Music Arcades: Pere Ubu: The Tenement Year

What a treat it is to hear this again. One of those CDs that I haven't played for a decade or more, but as soon as each track starts it comes flooding back like a long-lost friend. I must have played it a lot when it came out.

And pretty much every track is a winner. Maybe it flags slightly between Dream the Moon and The Hollow Earth, but only very slightly. And many of the others are classics of their kind. Busman's Honeymoon captures most of Ubu in a four-and-a-half-minute microcosm: the English sea shanty, the Cleveland guitar rock (from about 1'50" in), and the 'pataphysical interventions throughout.

Were Pere Ubu the first band to reform? And are do they now hold the record for the greatest longevity of a reunited band? At 21 years their reincarnation has lasted about three times as long as the original incarnation. (Then again, there has only been one band member who's remained as a constant in the band, which calls into question the band-ness of Pere Ubu.)

Having been slow on the uptake and only cottoned on to Ubu in about 1986 through Terminal Tower, I was overjoyed when the reformation happened, and duly made my way to the Leadmill to see them play live at the end of 1987. That's an experience I'd like to revisit, as I can remember little about it now. Except for the t-shirts: they read "Pere Ubu: The Return of the Avant Garage", and on the back "And when they ask you what 'avant garage' means, you just shake your head in disbelief". Quite right. I wore that t-shirt a lot — it was a good fit for my skinny frame — and sadly it fell to pieces a decade or more ago. For now, here's a short video that hints at what the live performance might have been like.

It may disappear at any time. My drawing attention to it may hasten its disappearance, for the (quite understandable) reasons given here.

Listening to this today, I'm tempted to buy the remastered and extended edition that came out last year. Hell, I need another CD like a city solicitor needs an SUV. But on the other hand, I can get the CD (unlike the SUV) for less than the cost of a couple of pints for you and me. At that price, it's almost rude not to buy it.

The album doesn't blow my socks off like Raygun Suitcase, and it's not as fresh as The Modern Dance. But that remastered version… well, with Ubu you know the remastering will be good; even the extra tracks might be good, so…