David Thomas

[Guest Kurt]

POP REVIEW; Pere Ubu and the Many Faces of Rock
David Thomas, who performed with his band Pere Ubu on Sunday night at Wetlands, is one of rock's most eccentric figures. With a black overcoat, top hat, goatee and some 300 pounds of body weight, he looked like a collection agent for a loan shark. But in reality he is a Jehovah's Witness, with a legendary underground band that has been playing neurotically intellectual art-rock for 20 years.

"Make me feel weird," Mr. Thomas instructed the band near the beginning of his set, outlining the principle that has kept Pere Ubu on the fringes of popular music for so long. The group obeyed, taking Midwestern garage-rock and overloading it with information from other sources, including funk, jazz, industrial rock and early-20th-century avant-garde music. In his high, whinnying voice, which sounded like David Byrne with a plugged nose, Mr. Thomas sang music mostly from Pere Ubu's best album in years, the recent "Ray Gun Suitcase" (Tim/Kerr Records).

Mr. Thomas constructed a new model of the singer. First he made fun of the standard stereotype, asking, "Does anybody feel cheated by my charismatic presence not being directed at them?" Later, he defined his model of the singer as creative escapist. "I fix reality," he said.

Skeleton Key preceded Pere Ubu, also playing cragged art-rock but adding infectious choruses for pop accessibility. Space Needle, which opened the show, found bliss in droning, hypnotic rock jams on the order of Spacemen 3, transporting its audience to a place where songs have no form, time has no meaning and musicians think not in terms of notes and rhythms but of sounds and colors.

source

David Thomas <<< (Wikipedia)

Pere Ubu <<< (Jehova's Kingdom Come)