Jun 25, 2014

RhoDeo 1425 Aetix

Hello, Worldcup report, it's all about the small nations at the World cup Costa Rica (twice the happiest nation on the planet) and Uruguay (fully legalized marijuana earlier this year) have less the 8 million citizens-together, but it's soccer players saw off England and Italy. Alas the British press has started a new hounding of Suarez as he sort of planted his upper teeth into a nasty Italian defender alas the picture of the 'deed' shows absolutely no residue, expect FIFA to give him a 2 year ban as those corrupt assholes see a chance to be lauded by the British press that has been hounding them. A London centric press that would love to chase Suarez out of Liverpool and into the arms of Barca. In the other poule the smallest nation went thru as well Greece played by far their best game, but if those naive Ivorians had kept their cool and showed a clinical finishing they would have progressed as it happened an extra time penalty send them home. Meanwhile Columbia humiliated Japan with their B team and are doing surprisingly well despite having to do without their top striker Falcao. They will be favorite in their 1/8th final match with Uruguay.

Today at Aetix an experimental rock music group formed in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1975. Despite many long-term band members, singer David Thomas is the only constant. While the band have never been widely popular—usually categorized as "underground rock"—they have a devoted following and are an influential and critically acclaimed band. They have compiled a list of guidelines for touring, live performances and the like: "Lighting should be theatrical rather than rockist. We are interested in atmosphere, mood, drama, energy, subtlety, imagination—not rock cliché." There's some strung stuff to get thru, 5 albums compiled on 3 cdees what can i say   ....N'joy !

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Pere Ubu emerged from the urban wastelands of mid-'70s Cleveland to impact the American underground for generations to follow; led by hulking frontman David Thomas, whose absurdist warble and rapturously demented lyrics remained the band's creative focus throughout their long, convoluted career, Ubu's protean art punk sound harnessed self-destructing melodies, scattershot rhythms, and industrial-strength dissonance to capture the angst and chaos of their times with both apocalyptic fervor and surprising humanity. Named in honor of Alfred Jarry's surrealist play Ubu Roi, Pere Ubu was formed in the autumn of 1975 from the ashes of local cult favorite Rocket from the Tombs, reuniting Thomas (aka Crocus Behemoth) with guitarist Peter Laughner; adding guitarist Tom Herman, bassist Tim Wright, keyboardist Allen Ravenstine, and drummer Scott Krauss, the group soon issued their debut single, "30 Seconds Over Tokyo," on Thomas' Hearthan label. The follow-up, "Final Solution," appeared on the renamed Hearpen in early 1976, and resulted in a series of live dates at the famed New York City club Max's Kansas City.

Laughner's longstanding battles with drugs and alcohol forced his exit from Pere Ubu in June of 1976; within a year, he was dead. The group continued on as a quintet, with bassist Tony Maimone signing on in the wake of Wright's move to New York, where he joined the pioneering no wave band DNA. In the wake of their third single, "Street Waves," Thomas was approached by Mercury label A&R exec Cliff Burnstein, who convinced the label to form a new imprint, Blank Records, for the express purposes of signing Pere Ubu; their debut LP, The Modern Dance, was issued in early 1978, and although the record made little commercial impact at home or abroad, its manic intensity and dark impenetrability proved profoundly influential on countless post-punk acts on both sides of the Atlantic. The follow-up, Dub Housing, was even better, pushing the band to further extremes of otherworldliness, but already the cracks were beginning to show, and upon completing 1979's New Picnic Time (working title: "Goodbye"), Ubu disbanded. Although the group re-formed months later, Herman opted not to return and was replaced by Red Krayola mastermind Mayo Thompson.

