That time Tortoise's John Herndon & Doug McCombs went on a shopping spree

Check out what John and Doug picked up at Amoeba in San Francisco for their recent "What's In My Bag" appearance. 

Here's the scoop...

Douglas McCombs and John Herndon of Tortoise stopped by Amoeba San Francisco for a shopping trip and a chat for Amoeba’s 'What’s in My Bag?' series. They pick up a book by Budgie and music by Tom Verlaine, Louis Jordan, David Thomas, Silent Servant, Broadcast, Hound Dog Taylor and the HouseRockers, Bill Orcutt, Emptyset, Wah!, Oneohtrix Point Never, The Durutti Column, and Peaches. You can take a look inside and hear what they have to say about their picks below.

Tortoise returns to Toronto for a show at the Concert Hall (888 Yonge) on Friday, July 3 with BASIC opening at 7 pm. Tickets are $55.50 ($40 + $15.50 fees) and available here. 

R.I.P. David Thomas of Pere Ubu, 1953-2025

Sadly, Pere Ubu mainman David Thomas has passed away at the age of 71. He'll be greatly missed. 

David Thomas

June 14, 1953 - April 23, 2025

David Lynn Thomas, lead singer of Pere Ubu, Rocket From The Tombs and multiple solo projex, has died after a long illness.

On Wednesday, April 23 2025, he died in his home town of Brighton & Hove, with his wife and youngest step-daughter by his side. MC5 were playing on the radio. He will ultimately be returned to his home, the farm in Pennsylvania, where he insisted he was to be “thrown in the barn.”

David Thomas and his band have been recording a new album. He knew it was to be his last. We will endeavour to continue with mixing and finalizing the new album so that his last music is available to all. Aside from that, he left instruction that the work should continue to catalog all the tapes from live shows via the official bandcamp page: https://pereubu.bandcamp.com/. His autobiography was nearly completed and we will finish that for him. Pere Ubu’s Patreon page: https://www.patreon.com/pereubu will continue as a community, run by communex.

We’ll leave you with his own words, which sums up who he was better than we can -

“My name is David Fucking Thomas… and I’m the lead singer of the best fucking rock n roll band in the world.”

You'll find a couple of David's performances with Pere Ubu and some interview clips below. Toronto photograper Rick McGinnis has shared a few sweet snaps from the past right here. 

R.I.P. Ohio underground music advocate Johnny Dromette, 1952-2024

Sadly, Johnny Dromette aka John Thompson who ran Drome Records and promoted Cleveland punk shows has passed away. 

Not to be outdone by Pere Ubu, The Dictators also cover The Osmonds' "Crazy Horses"

Check out The Dictators version of "Crazy Horses" by The Osmonds followed by Pere Ubu's recent update of the same tune. 

Wouldn't it be amazing if Donny Osmond had Pere Ubu open his Cleveland show and say, The Dictators in Red Bank? 

Pere Ubu vs. The Osmonds

Raising a glass to David Thomas on his 70th birthday with Pere Ubu's update of "Crazy Horses" by The Osmonds. 

Watch the new video for Pere Ubu's "Worried Man Blues"

"Worried Man Blues" is taken from the new Pere Ubu album, Trouble On Big Beat Street out May 26 – CD adds 7 bonus tracks!

Here's the scoop...

On May 26th, Pere Ubu unveil their new album, Trouble On Big Beat Street, nearly four years after The Long Goodbye (2019) their previous album for Cherry Red Records. ‘The Modern Dance’ (1978) marked the end of Rock ‘n’ Roll. ‘Trouble On Big Beat Street’ marks the end of The Song. Pere Ubu ended with 'The Long Goodbye.' Pere Ubu begins again with 'Trouble On Big Beat Street.' If you missed the last 48 years then imagine a bad attitude, the Electric Light Orchestra - the version with Roy Wood - then add Muddy Waters playing guitar and Nina Simone singing.

'Trouble On Big Beat Street,' the 19th Pere Ubu studio album, is produced, mixed and engineered by David Thomas. The vinyl release is ten tracks. The cd release includes all 17 tracks recorded for the sessions. Those extra seven tracks were too good to lose but took up too much time to fit on a vinyl release. Pere Ubu is David Thomas, Keith Moliné, Gagarin, Alex Ward, Andy Diagram, Michele Temple and Jack Jones. Keith Moliné and Andy Diagram are the two pale boys. They have played with David more than 28 years. Electronica artist Gagarin was soundman for Pere Ubu and the two pale boys. Michele Temple has been in Pere Ubu 30 years. Improviser and life-long fan Alex Ward submitted a cover version of a David Thomas song to the band’s live-streaming show. David invited him to join the band. David met Jack Jones in the pub.

