David Thomas, the founder and leader of the influential rock group and avant-garde Pere Ubu, died yesterday (April 24) at his home in Brighton, England, wrote the group on Facebook. The declaration attributed his death to a long illness, adding: “MC5 played on the radio. He will finally be returned to his home, the farm in Pennsylvania, where he insisted that he had to be “thrown into the barn” “Thomas was 71 years old.
During their initial race from 1975 to 1982, Pere Ubu was an unsuitable group, merging the loose energy of rock garage with rock from the 1960s, as well as the bass funk, heavy saxophones and the dominant presence of Thomas. Although they preceded the climb of the post-punk genre, Father Ubu embodied this sound in all its clear, repressed and unpredictable nature, largely thanks to the wild spirit of Thomas and the exclamatory delivery of tirades on rejection, war and the challenge. Once Alt-Rock began to take off in the 1980s, the clever absurdity of Pere Ubu inspired other groups in their wake, notably Joy Division, Sonic Youth, Pixies and Remé
Although born in Miami, on June 14, 1953, Thomas mainly grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, where the emerging rock scene of the city would have an impact on his passions. After playing with the idea of starting a group, Thomas finally started his first official project, switched to The Tombs, in 1974. Their noisy punk point of view of rock never materialized in a recording agreement, and the group chose not to enter a studio to record their original songs. Barely a year later, the tomb rocket collapsed, with Thomas feeling particularly discouraged by the desire of his group comrades to play cover songs.
Eager to continue to pursue original music, Thomas channeled his adventurous nature in the formation of a new group, Pere Ubu, with Rocket of the guitarist Tombs Peter Laughner, as well as the bass player Tim Wright, the drummer Scott Krauss and the synthesizer Allen Ravenstein. Raising their name of a character in a play by Alfred Jarry – “I wanted to create a group that Herman Melville, William Faulkner or Raymond Chandler would have wanted to be,” said Thomas later – 30 seconds in Tokyo “and the final of the Snenity Jam, the end of the Jam of Sneaky. which would perhaps become their most popular single in underground circles.
After abandoning a few more, Pere Ubu signed with Blank Records and released Modern danceTheir first album, in 1978. Although never a commercial success, the LP has made its way in the hands of bizarre punks and crazy art-rock in the Midwest, intriguing a lot with its remote approach to merge rock, punk, new wave and prog.
