which was widely praised by the media, confounding the usual clash of critics' sensibilities, and chosen by cult series 'American Horror Story' to provide two soundtracks for characters Mordrake and Twisty, in Season 4.
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Pere Ubu have been confounding audiences and other denizens of the tower of song for far more than 20 years. Vocalist David Thomas has been the only constant in the group since they bubbled up from Cleveland's underground music scene in the late '70s. The punk rock revolution gave Pere Ubu a stage to be weird, and their aesthetic can be traced back through art rock, experimental sound sculpture all the way back to Dadaism. It's amazing that any form of Pere Ubu is active after all these years. It's even more amazing that they're still producing vital, challenging music.
"Monkey Bizness" kicks off the 29 Years in a Montana Missile Silo with a punk rock rave up that's about as aggressive as anything they've ever done. The current lineup of three guitars and two synth players layer odd sounds over an insistent beat. David Thomas sounds gruffer than usual sending out warnings about monkeys and clowns and sex and terror. "Toe to Toe" channels Cold War paranoia. "Twenty years of living hell at the bottom of a missile well. Twenty years of forgotten sun staring at the portal to a kingdom come," declaims Thomas. It's a chilling look into the soul of a man ready to start the end of the world. The Ubu are talking about the past, but they might as well be singing about today's mounting nuclear tensions. It should be terrifying that there are people dumped in the bottom of a deep hole who are entrusted with ending the world.
"Plan from Frog 9" indulges Thomas's inclination to obsess on the mundane. In this case, he spends three minutes contemplating a pencil. It's got the pointy part and the pushy part. These sort of Pere Ubu songs leave listeners either delighted or bewildered. "Howl" is a similarly head scratching mutated blues. Sounds like you're overhearing one side of a conversation (or maybe David is talking to someone who isn't really there).
20 Years in A Montana Missile Silo is ultimately a solid effort from Pere Ubu. They summon the old art punk fury on numbers like "Red Eyed Blues" and "Toe to Toe". There are more of the rambling meditations like "Cold Sweat" than there were back in the day. I'm glad to see Pere Ubu are still being cranky, contrarian, absurdist.
Bob Pomeroy/Ink19.com 12/18
The folks that coined the term "avant-garage" have returned with a new album and it is a a beauty. A crisp, clean sound with plenty of quirks just like we are accustomed to from Pere Ubu. The production and mix are fantastic. The music is superb. They still got it. This isn't for everyone, but the people it is for will really enjoy it.
The hard part about working in the weird is that it is difficult to make something that is quirky and bizarre, yet is still listenable. They have done it again. There are some parts on here that will take few listens to get used to, but there are also some places, many places, on the album where there is some serious grooving going on. Pere Ubu will start jamming a little with one riff and build on that riff. They do it better than just about anyone. I put them in the Zappa/Beefheart/Colonel Bruce Hampton wing of my library. And maybe a touch of PIL thrown in as well. Let's go back to talking about riffing. Funk 49 (Track 2) takes the proverbial cake. This song starts off with a funky/bluesy riff that is earth shattering. Simply magical. That riff is the spine of the song and everything else going on in the song is framed around that incredible riff. All of the semi spoken word vocals and screaming instruments are well placed and in second position behind that guitar riff. Another song that seems to build momentum around a single solitary guitar riff is Howl (Track 8). This is a bluesy number that would fit right at home in a 1950s film noir, black and white of course. The scene would take place in darkness between a man and woman. Ultimately, boy gets girl. I love happy endings! There is also a very powerful ballad on this album, The Healer (Track 5). Dave Thomas, the vocalist and only original member, really shows off his softer side. This is a very powerful and moving song. Don't worry, there are still a few sharp turns. This song isn't plain vanilla, by any means. If you have an ear for the unusual, this is a very pleasant listen. After all the years, Dave Thomas and company can still put out some timely, meaningful, and groovy music. Those that are familiar with Pere Ubu, buy this one with no reservations. Newbies might want to dip their toes in slowly. If you don't get it at first, try another listen and it will click.
Harry Kaplan/Twangrila.com
You might not think after 40 years that David Thomas would have much left to say but you'd be wrong. Thomas and this lineup of Ubu (not sure how long these guys have been with him ) keep it tight and economical here at these 12 songs grunt by in just under 35 minutes (and apparently each member recorded their own parts separately and Thomas spliced them all together). On "Monkey Bizness" Thomas and his motley crew define the undefinable and he gets downright heartfelt on "The Healer" which then leads right into the sonic kick of "Swampland (all 1:50 of it). "Plan Frag 9" is the sound of a helicopter off (then crashing) and "Red Blue Eyes" swings with the best of any era Ubu. Hey, I like when bands pare it down (especially bands who don't normally do that) so for me a shorter/tighter Ubu is a better Ubu. Don't think they've lost it, they haven't
Tim Hinely/Daggerzine.tumblr.com 12/16
I've come to love just about every Pere Ubu album, but I haven't found all of them immediately lovable, or, sometimes, even immediately likable. They rarely repeat themselves, and so each new album can fees less like they're building on the last one and morel like David Thomas leading them into a different corner of the wilderness. Each of their albums from 1998's Pennsylvania through 2013's Lady from Shanghai struck me, on my initial listen, to be too obscure for their own good, and it wasn't until I became more familiar with the tunes (and heard some live versions) that they really cohered for me. Which is to say, if I wasn't already sold on Pere Ubu (my favorite American rock band after the Beach Boys), these albums probably wouldn't have done it for me. But 2014's Carnival of Souls, with its return to a 60s garage rock-inspired groove, grabbed me from the first track, and, now, with 20 Years in a Montana Missile Silo, they've released an album that is closer to the punk rock spirit of 1977 than their own Modern Dance. The title comes from the song "Toe to Toe", about a Cold Warrior who spent 20 years "toe to toe" with Uncle Joe Stalin: though that's the most explicit it gets, the whole album plays like a half-remembered nightmare from the height of the Cold War, a musical equivalent of the experimental "Episode 8" from the new Twin Peaks.