"53 years ago I read about 'Song Cycle' by Van Dyke Parks," says David. "I didn't understand what I read but it changed me. Years later I heard the album. This, finally, is my response to hearing to that album. Long ago I determined that a song is best the first time it's played. There is nothing that can go wrong or be inadequate. Repetition allows error to enter in. These songs have been played by the band one time, as they were recorded."

The Crocodile Tour starts in London on June 2. Plans for America ran into the Visa Barrier erected by the Americans to exclude British bands, in spite of extraordinary efforts to break through. The 'Pere Ubu Disasto 2023' is being assembled for dates in New York City on June 19 and Los Angeles on June 22. Mike Watt & The Missingmen are support in LA. Faust is a co-bill on the 19th.

Check out the video for "Worried Man Blues" following the track listing for Trouble On Big Beat Street below. 

Pere Ubu – Trouble on Big Beat Street

1 Love Is Like Gravity

2 Moss Covered Boondoggle

3 Crocodile Smile

4 Movie In My Head

5 Nyah Nyah Nyah

6 Worried Man Blues

7 Let’s Pretend

8 Satan’s Hamster

9 Crazy Horses

10 Uh Oh

Bonus CD only tracks

11 76 BPM

12 Pidgin Music

13 Nothin' But A Pimp

14 Sleep

15 From Adam

16 I Don't Get It

17 Goodnight

 

Happy Birthday David Thomas!

Celebrating the birthday of Pere Ubu singer/songwriter David Thomas with an interesting hour-long interview from 2017.

 

Listen to David Thomas on the Ubu Dub podcast

Here's the premiere episode of the Pere Ubu podcast featuring David Thomas talking about The Long Goodbye album.

Happy Birthday David Thomas!

Celebrating the birthday of David Thomas with an informative hour-long chat about Pere Ubu and a VPRO special from 2001. 

The third letter to popular late 70s underground rock zine Back Door Man #8 is from Crocus Behemoth. 

Pere Ubu shares Pirate's Cove show from 1977

Ubu Projecx have just made available a version of Pere Ubu's Pirate's Cove show from June 2, 1977 transferred from cassette. 

Here's the scoop...

Recorded by David Thomas on a cassette at the Pirate's Cove, Old River Road, Cleveland, Ohio, on June 2 1977.  Band: David Thomas, Tom Herman, Allen Ravenstine, Tony Maimone and Scott Krauss.

Some tracks previously released as 'Pirate's Cove 6/2/77.' 

Pere Ubu - In The Shadow Of The Aeronautical Shot Peening Co: Live at Pirate's Cove, June 2, 1977

1. Street Waves (incomplete) 02:30

2. Heaven 03:19

3. Laughing 05:32

4. Modern Dance 03:59

5. Nonalignment Pact 03:51

6. Over My Head 06:57

7. Real World 04:47

8. Sentimental Journey 07:02

9. Final Solution (incomplete) 03:32

Get a digital copy of the Pere Ubu show from 1977 via Bandcamp right here. 

Massive Peter Laughner 5 LP box due from Smog Veil in August

The 56-song Peter Laughner retrospective is available for pre-order as a 5 LP or 5 CD box set with a 100-page book. Check the details below.  

Here's the scoop from Smog Veil Records...
UPDATE MAY 22, 2019:  Smog Veil Records have been working for the last 10 years to create the definitive Peter Laughner retrospective. The five LP box set is in the final stages of production. Test pressings have been approved; all art and layouts have been completed by the team of Johnny Dromette and Ron Kretsch.  All art and book proofs have been approved.

Peter Laughner was a singer songwriter from Cleveland like no other.  Before his untimely death in 1977, he played in numerous bands, most notably Rocket From The Tombs and Pere Ubu, and also as a solo performer.  He wrote for a variety of weekly newspapers and Creem, where he was a contemporary of Lester Bangs.  He famously told Jane Scott of the Cleveland Plain Dealer that he wanted to do for Cleveland what “...Brian Wilson did for California and Lou Reed did for New York.” In many ways, Peter did in fact put the Cleveland underground on the map.

In cooperation with Peter's estate and his many collaborators, the box set will contain the definitive statement of Peter's musical talents and additionally showcase his writings and the many works he created with a variety of talented friends.  Smog Veil's research team has looked in every basement, attic, and corner to uncover numerous gems and we are pleased to be able to place Peter's work on display.

