Pere Ubu

avishai

Influential Punk/No wave band. Big influence on R.E.M, Husker Du, Pixies etc.

Lead singer, David Thomas was a dub. Did he become one later, was he one the whole time? Did it break up the band? Does any one know?

Hey Avishai, I've heard he is a J Dub. I read an interview with him that took place around 2004, and it was mentioned that he was "religious" but I didn't hear him talk about being a witness at all. It left me wondering about his connection to the Dubs too... Huxley

avishai

bttt

hippikon

alt alt alt

I love his stuff - If you like alternative punk buy it. (Be warned - it's an aquired taste)

under74

Yeah, he converted after his sister did but I heard he ended up leaving. I don't know if it's true or not..

Which break-up? In the 70s one of the members left because of a drug problem. Another guy left to join DNA. They totally disbanded a couple times.

I don't know how much had to do with the JW factor.

under74

Pretty sure Thomas became a JW around 1979...I think it was right before the New Picnic album came out.....but I could be wrong. All I know is I read a few things stating he became a dub after the band was formed.

Gollum

I think through at least most of his career he's been a dub. I've always sort of wanted to meet him, it's such a weird combination.

Pennsylvania is one of the most intersting albums ever put out, though I have to admit I can't listen to it all in one setting.

The only person I think of as being more unlikely to be a dub would be David Lynch.

Here's an excerpt from an article about him, with the url for the whole thing afterwords.

"Pere Ubu were determined to scorn commerce, to never be professional rock musicians and to have "projects" rather than a career. Predictably, there are regular break-ups and personnel shifts from 1977 to 1982. Some toughness leaked out of the band when Tom Herman left in the fall of 1979 after the second LP, "Dub Housing." His replacement was the '60s rock eccentric Mayo Thompson, an odd but benign dreamer. This tipped the Pere Ubu scale to the arty side, and Thomas turned into more of a whimsy figure, a punk Edward Lear fixated on birdies and fishies and posies. Then he became a fervent Jehovah's Witness. The good part is that he stayed a crank nature lover who observed it best from behind a windshield or in anxious fantasies. Besides, there was a kind of bruised innocent logic to these transformations, given the Witness fascination with impending apocalypse."

www.salon.com/weekly/pereubu960916.html

Gollum

Just was looking up some stuff, and discovered Patti Smith was raised a Witness, or at least her mother was.

Weird, I'm starting to think I should be a hell of a lot more talented than I am. Crap, all that weird upbringing wasted!

Pere Ubu

Share this