"Sprouting clumps of mushrooms like a world surreal, this dream won't ever, ever end, and time seems like it'll never begin" this week we look at a compilation from PERE UBU called Terminal Tower: An Archival Collection (1985)

Terminal Tower: An Archival Collection is a compilation album by American rockband Pere Ubu. Released in 1985, the album compiles several of the band's early singles and B-sides, including the Hearthan singles recorded with founder Peter Laughner that were initially compiled on the Datapanik in Year Zero EP, and continuing through later sides recorded with Mayo Thompson.

The original Rough Trade UK LP was fine, but the American Twin Tone LP and CD both played at slightly slow speed (about a half-tone flat) throughout, had the left and right channels reversed and suffered from generally poor sound compared to the UK LP or the US singles. Most of the compilation was properly remastered for the Datapanik in the Year Zero box set, and all subsequent individual reissues of the compilation have used that corrected master.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminal_Tower_(album)

Transcript

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If the company that made sex dolls approached Quentin for a sponsorship, if they approached us and asked us to review a sex doll, I'd probably do that. Yeah, it'd be funny. Okay. I guess you could be the tester on that one there, Steve. If a sex doll company wanted to sponsor us, I would have them make a model of me. Then you could literally fuck yourself. Then if some guy in the street's like, hey, go fuck yourself, you'd be like, okay, and then you'd go home and do. Oh, no, and then I would put it on stage when we play. With the open mouth. That's not as exciting. Just gotta smile like a donut there, Dave. Wasn't there a season of It's Always Sunny where Dennis left for a little while so they had a sex doll of him? That sounds like something they would do. It's one of those shows that I only get so far, and then all of a sudden I gotta stop. I feel bad if I watch too many episodes in a row. That's kind of how I felt when I watched it. I haven't even gotten through all of them, but it's brilliant. Yeah, yeah. It's kind of funny how, like They're not so bad in the beginning. You know, they're just kind of dude bros in the beginning. Yeah. And then as it goes along, they become more, like, repugnant and Yeah. Kind of gross. And you're not really rooting for them anymore. Yeah. Like, you get to the point where there's, like, the toe knife and Dennis has his tools in the back of his car. And, yeah. Like They don't start off as good people, but they start off as kind of relatable bad people. And then it just gets worse. They become the worst people ever. Like, to the point where you almost want to root for the McPoyles against them, even though the McPoyles are disgusting. I feel bad for Cricket the most out of all the characters. Because they ruined his life. He went from, like, a priest to a PCP addict. Yeah. You know what the funniest thing is? Charlie Day's character, the chick that he's obsessed with. The waitress? Yeah, she's actually his wife, but she always says how terrible she thinks he is. Yeah. and how disgusted she is by him the funny thing is I think I heard an interview with him somewhere where he said how they met was a guy was being creepy to her at a bar and so he approached her and pretended they were already dating so the guy would go away so it's based off of it's basically based off of how they met just with him as a different person and the creepy guy that won't go away yeah Well, she didn't I remember in the beginning, didn't she have a crush on On Dennis? Dennis, yeah. Dennis the sociopath? Isn't that the theory? Yeah. Or is he a psychopath? I think he's a sociopath. I think he has BPD. I think the moment when I realized how far they'd taken Dennis though is the one where they go to therapy and Dennis is talking about making luggage out of human skin he's like luggage out of human skin he's like you haven't thought of the smell you dumb bitch alright We're an always sunny podcast I'm Dave. And I'm Steve. I'm eating. Oh, I'm Sean. You're eating Sean? I'm eating Sean. And you're taking on his voice. Yeah, he's delicious. Like that movie Bring Her Back where the zombie demon guy gets fed like locks of hairs from dead people and can then impersonate them. Yeah. That movie kicks ass. I've never seen that one. It's brand new. Oh, okay. So slight spoilers, I guess, although that doesn't give away that much. It's in the trailer. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. I was just joking. Yeah, but it's by the guys who made Talk to Me, and it's really good. Oh, okay. People get fucked up real bad in it. It's a good horror movie. I'll have to check that out. Oh, wait. We're here to talk about records. Yeah, we're here to talk about records. So I'm going to ask Sean, because we did an episode about this band last season, and so Steve knows a little more about them than Sean does. Sean, what do you know about the band Parabubu? I know nothing, actually. I've never heard anything by Parabubu. Pear Ubu? Pear Ubu. Yep. Are they American? They are American. They're from Cleveland originally. Their lead singer died earlier this year. Oh. His name was David Thomas. This band makes me thirsty for some frosty chocolate milkshakes. Yes. Frosty. That's 2 references there for me. Yeah, they were like a post-punk, like art rock band from cleveland ohio they started in like oh wow after their old band rocket from the tombs which rocket from the crypt named themselves after uh but their old band rocket from the tombs uh disbanded there were 5 members of rocket from the tombs and 2 of them went on to form the Dead Boys, which was Cheetah Chrome and Johnny Blitz, the drummer. Oh, okay. And 2 went on to form Para Ubu, which was David Thomas, a.k.a. Crocus Behemoth, which is what his stage name was at this point, and Peter Laffner. Para Ubu recruited their sound guy, Tim Wright, to play bass for them. Well, they asked him if he wanted to play bass or guitar, and he wasn't sure, so he bought a bass 6. Ha ha! okay so he still wasn't sure he just yeah well you know what let's let's compromise yeah yeah well yeah there we go and then they and then they recruited a bunch of other musicians they knew tom herman was their other guitar player alongside peter laffner and then they recruited scott cross who was their drummer and the original idea behind the band that uh Well, and then they got their building supervisor, who was their landlord's son, who let them get away with everything because he wanted to sit around smoking weed and playing synthesizer in the band as well as their synth player. And David Thomas initially didn't like his voice, and none of the other members of Rocket from the Tombs liked it either, except for Peter Laffner. And after Rocket from the Tombs broke up, David talked to Peter and said, I want to start a band where we record. the handful of songs that the dead boys aren't taking well the dead boys are called frankenstein at that point but that frankenstein aren't taking and there were 2 for sure that they knew they could have which were 30 seconds over tokyo and final solution And yeah, they had a song called Vital Solution. They came to regret that. But yeah. And Peter Laffner said, yes, but only if you sing. And so, well, Thomas had like, he sang for the early days of Rocket from the Tombs, but by the end, because only one other member of the band liked his voice and it wasn't him, he'd moved to like saxophone and organ. Really? Yeah. Wow. I remember you telling me in the last episode that they essentially bullied David Thomas into being the vocalist. Yeah. And so he sang. And so he ended up singing on it. But when they went to record those 2 songs, Tim Wright, their bass player, was fucking around with the basics and started writing a new song. and so they released 30 seconds over tokyo with the b-side heart of darkness and then they went back and recorded final solution later as a second single and wrote a new song for that and by then they started like writing new stuff and playing uh another rocket song that uh frankenstein slash the dead boys didn't want called life stinks which ended up on their first album so steve's heard it uh and they Started a full band. I was going to ask, is this their first album? Because I saw the titles that you're saying on the This is not their first album. Their first album was called Modern Dance. This is a compilation that they put out when they were officially broken up in, like, the eighties. Oh, okay. Like, they broke up What year did Song of the Bailing Man come out? Well, the last album they did that they thought was going to be their last album forever came out in like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, like, And then a couple more B-sides for for their third album, New Picnic Time, and then a couple of non-album singles when they had a slight lineup change right before they broke up. And so this is basically This is All the songs that were not good enough to make it on the album proper. I You disagree. I disagree. I can see. I think their first 2 singles The 4 songs that are on those are 3 of the best songs they ever made as a band. And the 4th one is still pretty good. It's just Not as good as the other ones. It's just not as good as the other ones. The B-sides to the Modern Dance songs are really good. Like, as good as anything on that album. And that album is One of their best albums. It's the one I go back to the most. I think their best album as a whole is probably their second one, Dubhousing. But yeah, these are really strong songs. One of the B-sides is a really good live track. and then one of the b-sides from the new picnic time the other is a tape experiment so that one's take it or leave it um and then the last 2 songs from right before they broke up not happy and lonesome cowboy dave are pretty good they don't they're not especially great and i think the 2 albums around the time when they had that slight lineup change are better than the single but the single you know the singles are fine so with you know i think that um All of side A and the beginning of side B are all really strong, and then it kind of peters out a little bit. That's your new nickname, Lonesome Cowboy Dave. Lonesome Cowboy Dave. New stage name. Yeah. But yeah, one of the things that I think that is really cool about this collection is you can really hear them evolve as a band. Like their early stuff is kind of brooding and dark and menacing. And Dave Thomas is doing more normal vocals that like within his within his limited range, but like more normal vocals. And then as he keeps going, gets more confident and figures out what to do with his voice. He gets real weird with it by the end. OK. And then Peter Laffner is only on the first 4 tracks because He died of liver failure at age 24. Holy fuck. Yeah, he he was trying to live like Lou Reed, his own words. But like Lou Reed did a lot of substances. But, you know, he exaggerated it because it was part of, you know, like his whole persona. Peter Laffner just imitated what he thought Lou Reed was doing and and died and died. Basically, he'd left the band shortly before he died. But he was also, like, impossible to get along with by the point when he was that fucked up. Well, I can imagine. Yeah. I have to think that, like, if Sid Vicious hadn't killed himself, he'd probably have been at that point. Yeah. Because he was, what, like, 21, 22 when he killed himself? Yeah. So, yeah. I'm sure he would probably be like that where he Because he was always fucked up. Yeah. Peter Laffner is a better musician than Sid Vicious, though. He's, like, a really like a really talented guitar player and singer-songwriter. I think he just learned how to play his instrument before he started doing every drug he could get his hands on. Well, Sid Vicious didn't even get that far. He just started doing drugs and then tried to figure out the bass. I recently did listen to some live Sex Pistols bootlegs from, like, when they were playing, like, their disastrous U.S. tour that led to them breaking up. And there was a technical error on one of the discs in that the sound guy hadn't completely turned off Sid's amp. And so there's just, like, random bass notes doing nothing. I remember See, I remember seeing a couple of like live performances where they're they're playing and like the guitar is turned down really low and the bass is up and he's actually doing OK. But then like when he starts like jumping around, all of a sudden it's like nothing. Yeah, he's like. Just not hitting. He's not even trying to play while he's jumping around. I think one of the things that Sid, especially later on, was really trying to do was trying to upstage Johnny to usurp his place in the band, which he actually did, because after Johnny quit Malcolm tried to keep the band going for a little while. Well, that's sort of the That one album, the The Great Rock and Roll Swindle? Yeah. I want to get a time machine and then go and grab Sid Vicious at that point, and then go and grab Sid Barrett when he's, like, on the height of his LSD, and he's, like, just de-tuning his guitar on stage. But I need you guys to help fill out the lineup. Peter Laffner on lead guitar. We need a drummer who's that fucked up is the thing. Keith Moon. I was going to say Keith Moon. Keith Moon knew how to play that fucked up. It was weird. Yeah. Yeah. One of them is the anchor. Yeah, you need someone that can pull it off. I guess all of them but Sid Vicious knew how to play fucked up. And then I