The Art of Walking followed in 1980, with subsequent tours in support of the record heralding the increasingly pop-centric sound that would distinguish later Ubu projects; a live record, 390° of Simulated Stereo, appeared a year later. Krauss was replaced by drummer Anton Fier for 1982's Song of the Bailing Man, but as before personal and creative differences began taking their toll and Ubu again disbanded; while Maimone and Krauss reunited in the group Home and Garden, Thomas continued the solo career he'd begun with the 1981 effort The Sound of the Sand (And Other Songs of the Pedestrians), a collaboration with guitar virtuoso Richard Thompson. He recorded 1987's Blame the Messenger with the Wooden Birds, a backing band including fellow Ubu alums Ravenstine and Maimone; after Krauss sat in for a Cleveland live date, the decision was made to begin working as Pere Ubu again. Guitarist Jim Jones and drummer Chris Cutler were also recruited for 1988's comeback effort The Tenement Year, a vividly idiosyncratic pop album far more accessible than anything in the band's back catalog.

1989's Stephen Hague-produced Cloudland further refined the approach, with the video for the single "Waiting for Mary" even earning limited MTV airplay; after both Ravenstine and Cutler exited Pere Ubu (the former becoming a commercial airline pilot), one-time Captain Beefheart sideman Eric Drew Feldman was installed for 1991's Worlds in Collision. Feldman soon departed as well to join Frank Black, and the remaining quartet recorded 1993's Story of My Life for the short-lived Imago label; Maimone was the next to go, with bassist Michele Temple and keyboardist Garo Yellin stepping in for 1995's planned swan song, Ray Gun Suitcase. As Ubu again slipped into limbo, the band's massive influence was celebrated in 1996 with the release of the five-disc box set Datapanik in the Year Zero; the renewed interest spurred Thomas back into action, and he reunited with Tom Herman for the first time in two decades to record 1998's sprawling Pennsylvania (also featuring holdovers Jones and Temple in addition to keyboardist Robert Wheeler and drummer Steve Mehlman). Four years later, Pere Ubu captured some of their darkest and most theatrical work to date with St. Arkansas. Why I Hate Women followed in 2006. A remix album also arrived that year. In 2009, the band returned with Long Live Pere Ubu!, which featured songs from a musical adaptation of the band's namesake play Ubu Roi and included contributions from Communards' Sarah Jane Morris and Gagarin. Pere Ubu's next album, Lady from Shanghai, was nearly as ambitious; described as "an album of dance music fixed," it commemorated the 35th anniversary of The Modern Dance with abrasive, industrial-tinged rhythms and an accompanying book, Chinese Whispers: The Making of Pere Ubu's Lady from Shanghai.

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First came 4 more or less self released singles that are more than good enough to start of the compilation of their first steps into the despised musicworld. There isn't a Pere Ubu recording you can imagine living without. The Modern Dance remains the essential Ubu purchase (as does the follow-up, Dub Housing). For sure, Mercury had no idea what they had on their hands when they released this as part of their punk rock offshoot label Blank, but it remains a classic slice of art-punk. It announces itself quite boldly: the first sound you hear is a painfully high-pitched whine of feedback, but then Tom Herman's postmodern Chuck Berry riffing kicks off the brilliant "Non-Alignment Pact," and you soon realize that this is punk rock unlike any you've ever heard. David Thomas' caterwauling is funny and moving, Scott Krauss (drums) and Tony Maimone (bass) are one of the great unheralded rhythm sections in all of rock, and the "difficult" tracks like "Street Waves," "Chinese Radiation," and the terrifying "Humor Me" are revelatory, and way ahead of their time. The Modern Dance is the signature sound of the avant-garage: art rock, punk rock, and garage rock mixing together joyously and fearlessly.



Pere Ubu - First 4 Singles+The Modern Dance (75-77) ( flac 456mb)

01 30 Seconds Over Tokyo 6:21
02 Heart Of Darkness 4:44
03 Final Solution 4:58
04 Cloud 149 2:37
05 Untitled 3:32
06 My Dark Ages 4:00
07 Heaven 3:04
The Modern Dance
08 Nonalignment Pact 3:18
09 The Modern Dance 3:28
10 Laughing 4:35
11 Street Waves 3:04
12 Chinese Radiation 3:27
13 Life Stinks 1:52
14 Real World 4:00
15 Over My Head 3:49
16 Sentimental Journey 6:06
17 Humor Me 2:43
18 The Book Is On The Table 4:02

