It's no secret to longtime readers that I am a fan of the proto-punk/avante-outré band Pere Ubu. Today, I had a hankering to hear the song Non-Alignment Pact, which is a bizarre deconstruction of typical oldie songs about infatution. After blasting the original, I remembered that Julian Cope, former lead singer of The Teardrop Explodes, performed a credible cover of the song about ten years after the release of the original.
Because the Intert00bz is a garden of forking links, I found a video of a concert that Mr Cope played at NYC's The Ritz, a music venue which I frequented back in its 54th St heyday... the venue was right by the Afghan Kebab House, so there was a good, inexpensive restaurant at which to fuel up before hitting the club. At any rate, I figured I'd watch the entire concert, and Mr Cope did not disappoint:
Julian Cope is pretty much the antithesis of Pere Ubu's David Thomas, a rail-thin, handsome rockstar with a deep, vibrant voice, compared to Mr Thomas' burly, somewhat disheveled warbler. Mr Cope did have a pretty good handle on the non-conventional in popular music, something he probably picked up by listening to David Thomas... he couldn't have helped being a conventional pretty-boy.
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Because the Intert00bz is a garden of forking links,
I was given to understand that it is a series of forking tubes.
The daffynitions are all sporked.
~
Pere Ubu was one of those bands I always wanted to dive into, but I bought... "Worlds in Collision," I think it was, which is sort of mid-era PU album from maybe 1993 and it wasn't necessarily their strongest period. It gets okay reviews, but sort of sounded like a Talking Heads album to me.
I need to get Dub Housing sometime, because that's the one I hear about when I read about Pere Ubu. I think the first time I read about Dub Housing, it was referred Can meets Captain Beefheart but with a pink edge.
I've always been impressed with Julian Cope's ability to bring attention to his musical heroes.
I was given to understand that it is a series of forking tubes.
I thought the toobz wuz tangled.
The daffynitions are all sporked.
We live in strange times...
I need to get Dub Housing sometime, because that's the one I hear about when I read about Pere Ubu. I think the first time I read about Dub Housing, it was referred Can meets Captain Beefheart but with a pink edge.
'Terminal Tower' is probably the best place to start- it's a collection of their early singles, like '30 Seconds Over Tokyo' and 'Heart of Darkness'. They also have a song that was released in the UK under the title 'Datapanik in the Year Zero', anticipating the Y2K kerfuffle by almost a quarter-century. 'The Modern Dance' is their first LP, it's a little more accessible than 'Dub Housing'.
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