guess we can get Dave Mustaine on 5 different drugs just for vocals. There we go. What do you mean? What do you mean? I love California! But yeah, so this is, yeah, this album that we're doing is called Terminal Tower, an archival collection. This was, like, when I was first getting into the band, this was one of the first albums that I got by them, because I wanted to fill in like some of the gaps and i wanted to hear the early singles because i heard they're pretty different from like the first handful of albums i wanted to hear like how different they sounded and like in the huge you know like proto-punk nerd circles peter lafner is kind of a legendary figure to the point where like in the aughts when people were like when the music nerds really started getting into him and people kept asking David Thomas about them David Thomas clearly got sick of answering the questions it was like listen he was talented but he was kind of a bad person um yeah I could imagine yeah Like, one of the very last, like, he also was an aspiring, like, Lester Bang-style music journalist, Lafner was. And, like, one of the last things that he wrote was when he panned Coney Island Baby by Lou Reed because it wasn't what he thought it was, and he thought Lou Reed had betrayed him. And he writes about how he got in a fistfight with his wife and got fired from his van. It's like, yeah. Well, that Yeah, that album by Lou Reed was kind of a weird one. It's not good, but it's not worth that kind of a breakdown. I know. Well, Coney Island Baby was coming off of Berlin. So, yeah, I could imagine if you loved Berlin, going to Coney Island Baby, you'd probably be like, what the fuck is this? Yeah. But Sean is going to look at the cover here. So the cover looks like It's like a bunch of It's a It looks kind of like a painting with people walking away from almost like a busy city kind of thing. Yeah. But it looks like it's from like the forties. a little bit um and then it's got pair ubu uh written really big on with like a pink uh tracing behind it and then terminal tower really small underneath And then the back looks like it's like all the information. It's like a blue with all the information. It's an info dump. Yeah, it's an info dump about all the recording, how it was recorded and stuff like that. which are some of my sources for all these stories that i'm telling my other sources are there's a book called by a british music critic named clinton heinlein called from the velvets to the voidoids and it talks a lot about perubu in it because that's one of the author's favorite bands and i agree with him like uh to me i like that book a little more than please kill me because of how much it talks about like perubu and devo and stuff like that um and then The other source is their old website, Ubu Projects, which David Thomas just talks a lot about the band and their history on that. So it is his side of the story a lot of the time, and he was famously a curmudgeon, but you get a lot of good stuff in there. Even though there are a lot of members left the band, one of the things he said late in life that I read in his eulogy was, hey, of the 21 people who are still alive that have left the band, I could get 20 of them to play on an album with me again. That's not bad. Yeah. And then the inside just kind of looks like random pictures. Yeah. Those are Yeah. Just Those are the Are they the singles covers? Those are the different albums that all came out. To them, this was like a career retrospective type thing. It's all non-album songs, but it's kind of giving an overview because they thought they were broken up forever at this point. And then the inside jacket right here, on one side we have the lyrics on the other side we have just a smaller more organized version of the same pictures oh yeah and uh just a track listing for all the songs so like at this point you know like when they're putting this stuff out they had kind of become influential and like mission of burma famously covered heart of darkness uh, Peter Murphy from Bauhaus on his, uh, solo, uh, career covered, uh, final solution. So like people were getting into their stuff and listening to them. a lot like a lot of like the no wave and art punk stuff like bands like mission of burma sonic youth um uh the pixies all cited them as an influence when they got back together in and started putting out music again they eventually toured with the pixies in like the early nineties and that's how the that's how frank black met eric drew felden because by that point eric drew felden had replaced the synth player alan ravenstein in the band because alan ravenstein quit to become an airline pilot Oh, and then Eric Drew Feldman played on the 4th Pixies album. Yep. And then Frank Black's early solo stuff. Like, and then Tony Maimone, their bass player by side 2 of this, who was with them pretty much their whole run after he joined for like the early modern dance singles, uh, He left in the early nineties to play with They Might Be Giants. So it's like they became a big influential band and then all the bands they influenced started poaching members from them. As you do. Oh, yeah. It's better to poach from your heroes, I guess. Yeah. But yeah, so on this first side, we have their first single and they have the B side first. Maybe it was because of the Mission of Burma cover, maybe because they thought it flowed better, which is Heart of Darkness. And then we have 30 Seconds Over Tokyo. And then we have Final Solution and Cloud 14 9, which was their second single. Then closing out this side, we have Untitled, which is a song they submitted for our compilation that got rejected. Aw, they didn't even bother titling it. It has a title, like Steve might recognize it once it gets to it. It became the title track for their first album, Modern Dance. This is an early version of it, and they re-recorded it with their new lineup when they When that's solidified, the lineup in this is David Thomas on vocals, Peter Laffner on guitar, Tom Herman on guitar and bass, Tim Wright on guitar and bass, Alan Ravenstein on synth, Scott Krause on drums. And that's for the first 2 songs, Heart of Darkness and 30 Seconds Over Tokyo. For Final Solution and Cloud 14 9, Uh, Ravenstein temporarily left the band because he didn't want to play live and was replaced by Dave Taylor, who worked at a record store with Scott Krause. Uh, and then for Untitled, Laffner had left the band and died shortly there, uh, after they recorded it. uh so laughter's just not on that at all and they have alan greenblatt on guitar who was like a local blues player who agreed to play with them and then didn't want to stay in the band afterwards and ravenstein came back on synths at that point and they say dave taylor stepped stepped aside but i don't know if he actually did or if they just canned him but and that is the first side right there uh yeah any more thoughts before we get started Now, remember, if you don't listen to our season one version of Para Ubu, then the continuity is not going to make any sense to you. Yeah. Yeah. Go listen to that. I listen to it, too. Yes. That is why you knew everything about the band. And I was just flapping my gums for no reason. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. It's all true. Yes. But yeah, we'll get this started. was the first side of Terminal Tower, an archival collection by Per Ubu. Fellas, what'd you think? What the fuck you got me listening to? No, it's good. No, it's pretty good. It's interesting. Very different. I'm really enjoying it so far. I really like the modern dance, but so far the the darkness of the songs on this side seemed to be grabbing me more than, uh, than anything that was on that album. So I, um, I I'm really enjoying this, uh, album's vibe so far. Like it's got so many different elements of everything. I mean, it even sounds like stoner rock or desert rock at certain points. Uh, there's a lot of like jazzy parts. Um, yeah, I'm really enjoying the avant-garde abstract nature of this. And, uh, like Dave, I, I've noticed, or, um, I noticed several times like the synth was going and for some reason I was just imagining you playing it. Yeah. Like Alan Ravenstein. Well, and Dave Taylor for the 2 songs he's on. Like, but yeah, this band is like the biggest influence of, uh, synth playing that i have like if i were to list my top 3 synth players alan ravenstein would be number one ahead of brian eno were you aware of this band when you started gong farmer yes okay this was like this is this band is basically what inspired me to start gong farmer one i loved the synth and what it was doing and 2 it was like well david thomas can sing i can too When I remember the vibe of the early days, uh, and I can tell this is kind of what, uh, at least you probably wanted it to sound like, uh, I'm sure Dinger had his own ideas, but Dinger had his own thing, but yeah, like, like for me, this is, this is, this is what I was going for basically. Yeah. Yeah. There it was. Yeah. I definitely can hear like how this influenced you. Uh, but, it it is kind of creepy and then like also the time like uh when it's like dragging things out i can kind of hear like how bow house was influenced by this yeah because you said this was like a lot of this stuff that we're listening to is from like yeah so yeah crazy yeah the first 2 songs the uh 30 seconds over tokyo and heart of darkness that I know it's the other order on the record, but, you know, 30 Seconds Over Tokyo is the A side, Heart of Darkness is the B side. And I'm glad they went in that direction because, honestly, this flowed really well as a side. Yeah. Like, I think 30 Seconds Over Tokyo is a slightly better song than Heart of Darkness, but I think that made it flow better as a side as a result, going from a really strong opener and then just, like, kicking it up a notch. Yeah, I agree. Yeah. And yeah, that came out in December of seventy five and like 30 seconds over Tokyo was a rocket from the tune of the song. So they were playing it at live shows like in seventy four and earlier in 75 with a different band. So like that was. Like, that was a thing they were just out doing. And yeah, then the next 2, Final Solution and Cloud One for 9, came out in March of 76. So this is like, honestly, this is more proto-punk than post-punk, which their first album, Modern Dance, came out in 78. So by then they're. put into post-punk, but they were, they were doing this before punk was really established. I was going to say that's, that's before punk. Yeah. Because, uh, punk was, uh, Ramones was like 75 and then Yeah. Before punk, BP. Yeah. So proto-punk. Yeah. Like, uh, PP. You know, Stooges. Yeah. Um Yeah, the Ramones, like, started like 75, their first album came out in 77. The Sex Pistols and the Damned were, like, I think started in England in, like, 76, and the Damned got a single out in 76 and beat the Sex Pistols to it. I think the Anarchy in the UK single came out in 76, and then everything else the Sex Pistols did came out in 77. Yeah. Yeah, like, so this was So they were basically playing post-punk before punk had even really taken off. Yeah, because I only found a few parts that kind of sounded punky in a way, but the rest of it did sound very post-punk. Yeah. They probably would have If they would have came out, like, 6 years later, they probably would have been, like, a hit. Oh, yeah, and that's why, you know, like, in the eighties, after they'd broken up, like, they were getting covered a lot by, like, alternative and post-punk bands, and everyone was citing them as an influence, which is why they put out this this record was because it's like, Oh, Hey, people want to hear the old singles and not just the records. Let's just do something to make it complete. Well, they should have been on 4 AD. This is probably what it happened. They probably should have been. Yeah. Yeah. because that was the big indie rock label that did Bauhaus and stuff like that. Yeah. So they would have fit on that label really well. And a lot of the songs off of Modern Dance that were a part of their live set at this time do sound pretty punky, like Street Waves and Life Stinks are Or like their higher energy numbers that were a big part of their live set that they didn't Well, they put out Street Waves as a single, which we'll get to that. We'll listen to the B-side for that on the next side. That was when their lineups finally solidified, and it was like the next side it's going to all be the Modern Dance lineup, except for the last 2 songs where it's a different guitar player. But yeah, at this point, they were still kind of coming together and figuring out how they would sound. But they did have faster, more aggressive songs. On Modern Dance, there's Street Waves and Life Stinks, but there's also Non-Alignment Pact. There's also Well, how Modern Dance ends up turning out, like the title track turns out on that album, there's there's humor me there, but yeah. But like at, at this point, yeah, it's like more like what they were leading with was like more of the, uh, the creepy spooky sound and less of the higher energy, energy, aggressive sound. Uh, I need to listen to the, um, the, that album. Cause I haven't heard, I'm hearing the early shit before I'm here. I'm hearing it in the right order, I guess. Yeah. You're hearing it in the order in which it was released more or less. Yeah. But yeah, we'll go through track by track a little bit. Heart of Darkness. I really liked this one. I liked the out-of-sync vocals, you know, like how they used 2 different takes and made one kind of drag behind the other a little bit, and one sounded you know, sounded much more