Pere Ubu - First 4 Singles+The Modern Dance (75-77)  (ogg 185mb)

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Though Pere Ubu's tenure on Mercury lasted one record, their departure for their unlikely home of Chrysalis (at the time the label of Jethro Tull) resulted in Dub Housing, widely considered their masterpiece. The title is an allusion to the echoes at rows of identical concrete public housing units in Baltimore, presumably reminiscent of the echo and reverberation that characterize dub reggae. Darker and more difficult than The Modern Dance (indicated by the cover's darkened apartment complex and stormy Cleveland skyline) with plenty of bleak soundscapes (e.g., "Codex"), Dub Housing also includes "Navvy"'s bouncy burble (featuring Thomas yelping "I have desires!"), and "(Pa) Ubu Dance Party"'s surreal big beat. Make no mistake, as much as Ubu indulged in arty dissonance and mucked about with song structure, this is very much a rock & roll record, albeit one made by a band interested in pushing the envelope when it came to sound, song construction, and performance. As much as this is a band effort, the guitar of Tom Herman and the synthesizer of Allen Ravenstine frequently stand out. Herman's strong, polished playing veers from assertive riffing to assaultive noise; Ravenstine, who may be one of the all-time great synth players, colors the sound with ominous whooshes of distortions, blips, and blurbs that sound like a sped-up Pong game. But, as is often the case with Ubu, it's David Thomas' singing (here at its most engagingly unrestrained) that is front and center. Part comic foil, part raging madman, Thomas utilizes all of his limited range in a whacked expressiveness built around hiccups, yodels, screeches, and, sometimes, singing. Dub Housing sold next to nothing and signaled the beginning of the end of Ubu's relationship with Chrysalis, but it remains an important and influential American rock record.

It was not surprising that after Dub Housing, Pere Ubu couldn't get a record released in the U.S. New Picnic Time originally surfaced on Chrysalis as a British import, but when Rough Trade made it available domestically, U.S. fans could take solace in that the band had finally hooked up with a label more sympathetic to their decidedly unique approach to music. New Picnic Time was also the last Ubu record with guitarist Tom Herman, and for many Ubu fans this signals the end of Pere Ubu phase one (or phase two, depending on one's feelings for the Datapanik-era band). New Picnic Time also finds David Thomas' lyrical explorations reflecting his religious involvement with the Jehovah's Witnesses, pieties that are stated quite emphatically on the record's closing track, "Jehovah's Kingdom Comes."



Pere Ubu - Dub Housing + New Picnic Time (1978-1979)  (flac 440mb)

Dub Housing
01 Navvy 2:40
02 On The Surface 2:35
03 Dub Housing 3:39
04 Caligari's Mirror 3:49
05 Thriller! 4:36
06 I Will Wait 1:45
07 Drinking Wine Spodyody 2:44
08 Ubu Dance Party 4:46
09 Blow Daddy-o 3:38
10 Codex 4:55
New Picnic Time
11 Have Shoes Will Walk (The Fabulous Sequel) 3:16
12 49 Guitars And One Girl 2:51
13 A Small Dark Cloud 5:49
14 Small Was Fast 3:39
15 All The Dogs Are Barking 3:03
16 One Less Worry 3:49
17 Make Hay 4:03
18 Goodbye 5:18
19 The Voice Of The Sand 1:28
20 Hand A Face A Feeling 3:17

Pere Ubu - Dub Housing + New Picnic Time (1978-1979)  (ogg 91mb)

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The Art of Walking was the first Pere Ubu recording that wasn't completely sensational. Red Krayola guitarist/mastermind Mayo Thompson replaced Tom Herman, and while he freely indulges in pushing the envelope when it comes to soloing, he doesn't have Herman's rock sensibility, so there's less pulsating, Chuck Berry-style riffing emerging from the mix. Also, the songs are a tad more obtuse -- not that previous Ubu songs weren't, but this collection, with its focus on the pastoral, falls apart when it becomes overly precious. Such is the fate of utopian concept records. Still, this transitional (if you want to call it that) record offers many rewards, even if as a listener you have to work a little harder to find them.

