AVANT-GARAGE

I know my way round town.
Used to live around here.
I know the sites to see,
the things they mean to me,
and how we tore it down.
Let me walk with you cuz it's breaking my heart.
The things that we had,
the good and the bad - now it's parking lots.

Père Ubu is a strange, underground proto-new wave band that avoids rockist cliches in favor of raw, direct, theatrical avant-garde garage rock. Formed in 1975, when mainstream radio was having a love affair with Fleetwood Mac and the Eagles, the band rejected slick pop production values and anticipated the rough, weird world yet to come. Some say they were the missing link between the Velvet Underground and punk rock. Whatever they were, they were outside the box. The group took its name from Père Ubu ("father Ubu"), the protagonist of Ubu Roi ("Ubu, the King"), a play by French writer Alfred Jarry, which gives you a clue to their intentions. Greil Marcus, rock-crit emeritus, said "Pere Ubu boards a train that passes through a modern nation as if it were an ancient land, all ruin and portent, prophecy and decay. Thus the terrain makes the familiar terrain strange, unseen - new." The question that comes to mind is, "Who's the fat guy?" That's David Thomas, the only constant in this ever-changing band from Edge City.



Welcome to Mars!
It's open all hours.
Bill's in the back and Fred's on the phone, sayin,
"What are we doing here?"
Oh, he was sayin that you are never alone in the Twilight Zone.
What are we doing here?

Waiting. For. Mary.