like deadpan and one sounded much more anxious. And I think it's funny that someone who was reluctant to sing, they used 2 vocal tracks by him on it on top of each other. I like the bass line. I like the basics around it. I think what really stands out on this first track are especially the bass and the vocals. Like, the synth is kind of buried in it. Like, they moved to one guitar after we get to the other side. They have one official guitar player in the band. And when they take out one guitar, the synth really has much more room to breathe. And, like, you notice it more. But, like, yeah, on this what really stands out is the bass guitar and the vocals. And I love the lyrics to it. This has been a song I've used to wallow in misery before. It's great for that. Tell us how you really feel, Dave. Yeah. I like the minimalist, low-gain guitar playing mixed with the powerful, punchy bass that just kind of built into a powerful rock song. And then I also remember really liking the cool Tom Heavy breakdown. So a great way to open the album, I think. Yeah, and then it builds. By the end, it's not quite as minimalist and everyone's playing much more aggressively. Yeah, at first I was thrown off at the double vocal. I was like, is that I was wondering if the record was fucked up. Dave's like, no, that's how it's supposed to sound. I'm like, oh, okay. You know, I got criticized for doing something similar with one of my songs. But, yeah, on that one I could really hear the Bauhaus, you know, how they influence. Because there's some very draggy, like, just bass and drum part. How, like, Bauhaus does that, you know, like. And then I like the Draving bass. Yeah, the bass was good. Yeah. I love the bass. Yeah. And it makes sense that this is the song that Mission of Burma covered, too, because by doing the 2 slightly out of sync vocals, it's Really drawing on, you know, like how much they like to fuck around with tape stuff, even like live on stage to confuse people. And like Mission of Burma on stage looked like a three piece, but they had a fourth member who is at the who's at the soundboard with a like a real real tape player plugged in and he would like fuck with with the recording in real time and like. double up and reverse like vocals or bass or drums or guitar and people will be like how's this much sound coming out of the stage with this and then like during the encore he would like pick up a guitar and play one song with them like all 4 of them would be on stage and then he'd go back So yeah, the artier post-punk bands really did draw a lot from this era. But yeah, I think this works really solid as an opener because of the slow build too. Not that the next 2 songs don't also slow build, but I feel like this really works as an album opener because of the way it slowly introduces the elements and then So what did you think of the second song, 30 Seconds Over Tokyo? This is my favorite song on this site, honestly. This one's really good. This song is a lie. Yeah, it's like 7 minutes long. It's 6 minutes long. It's not 30 seconds. It's about the Doolittle raids, the synths, and at least one of the guitars always sound like like either engines or machine gun fire or bombs dropping at any given time, especially in like the, uh, especially in like the improvised breakdown in the middle. Uh, this one being a rocket from the tombs song. It's funny to think of like, uh, members of the Dead Boys playing this along with them, because this is not the kind of shit the Dead Boys played at all. But there's live bootlegs of Rocket from the Tombs. And yeah, if you want to hear members of the Dead Boys playing this song, it exists. And I think Cheetah Chrome doing a you know, like rhythm guitar during the improvised breakdown while like Peter Laffner is going nuts, like soloing. Actually, that sounds really good. Like I really, I like that version too. Like both of these, both of those versions are really good. Although the, uh, the bootleg one is much lower quality of recording, but it's good. Like it's definitely worth checking out rocket from the tombs too. I really liked this song. It, um, The intro made me think of the Twilight Zone. So that was cool. Yeah. And then I noticed that it had this like stoner rock or desert rock vibe. It wouldn't be out of place at like a generator party. And I liked the avant-garde breakdown and the jazzy section was really cool. And I liked the abrupt ending. Yeah. It was like the off-key synths. There like there was parts where there was like some synth that was a little off key from like what the guitar or whatever. Yeah. That's not. And then there was a one part where like the vocals did like a vocal like distortion. And I was like, oh, my God, that sounds like such a nineties distortion. Yeah. Yeah. I was thinking like monster magnet. Yeah. I was like, I was like, wow, that's like way ahead of its time. Yeah. This is my favorite synth work on this side of the record, too. The way it sounds like an engine sputtering out after getting shot, it's amazing. It's a little on the nose, but it's amazing. Final Solution. Final Solution. Didn't like the name. Yeah. Was the song a commentary on Nazism? No, the song is a teenage angst song. It's a teenage suicide song, basically. So they predicted the Columbine shooting. Yeah. They They stopped playing it live after a little while, when they saw how many punk bands were getting into displaying Nazi imagery, too. They had stopped playing it live around the modern dance era, and refused to until they got back together in like, in like, there's an earlier EP of non-album stuff that this kind of supplanted that didn't include it on it. Why should I stop playing my song when they're the ones that suck? Yeah. And, like, David Thomas has always said that he didn't mean for it to be about the Holocaust, that he was referencing a Sherlock Holmes story called The Final Problem. However, this is a Rocket from the Tomb song, and cheetah chrome and uh johnny blitz were known to wear swastikas for shock value in the dead boys and there uh there was a poster of uh like like a flyer for a live show for rocket from the tombs that did have like iron crosses on it and like holocaust imagery so i think thomas wrote an edgy song when he was young and angry and was ashamed by it and it unfortunately happened to be one of his better songs and he couldn't live it down and because yeah it's a banger yeah because yeah it's it's a fantastic song it's got like a great noise game synth uh the bass on it sounds huge yeah uh really cool song It was kind of the most punky song, too. Yeah, it's the one that gets put on punk compilations that include Para Ubu a lot. That makes sense. Yeah. Just not a great name. Just not a great name. Well, I bet you, like, if he did write it as, like a teen suicide song, but he didn't, maybe he didn't know at the time what final solution meant. I mean, that's possible. He was just a guy from Ohio and like, but like his other compatriots were like, Oh, he probably called it final problem. Yeah. Or, and then like, Oh no, final solution. He's like, Oh yeah, there you go. And then they're like, Oh, and then you later on, he's like, Oh fuck those motherfuckers. Yeah. I don't know. yeah, but yeah, i was there, you know. yeah, plausible, that makes more sense than oh. it's just always been a sherlock holmes song. so yeah, especially especially with, like that old flyer which i have seen a picture of, because the internet is forever. uh, cloud one, 4, 9. i like this one. uh, this one is the of the first 3 tracks of the 3 of the or the first 4 tracks, the 4 songs with peter lafner on it. this one is the least essential in my opinion. it was kind of whimsical, though, yeah, it kind of helped, i think. uh, Like for like the heavier doomier songs, and then it kind of goes into a whimsical song. Yeah, this kind of foreshadows what they would sound like when they started putting out albums too. This sounds more like their classic era. It's just they started doing this kind of stuff better as they got more comfortable with it. so I thought it sounded bouncy and like a demented circus. Yeah, It sounded a lot like television to me too, which was a pretty big influence on Peter Laffner's playing. Yeah, there's. Unfortunately, with Peter Laffner leaving the band, there's a lot of stuff that has never been released, Like, eventually, his home demos and live bootleg stuff got released. so we've heard more or less all of his songs. but these are the only 4 songs that he's played on that were officially, you know, like, recorded in a professional studio and mixed and mastered by real engineers. So this is mainly his legacy. And he had a huge following off of 4 songs. Yeah, That's crazy, Yeah. And then, once he developed the following off those 4 songs, he was personal friends with Richard Hell too, which I think was part of it. Oh, okay, And he tried to join television briefly after Richard Lloyd quit. Oh, okay, But Richard Lloyd rejoined before anything could come of it. Like there was a brief window of time after he got fired from Para Ubu and Richard Lloyd tried to quit television. And shortly before Laffner died, where he tried to join television, but Lloyd said that it was never seriously considered. But who knows, maybe Lloyd is. Lloyd wasn't in the band anymore. so who can say how serious it was? He's probably like that. motherfucker can never have my job. Yeah, If you have the ability to Dimension Hop, I bet that'd be one of your stops to go. check that album out. Yeah, album and or show or whatever, yeah. and then lastly, untitled the modern dance. yeah, i like the version like what they ended up re-recording. uh, with their, with their finalized lineup a little more than this. but this is good. It's fun to hear the. It's fun to hear the roots of it. Like, I think, I think Alan Greenblatt is a good guitar player. I don't know if his style necessarily fits this kind of music. I think I like this version a little more than the one that ended up on the album. For me, I really like the weird lead guitar note selection. I thought it really fit the song, The bluesy guy. Yeah, I don't know. I like the more funky bass from Tony Mimone. I like. i like the weird, like tape conversations that are like in in the song on the final version and i like the backup singers saying merida, merida on the uh on the final version too like shit. yeah, yeah, merida, uh, i like the creepy nature of the song. i didn't really. i don't really know about the breakdown. i thought that was kind of weird. um, the guitar was kind of fun. i remember it was kind of like. so yeah, i don't know. so you said it's a different guitarist on the actual album. oh it's well, Tom Herman is in both this version and the one on the album. by that point Tom Herman was the only guitar player in the band. So it's just like one guitar. And then it's a different bass player, because Tim Wright was the original bass player. And after Laffner quit he didn't like know what to do in the band and he and Thomas butt heads a lot And Wright wanted to keep doing a 2guitar thing. Thomas was late. Thomas thought that the 2 guitars were overpowering the synths And so they kind of split from there. Wright joined a no-wave group called DNA and he did good stuff with them. But this was like they were never as big as Pair Ubu, and He died, I think, in like the late nineties, early aughts. So he never had like as big a career as I think he should have, But he also didn't have as small of a career as Lafner. So I know that's. that's crazy that, because you're telling me like, because at the beginning of the episode you were saying how, how much like people have been like re-examining him, and, like, uh, how the lead dave thomas, founder of yeah, didn't want to talk about him. he's like he was an yeah, He passed out during practice and I had to wake him up with a microphone. stand, Yeah, I could really go for some nuggets right now. Yeah, Dip him in a frosty. Yep, You fucking heathen. Yeah, you should beep that out, though, because they're not paying us. but yeah, that was. i made a great joke about the founder of, and you, you want to beep it out. what the fuck? yeah, no, it's, it's hard at this point. um, but yeah, no, like yeah, yeah, but this was yeah, this was like their. like this first side is their their dark period, pretty much like the. the very first song of the next side was the modern dance uh lineup, doing like a darker song, but it, like you notice, like the next side, like things lightening up consistently throughout the whole thing, and like this was, i guess, as they kept going, they got less angsty. more or less there's a few, like dark and moody songs on modern dance, but like the whole mood of the album is much more light-hearted than the these first 5 songs here, less angst in their pants. yes, It means they had some release. They did. Also, David Thomas stopped rejecting his parents' religion at some point around, like between Dubhousing and New Picnic Time, and was a practicing Jehovah's Witness until they broke up and then never talked and may or may not have been the rest of his life but never talked about it again. once the band got back together in, They had a song off their third album called Kingdom Comes, which is like their only song that directly references his religion. But I think there is a degree to which him lightening up too much because he was less miserable might have been a factor. with the band falling apart. It made them rock less hard a little bit, but yeah. Well, the second song on this side is called Heaven. Yes, but that is a love song. Oh, Yeah And the. Maybe it's about loving God.