Continuing in the spirit of The Art of Walking, Bailing Man marks the departure of drummer Scott Krauss (replaced by ex-Feelies Anton Fier), a fact significant in that when combined with the earlier departure of guitarist Tom Herman, means that at this juncture, Pere Ubu was more art and less rock. Why people were so knocked out by Fier is a mystery; here he lacks aggressiveness, plays behind the beat, and generally speaking, he doesn't push the band as hard as a drummer ought to. That said, Song of the Bailing Man is a fine, occasionally wonderful record that, at its slackest moments, sounds strained and forced, as if it were no fun to make, and it's this seriousness (instead of the usual Ubu silly seriousness) that prevents Song of the Bailing Man from being great. It's no surprise that the band went on a hiatus for six years after the release of this record, returning with 1988's The Tenement Year.



Pere Ubu - The Art Of Walking / Song Of The Bailing Man (81/82)  (flac 412mb)

The Art Of Walking 
01 Go 3:35
02 Rhapsody In Pink 3:34
03 Arabia 4:59
04 Young Miles In The Basement 4:19
05 Misery Goats 2:38
06 Loop 3:15
07 Rounder 3:23
08 Birdies 2:26
09 Lost In Art 5:12
10 Horses 2:35
11 Crush This Horn 3:00
Song Of The Bailing Man 
12 The Long Walk Home 2:34
13 Petrified 2:16
14 Stormy Weather 3:20
15 West Side Story 2:46
16 Thoughts That Go By Steam 3:47
17 Big Ed's Used Farms 2:24
18 A Day Such As This 7:17
19 The Vulgar Boatman Bird 2:49
20 My Hat 1:19
21 Horns Are A Dilemma 4:21

Pere Ubu - The Art Of Walking / Song Of The Bailing Man (81/82)  (ogg 181mb)

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11 comments:

le sot said...

Many many thanks pour vos partages, et votre générosité !

ric said...

Hi! On "Song Of The Bailing Man", song "Use Of A Dog" is missing. Do you know why ?
Thanx for all

Anonymous said...

Outstanding post! I've got all this on vinyl, the upgrade is very welcome. Many thanks.
Any chance of seeing the other 2 discs in this set? That would make life a bit closer to perfect!!

-Brian

Anonymous said...

Can you please repost the Dub Housing + New Picnic Time (1978-1979) file? The link seems to be dead.
Thank you

Rho said...

Dub Housing Link seems to be OK to me, Ric well this is a 1996 compilation at the time disks didn't exceed 74 min, apparently "Use Of A Dog" didn't make the cut..
Yes I plan to post the other disks from the Datapanik in the Year Zero set.

Supersonic75 said...

Thanks so much; nice to have the Hearpen singles bundled with "Modern Dance". They just put out yet another repackaged/remastered version of the early stuff and while my reaction was sorta "enough, already"....how many ways can one resell the same 70 or so minutes of music - but they were really one of the most staggeringly inventive and exciting bands ever. I was lucky enough to see them in Boston in '79, when I was 18y/o. Great post! Thanks for keeping your links alive!!

Anonymous said...

hi rho,

could you re-up pere ubu the art of walking/song of the bailing man?
thanks in advance.

s.

Mick said...

For anyone not aware, these are CD1, CD2 and CD3 of the 5CD boxset "Datapanik In The Year Zero".
https://www.discogs.com/Pere-Ubu-Datapanik-In-The-Year-Zero/release/464353
CD4 & CD5 have been posted elsewhere.

Peter Nelson said...

The flac link for 'First 4 Singles+The Modern Dance (75-77') is for Modern Dance alone, without the singles. 236mbs, not 456mb as stated.

Rho said...

You are mistaken here Peter the download at fichier is 456mb thats with the singles. Rho

Peter Nelson said...

Well, I'm baffled. The same link 2 days ago was Modern Dance alone. I checked it thoroughly before commenting. I've still got the folder I downloaded. It's named 'Pr Ub Mdrn Dnc' and is 236mb.