Many of the 56 songs contained in the release are seeing the light of day for the very first time.  All songs have been carefully mastered and sonically upgraded from the best possible sources by the Grammy-nominated team of Jeff Lipton and Maria Rice at Peerless Mastering.  The box set also contains a 100 page hardbound book of photos and writings.  Two box set formats will be available: 5 LPs or 5 CDs, and both formats contain an identical box, book, and track listing.

Pre-order a copy of the 5 LP or 5 CD set here. Note: Pre-sale ends June 16. In stores August 2.





Peter Laughner (Smog Veil SVLP150)

Record One: 1972 (Fat City Jive)
Side One:
01. Hesitation Blues (Billy Smythe)
02. The Sidewalks of New York (Blake/Lawler arr: Laughner)
03. Willin' (Lowell George)
04. Solomon’s Mines (Peter Laughner)
05. Please Mrs. Henry (Bob Dylan)
06. Mean Ol’ Frisco (Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup)
07. Drunkard’s Lament (Terry Hartman)
08. T For Texas (Jimmie Rodgers)
Side Two:
09. Good Time Music (John Sebastian)
10. Love Minus Zero (No Limit) (Bob Dylan)
11. I’m Waiting For The Man (Lou Reed)
12. Eyes Eyes (Michael Hurley)
13. The Eyes of A New York Woman (Ogden/Pynchon)
14. It’s Saturday Night (Dance The Night Away) (Peter Laughner)
15. These Days (Jackson Brown)
16. Fat City Jive (Terry Hartman)
17. That’s The Story of My Life (Lou Reed)
From:
1 – 8, 16: The Original Wolverines (Peter Laughner, Mike Sands, Pete Sinks), WMMS “Coffeebreak Concert”, Cleveland, September 20, 1972 Host: Shauna Zurbrugg
9 – 15, 17: Peter Laughner and Mike Sands, WMMS “Coffeebreak Concert”, Cleveland, November 15, 1972 Host: Kid Leo

Record Two: 1973 – 1974 (One of The Boys)
Side One:
01. Rock & Roll (Lou Reed)
02. One of The Boys (Hunter/Ralphs)
03. All Along The Watchtower (Bob Dylan)
Side Two: 
04. Heroin (Lou Reed)
05. I’m So Fucked Up (Peter Laughner)
06. White Light White Heat (Lou Reed) / Call The Ambulances (Cynthia Black)
From:
1, 3, 4, 6: Cinderella Backstreet, The Cellar, Sandusky, June 24, 1973
2: Cinderella Backstreet, JB’s, Kent, March 23, 1973
5: Cinderella’s Revenge, Viking Saloon, Cleveland, May 11, 1974
Cinderella Backstreet: Cynthia Black, Albert Dennis, Rick Kalister, Scott Krauss, Peter Laughner.
Cinderella’s Revenge: Peter Laughner, Lachlan McIntosh, Eric Ritz, Susan Schmidt, Deborah Smith.

Record Three: 1973 – 1977 (Pledging My Time)
Side One:
01. Cinderella Backstreet (Peter Laughner)
02. Down At The Bar (Peter Laughner)
03. Baudelaire (Peter Laughner)
04. 32-20 Blues (Robert Johnson)
05. Rain On The City (Peter Laughner)
Side Two
06. “I Must Have Been Out Of My Mind” (Peter Laughner)
07. Pledging My Time (Bob Dylan)
08. (My Sister Sold Her Heart To) The Junk Man (Peter Laughner - Adele Bertei)
09. First Taste of Heartache (Peter Laughner)
10. Sylvia Plath (Peter Laughner)
11. Lullaby (Peter Laughner)
From:
1: Peter Laughner, solo home recording, circa 1975
2: Peter Laughner and Deborah Smith, WMMS "Coffeebreak Concert", Cleveland, October 11, 1974
3, 10, 11: Peter Laughner and Albert Dennis, 4-track recording, East Cleveland, 1976 (circa August/September)
4: Peter Laughner, solo home recording, Cleveland Heights, 1976 (September or October)
5: Peter Laughner and Wally Wefel, home recording, 1973 (circa November/December)
6, 11: Peter Laughner, solo home 4-track recordings, circa 1976
7: Peter Laughner, solo home 4-track recording, Cleveland Heights, December 15, 1976
8, 9: Peter Laughner, from the “New Songs” tape, solo home recording, Cleveland Heights, 1977 (circa January/February)