Well, the lyrics for Heaven were part of a song from their early live set called: 47:57

I Can't Believe It. So I don't think it's a God song Like the. The chorus is different but like, the verses are the same. So yeah, I don't think this was a part of his Jehovah's Witnesses era, more or less, but it does come pretty fast. Like, there's a theory that dub housing is called that because one of the things people call Jehovah's Witnesses are dubs. I didn't know that. Why did they call them that? I have no idea. Is Jehovah's Witnesses the one that tried to sell you clock towers? No, Yeah, Yeah. they're the ones that don't practice any holidays. They don't practice any holidays, but they are allowed to drink. So they're not like Mormons. Yeah, Interesting, Save the clock tower. You know who the most famous Jehovah's Witness musician is, though. Probably Michael Jackson. Oh Prince was a Jehovah's Witness too, Yeah, and so it's like they are not as prudish as other Christian sects, but they're also not the kind of people who would do songs about teenage suicide that reference the Holocaust either. So if they don't do holidays and they're not supposed to go into work, do they just treat it like a normal day, More or less? yeah, That's weird, It is. They probably just take it as a day off. Yeah, Most people know them from their door-to-door thing and are annoyed by them by that. But as far as religions, with missionaries, though they are less annoying to me than the people who will hold up the big signs about Satan and hell outside on like university campuses and scream at people for being gay. So you know, you know actually from my childhood was the worst. It was the Baptist. Oh yeah, So I'll have a quick story about this, or it's a story? Yeah, Anyways, they, They- came to my door one time and the lead person was this girl that was actually very attractive And she wanted to talk to me. so I let her talk to me, And then, all of a sudden, they started coming back, and it was never the same girl. I'm like, okay, you guys send the redhead back. Hey, I was a horny teenager, so shoot me. Oh, they knew what they were doing. Because she's like, you got to let Jesus into your heart. And I'm like, okay. And she's like pointing at her chest. And I'm like, yep, yep. I will let him into your heart. I mean, my heart. my mom had a similar experience she uh a couple guys came to her door and they were like hot guys and so i i don't know if they were targeting like middle-aged women or something and then like so then they started coming back and they're like well we could take you and it was like it was like uh 20 year old dudes and i'm like no i don't want you guys bring the redhead back and uh they started, they started saying, Oh, we could take you to like, do you have a way to get to the church? And I'm like, nah, I don't, I don't drive. And they're like, Oh, we could come and pick you in the van. And I'm like, I'm not going anywhere in a van with you guys. And then, uh, finally, um, they came back and I saw him coming and I had this, uh, white zombie shirt that like had a, like this, it was just like, so like, like it had like this guy on it, like all fucked up. And like he had war carved in his chest and stuff like that. And I'm like, Hey, how's it going? I'm like, is this church appropriate here? They didn't come back after that. So I was happy. Yeah. One time I was hanging out with a couple of friends and I had like a ACDC shirt on, which is funny because ACDC is like such an inoffensive band. They're like the Simpsons of music, like offended Christians or something. But anyway, so there was somebody passing out like flyers. And so they hand it to each one of my friends and they look at me with my ACDC shirt and they don't even bother handing me one. That's right. I'll go to hell. aren't they supposed to try to save you from yourself i thought that was the whole point of them going door to door i i yeah that's why it's funny to me that it was acdc like i can see them being like oh slayer he's too far gone but acdc yeah I guarantee you they have some practitioners that wear ACDC shirts on their days off. I'm sure they have some practitioners who listen to ACDC. Yeah. Maybe it was more that when I have a neutral face, I just look mean. Maybe it was more had to do with that. Well, okay. So this one has more to do with like overt racism than anything. That's kind of, uh, so when I was, uh, I was, I was an electrician for a bit. Like I did electrician at Preston's for like a year or so. And, uh, you know, the, uh, the, um, the clock that's in front of The Quest Center? What is it called now? Oh, yeah. CHI Center. Yeah. You know, the big one that's blue? It'll always be the Quest Center to me. I know. I'll be dead in the ground before I recognize the CHI Health Center. I know. It sounds like a fucking hospital. It does. I can see somebody getting confused by that and trying to go there to get care. Yeah. um so i actually helped put in like the electrical for that that clock and like there's a bunch of ground lighting that we dug up and like put in ground lights and stuff and so while we were doing that it was during uh I think it was Hispanic Awareness Month or something like that, or Hispanic Celebration Month or something like that. Hispanic History Month? Yeah, there you go. I think that was it. Anyways, and they were having this convention down there, and it was during Bush's whole Let's just say Donald Trump wasn't the first fucker to put on the whole anti-immigration thing. Bush was doing that shit in the early aughts. People just forget about it. Too many people give George Bush a pass. I know. It's like, fuck that dude. He was terrible. It's like he actually stole the election. People seem to forget that when people talk about decorum and shit. And so So, uh, he, there was a huge protest in front of the quest center and this guy that I worked with, he was kind of your typical looking American guy that was like, you know, kind of blonde hair and stuff. Me at the time I have, I have black hair and I was actually quite dark because I was working outside a lot. So what did I look like? oh yeah yeah so he comes up and starts talking to us and he's talking to like i didn't want a fucking thing to do with the guy he starts talking to that dude that looked like a typical american guy and he's shooting me fucking daggers because he thinks i'm hispanic and that the other guy's like working with hispanics and he's like do you feel good about these guys taking our jobs and i swear to god he said that i'm like And I wanted to say, hey, fuck you, Pendejo. Fuck you, motherfucker. But yeah, so that's how I was. Yeah. Shawshaw was a target of racism. I was a target of racism because I have black hair. Yeah. And was tanned because I had been working outside. You better not tan anymore because ice might throw you into a van. I know, right? I could get taken away in the middle of the night and they're like, what country are you from? America! Anyways. Take you to that weird El Salvadorian prison. Jesus Christ. Yeah. Okay, we're getting dark. We're getting about Dark's Para-Ubu now. Yeah, Para-Ubu. So, yeah, on this next side, we have My Dark Ages, Heaven, The Book is on the Table, Humor Me. I got that backwards. Humor Me, then The Book is on the Table, and it's a live version of Humor Me, Not Happy, and Lonesome Cowboy Dave. Yeah. The lineup for this is the same almost all the way through. It's David Thomas on vocals, Scott Herman on guitar, Tony Maimone on bass and piano, Alan Ravenstein on synth and tapes, and Scott Krause on drums. The last 2 songs was after Tom Herman quit the band because he was tired of the Jesus shit. and he was replaced by Mayo Thompson, who was the guitar player from the Red Crayola, which was like a psychedelic band that Per Ubu had toured with and all guested on one of his albums called Soldier Talk, which was an anti-war album. But yeah, they just brought in Mayo Thompson at that point, and the guitar playing is pretty different in that. I like Mayo Thompson. I think his stuff fits Red Crayola better than Per Ubu, but the 2 albums he was on are good. Like, he did good stuff with it, but I can tell you already my favorite one's Lonesome Cowboy Dave. Going forward, every episode, you have to introduce yourself as Lonesome Cowboy Dave. Oh, after you hear the song, I'm going to tell you how I'm going to introduce myself from that song. But you'll have to hear it first. But, yeah, this was It's my favorite already. But, yeah, this is at a point This starts at a point where they're more stable and ends at a point where they're less stable, while the other one is just them being unstable the whole time. So this side's a little more cohesive. I like the first side a little more because it's a brief era that you never get to that they never really got completely back to. Although, like, in, like, the mid nineties to the aughts, they would call back to that era more than they did later. Um, but yeah, and then, but like my favorite track on the album is off of this side. So we will talk about that more after we put the album on. right. And we are back. So, fellas, what'd you think of this side of music? I wish Dan was here for the second half of this album, because the last 3 songs sounded like our experimental project, Lucid Fugue. Yeah. To me, this sounds a lot like both of our bands mixed together. Yeah. This side was a lot goofier, didn't take itself as seriously as the first side, and That's cohesive to me. Yeah. It explored a lot of territory. The first 3 songs of Of this side, though, my favorite song on this whole record is on there. And then the other 2 within that are, I think, as strong as anything on the first side. Can I guess what your favorite