uncouthreflections.com 12/15
Back in 1975, before punk was even a fully formed genre, a Cleveland band led by the singer and songwriter David Thomas were fusing garage rock with harsh, glitchy electronics, field recordings, pulsing dance music and avant garde passages of noise. Without Pere Ubu, there would be no Pixies, no Sonic Youth and no Parquet Courts.
Musicians are often painted as rule-breakers-mavericks who live outside of society's rules, creating liberated works of art that flout all rules and regulations. Given the radical vision of Thomas and his cohorts, it would seem Pere Ubu fit neatly into this mold. However, Thomas doesn't view himself this way.
"I don't know if we break rules," Thomas says from his home in the UK. "I know the rules really well. And if we do indeed break rules, you have to know the rules first. There's too many people who go, 'Oh, I'm breaking rules. Oh, it's a good thing.' It's not a good thing. The rules are there for a reason. And you damn well better know what the reason is before you talk about changing them."
Thomas isn't being facetious. The restless experimentation that has defined Pere Ubu for the last 42 years has in large part been undergirded by many formal structures. A list of "band rules and musical principles" is available on the band's website, ubuprojex.com, and includes items such as "just because you can, doesn't mean you should," and "avoid irony like the plague." In a 1989 interview, Thomas described the band's goal as an effort to "establish a language" of their own.
If that's the case, they are still very much fluent. Earlier this year Pere Ubu released their 16th studio album, 20 Years in a Montana Missile Silo. The album is the result of a new creative method for the group, which Thomas calls "The Dark Room."
[read the entire interview here!
Mike Hugenour /Silicon Valley Metro 12/1
Back in 1975 when they formed in Cleveland, most people figured Pere Ubu would last a year or two. All bands had shorter life spans then, and Ubu, with its noisy art-rock sound, certainly didn't appeal to a mass-market audience.
But here they are, 42 years later, and vocalist David Thomas is still making the rounds, the idol of a passionate bunch of underground music aficionados. All these years later, Thomas, now living in London, leads an ensemble whose personnel has evolved considerably, although drummer Steve Mehlman, bassist Michele Temple, synth/theremin player Robert Wheeler and guest guitarist Gary Siperko all hail from these parts.
And they're back on the road yet again, with a new studio album, 20 Years in a Montana Missile Silo, packed in their merch case. Released in September, it will sadly be their last album engineered by their longtime collaborator Paul Hamann at Suma Recording in Painesville where Thomas had returned to work for more than three-and-a-half decades. He died in September. CoolCleveland.com 11/14
Here's the true definition of punk rock: doing what you want to regardless of the consequences. Singer David Thomas has pretty much being doing that every since exploding out of the Cleveland art-rock scene in the late'70s. Catch one of the most original-and enduring-acts in the history of pop music at the Rickshaw on Thursday (November 30).
[read the entire interview here!
Mike Usinger/Straight.com 11/30
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David Thomas says 'To my way of thinking, the new album is The James Gang teaming up with Tangerine Dream. Or something like that. The Chinese Whispers methodology we worked on the last two albums, now that everyone has gotten comfortable with it, has been replaced by the Dark Room. Put a bunch of musicians in a lightless room and by feeling one small section of an unknown object have them figure what it must be.'
It would be easy to suppose that the album is about being in a Missile Silo... in Montana... for 20 years or so, but this is Pere Ubu and they're not about to make things easy. Thomas confirms, 'I wanted to call it 'Bruce Springsteen is an Asshole,' then changed that to 'Robert DeNiro Is An Asshole,' then decided maybe that wasn't a good idea either. It's not my job to explain.'
The album was recorded and mixed at Suma, Painesville Ohio. Engineer Paul Hamann, and his father before him, have been part of almost every Pere Ubu album since 1976. Thomas and Hamann have explored innumerable production methods over the years, establishing the unique Ubu sound that pre-dated punk and still stands proud of the forced genre defined clichés of the music world.
Over the years, Kristof Hahn had become a regular visitor to the Ubu dressing room during his time-off touring with The Swans. He was given access to the songs from the new album as works-in-progress. "I was just listening to 'The Healer' again today and it gave me goosebumps," he wrote to Thomas. "The whole album sounds amazing already, I would be really proud to be part of it, however small my part might be." He was brought on board immediately.
The touring arm of Pere Ubu will be heading out on tour with the new album later this year; first-off in the USA, with a full European tour and further USA dates in 2018.
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