Record Four: 1974 – 1977 (Rock It Down)
Side One:
01. What Goes On (Lou Reed)
02. Ain’t It Fun (Laughner/O’Connor)
03. Amphetamine (Peter Laughner)
Side Two:
04. Prove It (Tom Verlaine)
05. Dear Richard (Peter Laughner)
06. Hideaway (Peter Laughner)
07. It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry (Bob Dylan)
08. Pablo Picasso (Jonathan Richman)
09. Rock It Down (Peter Laughner)
From
1: Fins, block party, Coventry, Cleveland Heights, July 27, 1974
2: Rocket From Tombs, The Agora, Cleveland, February 10, 1975
3: Peter Laughner and Don Harvey, from “The Ann Arbor Tapes”, Ann Arbor, February 1976
4, 8: Friction, rehearsal, Cleveland, October 31, 1976
5 – 7: Friction, The Pirate’s Cove, Cleveland, November 2, 1976
9: Peter Laughner and Adele Bertei, from the “Secret Session” tape, 4-track home recording, Cleveland Heights, 1977 (circa March)
Fins: Robert Bensick, Scott Krauss, Peter Laughner, Lachlan McIntosh, Deborah Smith.
Rocket From The Tombs: David “Crocus Behemoth” Thomas, Peter Laughner, Cheetah Chrome, Craig “Darwin Layne” Bell, Johnny “Madman” Madansky.
Friction: Anton Fier, Peter Laughner, Susan Schmidt, Deborah Smith.

Record Five: 1977 (Nocturnal Digressions)
Side One:
01. See No Evil (Tom Verlaine)
02. Come On In (Whatcha’ Doin’ On Them Stairs?) (Tom Verlaine)
03. Everything I Say Just Goes Right Through Her Heart (Peter Laughner - Adele Bertei)
04. The Next Room Of The Dream (Peter Laughner)
05. Do It (Jesse Winchester)
06. Slim Slow Slider (Van Morrison)
Side Two:
07. Blank Generation (Richard Hell)
08. Wild Horses (Jagger/Richards)
09. Isn’t That So? (Jesse Winchester)
10. Me And The Devil Blues (Robert Johnson)
11. Pale Blue Eyes (Lou Reed)
12. (Going To) China (Peter Laughner)
13. Summertime Blues (Eddie Cochran)
From:
"Nocturnal Digressions", solo home recording, Bay Village, June 21, 1977

Special pre-order bonus EP will be included and will not be sold separately or in stores.

Bonus 45: 1973 – 1976 (Easily Excited)
Side A:
01. Drugstore Cowboy/I’m So Bored (Bangs/Laughner)
02. Venus De Milo (Tom Verlaine)
Side B:
03. Heart (Section 2) (Michael Hronek)
04. Who’s Been Here? (Bo Carter)
05. Instrumental (fragment) (Peter Laughner)
From: 
01:  Peter Laughner and Lester Bangs, from “Critic’s Choice”, Creem offices, Walled Lake, MI 1975 (circa February/March)
02: Peter Laughner and Don Harvey, from “The Ann Arbor Tapes”, Ann Arbor, MI, February 1976
03: Michael Hronek, Peter Laughner, Robert Bensick, Albert Dennis, and Scott Krauss, from “Fall 1974” tape, Cleveland 1974 (circa October) (NB: Laughner’s guitar work here is the origin of “Ain’t It Fun”)
04: Peter Laughner, David Krauss, Alan Echtler, Spa John, and Carl Woideck, Hillel House, CWRU, Cleveland February 10, 1973. Soundperson unknown.
05: Peter Laughner, solo home recording (mystery 4-track session), circa 1976

Barry Henssler talks about growing up punk in Maumee, Ohio

Necros and Big Chief mainman Barry Henssler shares more than few hilarious music-related anecdotes.  

Pere Ubu preview new album with creepy pinball-inspired video

Pere Ubu's new album 20 Years In A Montana Missile Silo is out September 29 on Cherry Red Records.

Happy Birthday Peter Laughner

Remembering Rocket From The Tombs co-founder Peter Laughner on his day with a couple of amazing tunes. 

Pere Ubu @ Lee's Palace, Thursday

Pere Ubu are performing work from the Architecture Of Language 1978-82 box on their current Coed Jail! tour.

Robert Bensick's lost 70s Cleveland underground epic out June 24 on Smog Veil

Years before Berlin West, Cleveland's Robert Bensick was bringing together local luminaries for his magnum opus.  