one is? Yes. Heaven. got it that was my favorite i was like oh yeah so good my dark ages heaven and humor humor me all sound like the kind of stuff we do with the illiterates it's true yeah i i was like oh i like listening to humor me i was kind of like oh this sounds like something we would actually write yeah But yeah, this was a weird transition, because the first 3 songs, you can tell it's a band that has really gelled together in a way that the band that you're hearing on all the first side really hadn't yet. And then And then even though the book is on the table, was part of a double B side off of their third album with the live version of Humor Me. Humor Me was the last song of Modern Dance, so it was when the original lineup was finally starting to have enough internal friction within it that it was no longer as cohesive anymore. And so And so, yeah, like it starts off with like a really like tight band really gelling together. And then the last 3 songs are when the internal tensions are making them not like to be together anymore, basically. Yeah. Yeah. But. They recorded something that's kind of goofy and fun as a result, which is interesting. But the notes that came with this is even talking about how grueling some of those sessions were and how there were so many ideas started and abandoned because they couldn't agree on where to take it at this time. Yeah. Well, I will say the last 3 songs just kind of sounded like improvising. Like they were just fucking around. Yeah. Well, as professional fucker-rounders, it sounded a lot like our sessions for Artificial Flesh. Yeah, which we would then edit down into something, but it's still like Artificial Flesh is the Artificial Flesh is a lot more confrontational than these 3 songs, but it's me kind of trying to channel this kind of energy into doing something, or at least how I was approaching it. I don't think Dan was approaching it this way. Steve, I think you were more on my wavelength for this, but not to the same degree necessarily at all times. But it was me kind of trying to take the energy of these last 3 songs, but make them as confrontational as possible. the beginning of this love side one of this record i think it's interesting how lucid fugue is like dan trying to wrangle our ideas and make it semi-coherent it's it yeah it's interesting but so track by track by track my dark ages uh i like this song quite a bit i think this song like The new bass player, Tony Maimone, really, really nails it. Tom Herman's guitar solo in the last half really good and it makes a case for him being the sole guitar player in the band I like the lyrics like the last time I was single which was like 12 years ago this was like my I am going to sit in the space and be okay with the fact that I'm single song I don't get around I don't fall in love much it's like it's you know it's kind of dreary and gloomy but it's not hopeless it's It's a really good song. I like it. If you find footage of them playing it live, just how much more of the guitar solo just tears up in the live version. It's amazing. This is them finally coming together. The A-side to this single was Street Waves, which was like one of the punkiest songs off of modern dance. And so for them to go from just really like fast, aggressive song about a pile of abandoned tires that David Thomas once saw, decided to write a song about because a lot of Para Ubu's early stuff was about urban decay because they are from cleveland uh well you know what put in your uh put in the comments below uh what your favorite i'm single song is yeah yeah since dave's is so upbeat yeah fuck me dude this was your like i'm single this this song is like like doom and gloom dude yeah but the lyrics have like a little bit of hope in them It's okay. Things will be all right. I don't get around. While you're splitting your wrist, it's all right. It's the last really dark song on the whole record, too. And it's when they had solidified their lineup for when they moved out of their dark period, too. So it is a transitional piece from the band that did Final Solution to the band that did kingdom come a few albums later. I could see a doom metal band covering this song. Yeah. So Sean brings up how grim it sounds. So I have to agree with that. Um, I think the lo-fi production on the vocals worked a lot. Uh, and the emphasis on the bass and the bass drum, like worked really well. And I liked Tony Mimone's jazz piano stuff that he's doing in addition to his bass line, too. That's really cool. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I agree. That was an excellence addition. I thought the drums were pretty sparse. Yeah. I'm pretty sure it was just a bass drum. i like and i liked i think that like when it picked up a little bit and had oh yeah you're right yeah and i liked and i liked with the bass drum just like that white noise synth hit that they did alongside it yeah that sounded really cool and like booming but yeah it did sound very different like guitar work yeah i did think it was a different guitarist but you're like yeah i noticed the the previous guitar players had a lot more uh like uh Jazz overtones to his playing and this one I think is probably just more bluesy. What would you say Sean? Yeah, I think it I think it's because he's uh He was on the previous one, but he had another guitarist with him So I think I think that he was just making up for that I Like that void, you know, or he was sitting in his pocket. Yeah. Yeah. And I think like giving him the chance to just like shine and be like the sole guitar player was I think sticking with one guitar player after the untitled early version of Modern Dance Thing kind of fell apart and got rejected for the compilation was the right call. I thought giving Tom Herman room to sit in the band and really find his place in it because he wasn't competing for space with anyone else really really helped develop their sound and like really made the case for, for him as, as a guitar hero, as like someone, and like one of the principal songwriters in the band too. Like he, like, He really shines, especially on like modern dance and dub housing when he's when like he and David Thomas are still getting along. He is. He is, interestingly enough, like when the band got back together in 88, he wasn't one of the ones that came back another like. cleveland uh musician who was in a band called the electric eels and was at like their early shows and the like was the one who uh joined the band at that point and then when uh and his name was jim jones jim jones of the electric eels like played with them for a while and they got like he gave them more of a pop sound but then like when jim jones of the electric eels uh got cancer and wasn't able to play live anymore tom herman was like came back to the band in like wow uh so like he's like he was out of the band from like until like so but he like stayed with the band until at that point and didn't leave on bad terms he left because he was old and wanted to stay in Cleveland and the band moved to England at that point. And like, and like, but like years, like years after that, he would still play with them on stage when they went through Ohio. So yeah. and then like on, on Perry boo's website, when like people like Dave Thomas is the one answering most of the questions. But when people asked about how the music was written, he would like fondly quote Tom Herman saying like the best rock parts are the parts where you don't have to move your hand as much stuff like that. You have like very like velvet underground, uh, theory of playing guitar. Oh yeah. I remember when you mentioned in the last episode, uh, that you mentioned the electric eels and then you mentioned they were shock rock and dan was like isn't that a bit on the nose yeah uh heaven heaven best song on the record yeah that was great uh I think it was cheery. It actually was very Pixies-esque. Yeah, Pixies were very influenced by Parahubus, hence they poached a member from them. I was like, man, I could definitely hear Frank Black play in this song. Yeah. I like that it sounded happy and approached like surf territory, but never quite reached surf territory. Yeah. But it had like a discordant synth in the background. Yeah. Yeah. Great song. My favorite was probably 30 Seconds Over Tokyo, but that's a yeah, that's a plus one in my books. I can see I can see that being your favorite, too. Yeah. But yeah, like I love I love Love Heaven. I like that. Like the harmonies. Yeah. Like, just like, yeah, the 3part harmonies together, the, I love the guitar solo. Just like a good Christian, you love heaven. Yes. But, you know, the And then I liked it when the, like, they then overdubbed a little, like, key change from the same solo over that, too, and Yeah, it was a good, it was, yeah, it was my favorite song. Cause you're like, as soon as you said like my favorite song was on the side, I'm like, okay, I need to see which one is going to be Dave's favorite song. And I called it. Yep. Well, we'll get to that one, We'll get to that. Yeah, like, I think like sometimes when I listen to this on CD, I have stopped the CD at this point, even though I like humor me a lot too, because, well, the studio version of humor me is on, uh, the modern dance, And while I really liked this live version, he does kind of improvise other vocals over one of my favorite vocal parts of humor me, which, yeah, let's move on to humor me. Do we have anything else to say about heaven though? No, no, Okay, Yeah, Listen to it again. Yeah, highlight of the album really is like one of the best B sides I think I've ever heard too. Yeah, Like, it's like it's, it's a B side that is as good as anything off of their album, which is, by some metrics, their best album.

