David Thomas, leader of the avant-garage band Pere Ubu, died this week.
David Thomas, who fronted the wild and free-thinking American rock band Pere Ubu, has died aged 71.
That band were indeed a force to be reckoned with, channelling the raucous, raw energy of garage rock into adventurous songwriting decked out with saxophones, funky bass and Thomas’s spirited exclamations. With a post-punk spirit even before punk had properly got going, Pere Ubu were a big influence on the alt-rock that emerged in the 1980s including bands such as Pixies.
Link to Guardian article.
And another Guardian article.
One of my favourite bands, starting from when I picked up a copy of Datapanik in the Year Zero on spec because I liked the cover art.
You might get a flavour of Thomas at the Ubu Projex web site. The “death protocols” section seems to have vanished since I last looked - it used to say something like no announcement would be made, and the band would not confirm or deny for a couple of years thereafter.