In the Summer of 1975, Cleveland multi-instrumentalist, sculptor, and artist Robert Bensick – who had previously been the drummer of Ohio teen garage crew The Munx – brought together the best of the Cleveland underground and recorded an album at Agency Recording, a studio favored by such recording stars as Todd Rundgren.

The studio band Bensick assembled for the record included such luminaries as Tom Herman (Pere Ubu), Scott Krauss (Pere Ubu/ Cinderella Backstreet/Home & Garden), Cynthia Black (Cinderella Backstreet/Peter & The Wolves), Albert Dennis (Cinderella Backstreet/Wolves), and Michael Hronek (a collaborator of Cleveland proto-punk legend Peter Laughner). Bensick’s magnum opus sought to bring music and art together into a brand new experience. The end result – French Pictures In London - was so far ahead of its time that it remained unreleased for forty years, languishing in the vault of a noted Hollywood soundtrack composer and sound designer...until now.

French Pictures In London is a story of real people and the infamous Plaza Apartments as filtered through art, poetry, pop, krautrock, and 1970’s Cleveland. It is an album that the late Peter Laughner had a dominant effect upon (despite not participating in the sessions). The album’s sound and mood is also a precursor to the New Romantic movement of groups such as Visage and Spandau Ballet as well as the direction Roxy Music would take on albums such as Manifesto (1979). French Pictures In London similarly touches upon the darker corners of rock and pop such as those found on Scott Walker’s subversive Climate of Hunter (1984), Oxbow’s brutal and troubling The Narcotic Story (2007), and the delicate yet unsettling undercurrents that transpire on L’Amour by Lewis (1983).

French Pictures In London was recorded with the promise of a record contract with A&M (not as strange as it may seem since A&M also signed John Cale, Magma, Yellow Magic Orchestra, and the Sex Pistols at various times) and the hope for a national tour to follow. Eventually, the album ended up in the hands of Alan Howarth (later an Academy Award-winning sound effects creator, sound designer, and soundtrack composer) where thankfully it remained in his archives, turning out to be one of the two surviving copies of something Bensick thought he had lost forever.

The missing musical piece of Cleveland that falls in between the four long players by Raspberries and the first three albums by Pere Ubu. From the Nick Drake-meets-Nick Cave melodrama of “Sweet Pricilla”, the Roxy Music-isms of “Lilly White”, the heavily Herbie Hancock- influenced desperation of “Night Life”, to the Broadway letdown of “Cinquain Attempted” and the completely unhinged “Doll”, French Pictures In London is an album that will surely turn on any listener who approaches it.

A few years after the French Pictures In London project, Bensick formed the synth duo Berlin West with Kathleen Bensick which resulted in a 1981 darkwave single Snakepit b/w Babylon that unfortunately isn't included as part of Smog Veil's reissue package. However, because Bensick had the record manufactured at Cleveland's famed pressing plant Boddie Recording Company,  Numero Group decided to add the song Snakepit to their Boddie retrospective Local Customs: Pressed At Boddie from 2011, which turned out to be one of the most interesting recordings on the somewhat random 17-track sampling of the company's extensive output.

Bensick eventually moved to New York and by the mid-1980s had stopped performing in public but never stopped creating and continues to do so to this very day. The release of French Pictures In London represents long overdue credit and recognition, and a landmark recording in the long history of Cleveland rock and roll.

Extensive liner notes by Nick Blakey and never before published photos are also included in Smog Veil's release of French Pictures In London available for pre-order from the label right here. Listen to The Robert Bensick Band's Lily White and Berlin West's Snakepit below followed by a brief interview with Bensick from 2014.

Welcome to David Thomas' nightmare

Check out "414 Seconds" from Pere Ubu's new album Lady From Shanghai due Jan. 8 on Fire Records

  

One For The Weekend: The 2x4's

 The 2 x 4's - "Bridgeport Lathe" b/w "Little Cities" 7" (Bessemer Process Records)



Here's a lost classic from the Boston underground post-punk scene of 1980. The 2x4's were led by John Hovorka, Jr. who came up with the delightfully quirky A-side Bridgeport Lathe enhanced by some sweet electronic sizzle (courtesy of Erik Lindgren and producer Rolfe Anderson) favourably recalling that of their Cleveland contemporaries Pere Ubu. Sadly, the self-released seven on the Bessemer Process label was a one-off as The 2x4's would soon evolve into Noise Pencil and eventually The Turbines.