So it's: 1:11:14

yeah, this was when they're at their most energetic and most essential. Um, but yeah, humor me, it was the last track off of modern dance and it was the song that, uh, they wrote to process Peter Laffner's death. uh, The lyrics. like he improvises a lot over it. so you miss some of the lyrics that are in the studio version, which makes me not like it as much as the studio version. It's still a good live take and like really high energy, really good performance. but like the fact that maybe he wasn't feeling the lyrics as much in 79, when he was a happier person than 78, when he was still processing his former friend's death, might have something to do with that. but like some of the lyrics that aren't really in, it is like when he says another day, another dollar, step, step, step on the album. he's saying another day to suffer. well, that's the way of the west suffer, and i just like that. so much better. oh yeah, yeah, yeah, and I don't have any point of reference. I just thought, as soon as I started hearing it, I'm like, well, I can imagine our band writing this song. It's definitely an illiterate song. It sounds like an illiterate song. I like the guitar solo at the end. I like just the bitter delivery of. it's a joke, man. It's a joke. That especially reminded me of us, because I mean we did that song. We did it. It's just a joke, bro. Yeah, But yeah, it's a good song. The studio version is my favorite song off of Modern Dance, which makes it in my top tier of Para-Ubu songs, definitely in the top 5. But yeah, the studio version- better, where you can feel the bitterness more, for me just works a little more than this version. This is still a great version. If you don't like the last 3 songs, this is a good one to go out on. Steve, what did you think of this song? Well, you guys pretty much expressed my opinions on it. It reminded me a lot of the music that all 4 of us make together, All 3 of us. anyway. i liked that the the chaotic synth would come in and kind of, i don't know, not derail it, but you know, make the make the car wobble a bit, i, yeah. i heard there's an interview like from like the late eighties, early nineties reunion era that i found on youtube once, where david thomas was talking and the like interview asked him about. you know, like all like

the layers of, like the synth noises under it, because he's like- well, like lyrically, what's expressed in a rock song isn't all that's going on. you know, it's like it's never. just my baby left me and i'm sad, it's my baby left me and i'm sad. but then, in the background, you're thinking: 1:13:55

oh no, we live together now, i can't make rent next month, and you know. and then it's just like everything that's on your mind keeps layering behind and behind and behind it. and so, just like putting like layers of noise behind all the all of the music allows them to express what one voice just can't. Yeah Layers, man Layers, And that's also kind of what influenced This kind of stuff is really what influenced my synth playing too, and why I do a lot of stuff with noises and tape feedback and screeching, theremin sounds and that kind of stuff I I was working on. uh, on the bootleg from the show where we played in the church. And there's a point where Dan stops the show. Cause, Dan was doing sound. Cause, he thought something was feeding back, but it was just your there. Yeah, He's like what is it? It's supposed to be loud and annoying, And you're like yeah. Yeah, It was actually my acoustic guitar that was making that noise. Yeah, What was I going to say? I was going to say something. Do you want to dance? Yeah, A modern dance, Yeah, Oh, no, Yeah, Oh, humor me. I also think it's just like a great expression of someone you miss but didn't necessarily like Yeah. Oh, I remember. Uh. so, to follow up on, uh, how you said that's like influences your synth sound. I remember you telling me that you could tell when Dinger wrote the synth part, because it's more like a piano. Yeah, And it would, and it would just follow the guitar Exactly Like. what's the point of having a separate instrument here? Um, yeah, like, I think I've given you like leeway to do what you want to do. Oh, you definitely have. Yeah, Is that why you added, like a second synth? eventually, Just to be like all right, I'll play this on this part, but I'll do what I want with this synth. Yeah, And I would always, you know, like, find something that worked in the key and would also want some time to play around with it, and he'd get mad while I was playing around with it because it wouldn't work at first, because I was trying to figure out what fit, And it's like the song's not done being written. yet Give me space to find what I'm trying to do before you start yelling at me. I remember one time when Dinger brought in a song. He had everything he wanted, He had a vision, And I don't remember what song it was, but he had a vision. He wanted it this way. He wanted the bass to play this way, He wanted the guitar this way, the synth this way, the drums this way,

And he turns the day and he's like: 1:17:01

that's how you bring in a song To Dave

And then, like- I think the like- 2 weeks later, me and Dave brought in: 1:17:07

uh, uh, your dry wedding is boring. Yeah. And uh, all we had was like the guitar part. So yeah, I I don't think that's a bad approach, but I also don't think there's anything wrong with being like. I have 2 thirds of a song here. Let's, let's flush it out. I mean we, we recently did that with eradicate. Yeah, I had, I had a demo and we all flushed it out into our song. So yeah, Well, and that's kind of what happened with, uh, your dry wedding is boring,

Cause. I basically was like: 1:17:38

this is the guitar, but this is just going to be the bass part, but this is kind of what we're talking about. This is, and then it ended up. a lot of people said it was like their favorite song from Gong Farmer. Yeah, And then like and then like. when we brought it together, we did. we did kind of like a call and response between, like, the synth and the guitar. Well, the bass held down the whole thing. It was a lot of stop-start stuff. It sounded really collaborative too. as a whole, It was a good song And it sounded like Nickelback. Yeah, We kind of stopped playing it live after you left the band too, because it didn't feel right playing it without you. It would have been fine, It probably would have been. but yeah, i thought, no, i thought the bass player after me was like, oh, i love playing that song. yeah, but well, which one? because we had 2 bass players after you, the one that was immediately after me. okay, yeah, he didn't stay in the band long because he flaked out. oh yeah, but yeah, I remember teaching somebody how to. It might have been him. yeah, Okay, I think there was, So he came in, he stayed a bit and then someone left and I replaced them for a bit. Yeah, I think it was that guy. What's that? Yeah, Was that guy? I think so, yeah. And then there was Matt, who was in the band until the very end. Yeah, and that's the guy that replaced me. Yeah, Maybe Matt liked playing it and we just didn't Like. the rest of us had like moved on at that point, Who knows, Yeah, Like, we stopped playing. We Ain't Got No Soul pretty early and that pissed people off. And like the. That was kind of like I remember, like not wanting to play that one live.

Because as soon as we stopped doing the drum machine with it, it kind of was like: 1:19:27

eh, But we've pulled it off with the illiterates. We have, yeah, Acoustically, Acoustically, And then also there's, like a lot of people. a lot of people have told me how much they like carry on birds by the illiterates. It's only in about half of our live sets anymore, Yeah. And so it's like. I think at some point a band doesn't feel feel a song, or at least putting it in the set as much as they did before, and moves on to some degree. But yeah, I had a similar thing with imperfect anarchy and Megaton Cause. you know Megaton, really, Version one was very different than what ended up recording Destroyer Worlds. And for whatever reason, Mario, as great of a drummer as he is, he could not play some of the Dave songs right, And I think Dave just had this weird chaotic energy to him that a lot of people didn't like, but I think works. Uh, but yeah, sometimes different lineups just, uh, don't play earlier songs the same way, you know? Yeah. Well, this, uh, like carrying on birds is the same line. Well, yeah, I was talking more about the gong farmer experience, but every now and then I, I want to bring back some of the songs we played really early on and then didn't really go to, like, I would like to do, I'd like to do Vonnegut, Well, the real name of that is your personal brand is who you pretend to be at a show again at some point, but yeah. I would have to remember. We'd have to relearn it, yeah. I'd probably change what I did because I don't remember liking what I did very much. I think I want to put it on the album, but we can rework it to do that because I feel like it unfortunately became relevant again. It's about people who ironically become Nazis on Twitter and then just become real Nazis. We should bring back White Collar Murder Ballad. We should, if we want to do old Gong Farmer songs. I do like the idea of only doing one Gong Farmer song and one Buggy song at a show, though. Because we're a new band. I wouldn't mind doing Up and Coming Neighborhood, though, from my brief period in Tiananmen Square, so that would be fun. But yeah. Sean, you're going to have to learn Ceri's Final Despair. I wouldn't mind doing it in Perfect Anarchy again. I think Alcoholic Wizards with this lineup would be fun. It would be, yeah. But yeah, Humor Me. Great song. One of my favorite Parahubu songs. I just don't think this live version is quite as good as Heaven. But while I think the studio version When Peter Laffner's death is still a little fresh, it has a certain bitterness to it that this version doesn't quite capture, even though it's a good version otherwise. I like a complicated morning song. Which is also why one of my favorite New Order songs is A Perfect Kiss. But anyway, moving on. We're moving on to the songs that Sean doesn't like. Steve, you bring us into The Book is on the Table. I fucking loved it. I it's it's it's it's experimental it's avant-garde uh it's chaotic had like a jazzy intro it's shit loose structure um and in the background is like a french woman like ranting uh kind of reminded me of uh the song that we put together with public domain parts uh yeah elevator to purgatory where in the background it's like i think it's a french uh like train station or something so yeah i i love it but i love weird nonsensical uh experimental projects it's even less structured than elevator to purgatory though yeah It was just a sound collage. That was kind of what it was. This is the first song on the whole thing that felt like a B-side to me. The live version of Humor Me and the book is on the table were a double B-side to the A-side off their third album, New Picnic Time, which was the fabulous sequel, which is a good song. That's how I told Dave we're going to start marketing artificial flesh. It's just an entire album of B-sides. Yeah. But yeah, I think it's a good song. I think there's other bands who did this kind of thing better. I think industrial bands like Cabaret Voltaire and Throbbing Gristle were able to do this kind of thing a little better because that was their main focus. But I think it's fine. I think it's fun. It just doesn't feel as essential as everything that comes before it. It feels a little bit more like a throwaway. It was crap. I'm just crapping on it because Steve loved it so much. It is funny. We have like the range of emotions about it as a song here. To Sean, this is the Ace Frehley of Farah Uba. Yeah. This is also. Oh, go Well, I was, it's just, uh, it's just, I was going to say it reminded me of like the Beatles doing, uh, you know, my name, look up the number or it's just them saying that over and over again, but just different noises. Yeah. This was like, this was like the white album. Yeah. Yeah. Like, uh, number 9, I can't, I really actually can't stand revolution number 9, which is the sound collage on the second, on the last side. Um, I don't think the, I think the Beatles were trying things with sound collage. I think there's other bands who have done sound collage much better than them and maybe were inspired by them, but yeah. Yeah. And then not happy, not happy. It was happy. I love how it sounded happy, but it, it just sounded like stereotypically happy. And at some point, like a recorder came in and was like, well, that's the happiest sounding instrument to me. Yeah. This one is interesting because this is when Tom Herman, the guitar player, had finally left the band. By this point in the band They just talk about how like grueling the recording sessions was and how no one had any ideas to where to take things. And so they just had a bunch of like half finished and aborted ideas. And they briefly broke up after Tom Herman left, but got back together very soon. I found out recently from like a David Thomas obituary was what made them decide to get back together, even though Tom Herman didn't want to be a part of it. Uh, was, uh, David Thomas and Alan Ravenstein, the synth player, were at a Talking Heads show in Cleveland, and David came up to Alan and was like, we can do better than this. Which is funny, because Talking Heads were an amazing live act, and I don't know if this era, I don't think this era of the band was better than, than talking heads. This would have been, this would have been to like their expanded funk lineup. So no, they couldn't do better than this, but I like, I admire, I admire their ambition and just like pulling forward with that. And their balls. Yeah. And their balls. I like Mayo Thomas as a guitar player. Like I said before, I like him better with red Crayola than I do with this. Cause I feel like, Red Crayola is almost a solo project on his end. And it was mainly just him and a drummer. And so it was him really driving the songs in this. It was like trying to find how to fit him into an established band that no longer got along, replacing a guitar player that really wasn't getting along with the rest of them. So it doesn't gel quite the same way. But yeah, he was a great guitar player. He worked a lot with with Alan Ravenstein, even more than the rest of Peru. Is there some great like Red Crayola tracks that have Alan Synth on it. And it works. It sounds really good. But yeah, I think this era of the band is good. Like, if you actually listen to the 2 albums with Mayo Thompson on it, which are The Art of Waking and Song of the Bailing Man. Song of the Bailing Man is when Scott Cross finally got sick of everything and quit and was replaced by Anton Feur. Like those last 2 albums before they broke up for good until 1988 are good and there's a lot to love on them, but they don't have the same like urgency and vitality and they aren't as quite as cohesive as like modern dance and dub housing. But even these 2 songs, Not Happy and Lonesome Cowboy Dave, are less cohesive than those albums because it was largely them goofing around in the studio to try to find their new sound, and they released some of these half-finished studio goofs as a single, and then did the ideas they were able to develop more on the 2 albums themselves. Well, yeah, that was kind of my observation with Not Happy and Lonesome Cowboy Dave, is that they were just kind of joke songs. They were just improvising. You could tell they were just improvising. They're not really There was nothing that was really, like, written before they hit record and just started playing. Yeah. So, Sean, one thing that I'm wondering is one of the things that people have a hard time approaching about Perry Ubu is David Thomas' voice. What did you think about his voice? It was fine. Like, over the whole thing. Yeah, like, I liked it. Like, initially, when I first heard it, it took a second to click. But, I like it. I think he had, like, good control over what he did with it. I like Him doing what he did is what made me realize, hey, I can make my voice work. Yeah. I think the first song on the With Heart of Darkness, where it was like dual like vocals i thought that i was like what the fuck's going on here like i thought it was like a tape messed up or something but like i was like is that right and you're like yeah it's what's i was like okay yeah he's fine he's not like he's not like a master vocalist but you know he's doing but a lot of people that were like punk or post-punk were never master vocalists like right yeah I mean, look at like Joy Division. Uh, he was not, Ian Curris wasn't like a master vocalist. He was just kind of doing a Jim Morrison impersonation. Yeah. And, uh And then even with New Order, what's the guy's name? Bernard Sommer. Yeah, he's just doing Ian Curtis impersonation. I think David Thomas is a better vocalist than Bernard Sommer, honestly. Well, yeah, I'd say so, too. It took me a little while to get used to, but I liked where it sits with the rest of the instruments I like. I like what he Like. he has a lot of control over it. He's like, really good at. like improvising, like burbles and grunts that fit with what the instruments are doing. I'm even like even the first listen through. I'm kind of like wanting to go back to like hear some of the vocals a little bit, Because I couldn't really hear a lot of them because they sounded a little bit buried in the mix. But, Yeah, Yeah, Like, he had some Nice melody-esque. Yeah, I remember thinking they were weirder on Modern Dance, but I don't know if I've just gotten used to it. I think you've probably gotten used to it, Because what he's doing vocally is a lot weirder in the last 2 tracks on here than anything he did on Modern Dance, I think. So Para Ubu is like drinking your first beer. Yeah, You're probably not going to like it at first, but keep trying and you can become an alcoholic. yeah, i mean a para ubu fan. yeah, it'll get waterboarded into it. yeah, yeah, you know, i i think it's. you know, i probably don't have as much of an issue with it, because i've listened to a lot of stuff in the same vein. yeah, so it doesn't seem that odd to me. yeah, dan, dan had some had a hard time getting used to it, but was was into it by the end of the album, or it worked for him by the end of the album at least. But yeah, it was. um, I like it. I really enjoy vocalists that aren't like, born with talent, but make do with what they have Like. uh, like, I think Dave Mustaine is a really good example. Like he's not a very traditionally good vocalist, but like for mega death, especially early on. like his voice really fit. Yeah, Can you guess which, um, Which illiterate songs I channel David Thomas into my vocal delivery? the most House Came Crashing Down. That's the second most. I'm thinking. Art of Loving Correction. Yep, They're set in the camp. Yeah, Well, I did hear where Frank Black would have got some influence from them. Oh yeah, Frank Black definitely did So when I'm listening to it, I'm like, oh, there's some Frank Black there. Yeah, I do think one thing that's interesting, with how funky the bass gets and how weird and jazzy the instruments get, especially in the last 2 tracks. would you believe that Mr Bungle is a fan of this band? Probably I'm shocked, Shocked. Well, not that shocked. You know, It's funny. I've never, actually I don't think I've ever, listened to Mr Bungle, but it's weird. Yeah, Like people keep saying that we sound like Mr Bungle and I'm like. I don't think we do. And I'm like. you know, I've never like. there was one guy like at one of our shows. it was like. you guys sound like Mr Bungle And I'm like, Oh, I've never actually heard anything by. I don't want to now, because I feel like, if I do hear it, then I'll be like and I don't like it. Then I'm like. do I not like our band? i think. i think i think we sound like pair ubu, and the people who say that don't know. i haven't listened to pair ubu. i think the people that say mr bungle, uh, are, uh, from like the former megaton fan area, trying to find something to compare us to. yeah, I forgot who – it was one of the other bands we were playing with. It was one of the guys from – what's Jesse's band, Crack Mountain? Oh yeah, They're like you sound like Mr Bungle, And I'm like I've actually never – and then, when I said that he didn't believe me, He almost like – he was looking at me like, yeah, right, dude, I'm like dude I've –. A lot of times when Megaton would play with punk bands, I'd have punk guys come up to me and name bands that I've never heard of, telling me that we sound like them.

The funny thing with Gong Farmers: 1:34:34

a lot of people told us that we sounded like Dead Kennedys, crossed with Kraftwerk, which we did, but Dinger didn't really like Dead Kennedys that much. He thought they were fine, but they weren't one of his favorite bands. It was just he was doing, kind of like a surf thing, and that's what East Bay Ray was doing. Yeah, I like the Dead Kennedys quite a bit, and I do hear that comparison, although I think by the end, Gong Farmer sounded much more like Joy Division than anything else. You're much more like the. We're moving into kind of like the gothic, spooky, post-punk band range. by the end. I like the damn. I think when I was in it I made it more of a punk band or a punky band because of, I don't know. because, like I, You played faster, I played faster. yeah, I guess that's true. Because, like, what was the one song that, Oh yeah, Wake Me. Yeah, I think I played that faster than anybody else played it before, And it really sped up that song. That song was better sped up, I think, Because it started out like, Because I remember hearing earlier versions of it and it sounded very slow. I was like ooh, Yeah. And then, like I came on and like When I was in the band, I made it sound like Megaton. For some reason Dinger seemed to think that I wanted to turn the band into Megaton because I wanted to write songs occasionally, but I don't think he wanted me to. I wanted to be the George Harrison that just brought in a song once in a while. Yeah, I think my imprint on it was that I just I played faster than most and like, I think Pete and I got pretty locked in like pretty well, Yeah, As a bass and drums, like. I know Pete was still kind of learning drums, but Pete was actually very like Like. I have to play it the same way every time. Yeah, And I'm the exact opposite, I know, And I kind of am a bit that way too. Not like, but like Like. I know when I fuck up and I'm like, ah, anyways, Yeah, Sometimes sometimes you have to fuck up to figure out how you want to change it, though. But yeah, I always love it when you fuck up and it becomes the basis of like a new, like lick or something. That's. that's always a a surprise, to be sure, but I welcome one. I always. I always like it, though, That, um, chili con carnal used to be a part of sunshine on my butthole, It used to be a bridge, and then we changed it into a separate song. well, it was because every one of our other songs. well, it was because you, well, you know how i, i turned it in there, because you guys said, oh, we have a song, chili con carnal, and i just started playing it like yeah, Because I had just those 2 chords. It's 2 chords, the whole fucking song Improvising off of 2 chords, I think if you're going to improvise, you have to go off of something more spare and minimalistic. It gives me plenty of space for my. Oh, I've been meaning to tell you to stop using those. You can't tell me what to do. You're not my dad, I'm your god motherfucker, But you're not Rob Halford.

Yeah, it is kind of interesting that when this album came out, like this compilation, it was, it was them kind of trying to tie a bow on everything after, after it had it had ended, and just to like: 1:38:13

OK, here's where everything is. But then, like a few years later, they reformed, like what made them reform was like Dave David Thomas still kept doing like solo stuff And at 1 point, like later on, like his very last- not last ever, but last solo thing that he put out before. uh, pair ubu got back together. he had pretty much every member of pair ubu guesting and everyone. but tom herman herman wanted to come back and like reform the band and so like. the pop version that came back in in is interesting because he still used his solo drummer, but in addition to scott cross. so their poppiest era is their 2 drummer era. that's weird, yeah, but they had, like they had, a long career. uh, the modern dance through new picnic timeline lineup of thomas herman, memoni, ravenstein, cross, like that whole group, never got together again after, after they split. but every single member of that group- that wasn't their last time in the band either, like All of them- eventually rejoined at some point, just never at the same time, which is cool, but frustrating that it was never all of them ever again. Yeah, All that, and he still had time to make hamburgers. Yes, But yeah, that was Terminal Tower by Para Ubu.

A lot of the ways people like to listen to most of these songs is: 1:39:54

there's a box set called the Hairpin Singles, which is when they had their own label, which is like all of the first side and then My Dark Ages and Heaven, paired with the slightly rougher mixes of Street Waves and The Modern Dance. And it's like a box full of all these back, like repressed and 45. So it's like all singles And I think that's an interesting way to listen to it. listening to it all this way and getting like the later different era and seeing it as like an evolution of a band that they thought was over at the time they put the record at. Well, there's always a risk when you do, because like, unfortunately, in my opinion, the last few songs was a dip in quality. And that's the risk that you take when you do a compilation. Yeah. And you do it in chronological order. Cause if they would have done it, like maybe like put them in like a different order instead of the chronological order, it might've broken up those weaker songs. But, uh, but yeah, that's the risk of doing a compilation like that. Cause like you were saying, you kind of, if you're listening to like the CD version, you'd probably just stop after humoring me. Yeah, which I often did. It did kind of just veer into weird territory really quick, and then it just stayed there, so I can see where you're coming from. Overall, I thought it was a pretty cohesive compilation, and I think the first side was better than the second side, but Overall, I thought it was a great listen. Yeah, it was fun. I definitely recommend listening to more of this band, especially if you want to understand what I'm doing. If you listen to my music and then realize that I am not as original as some people think I am, yeah, it's all the Simpsons did it. The Simpsons did it. Hey, it makes me feel a lot better about, uh, sometimes I'll get feedback on my songs where they tell me it's too abstract or too avant-garde or whatever. And I don't agree with that, but yeah. Oh, it could always be weirder. It can always be weirder. Yeah. I, I think it's interesting, too, like even when they started having a lot more members, like most of the members the band has ever had have been from Cleveland. There's been a few exceptions, but like a few English guys here and there, like Mayo Thompson and then Keith Maloney, which was the one they got in 2005 to England and Tom Herman. left for a second time. But yeah, for the most part, it's just a bunch of people facing the weird bleakness and urban decay of the Midwest and the Rust Belt falling apart and just doing some really like stomping rock and roll but with like abstract weirdness over the top of it or underneath it or alongside it but yeah this it's it's a band worth checking out they're incredibly influential uh people who are fans of it tend to really be fans of it like i am uh But yeah, this is Pair Ubu. They are one of my favorite bands, and honestly, at this point, since I've been immersed in them so much since David Thomas died, they might be my all-time favorite right now. So we'll see how long they'll be that way, but they are an important band, and I wouldn't have started a band without them, so I wouldn't be the same person, as I've said before. So this is yeah this is that this is that uh pluggables we're all in the same stuff so we're all in a band called the illiterates and we have things at places we have a show coming up, but you know, you aren't going to be able to be there because it's going to be in the past by the time this is released. So fuck yeah. So fuck yeah. Fuck yeah. Check out our bootlegs on all the streaming services. We'll have a, at some point we'll get around to finishing the full album, hopefully soon. Uh, but yeah, this has been, yeah, this has been, uh, side one, side B, catch you on the flip side. Studios production. You can find us on Instagram at killrockmusicsws and dave underscore diction. You can find us on Blue Sky at killrockmusic and Beastmaster General. Check out our musical projects, The Illiterates and Lucid Fugue on all major streaming platforms and links to each at my website, killrockmusic.com. That's K-I-L-R-A-V-O-C-K music.com. This also includes my past projects, Megaton and Valley of Shadows, and my current solo project, Kill Rock. You can also find Dave's past project, Gong Farmer, gongfermour.bandcamp.com. Thanks! Everyone we worked with is dead. Really rip. I need to change my pants. Check, check, check, check, check, check. Check, check, check, check, check, check. Leonard Bernstein. I hate it so much I skipped the whole Destroyer. Allow me to play you out. Dirty Dave just pooped his pants. Hmm. Hmm, yes, yes indeed. Perfect hooker murdering song. Kick out the jams, motherfucker! Are you Oh, Steve's got some cheese. You're my podcast voice, ready to go. Cha-wobble, what a name. I'm Ivan Moody, and I'm having a psychotic break. Testicles. That is a fun fact. There's a jazz hole. What do you mean this song is called Sweet Pea? Now that we're done with Steve's Rorschach test, let's talk about the album. For fuck's sake. That's not very Vivian of you guys. It's a professional operation over here. This is Fantasia for people who had to repeat the 9th grade. Heavy metal. Yeah, hands off, Britain. Dump it in the sea again. Shove it, shove it, shove it. Shove it. You know, you know, you know, you know I love California!