No Redemption

Life goes on. Things happen. Terrible things happen. Good things happen. Terrible things happen. Good things happen. And so it goes. And then it stops. Mr D comes in and out goes that last breath of life. But before then there is life.

Sometimes the media, in the UK, acts as if everyone is immortal and appears shocked when someone is told that they are going to die. Let me let you into a secret: you are going to die. Very few people know when they will die but everyone will die. There is no deus ex machina to prevent it. There is no redemption. Bob Marley may have a redemption song but redemption is rare.

Anyway Pere Ubu are back on tour with a version of Alfred Jarry's Ubu Roi. The album is called "Long Live Pere Ubu" and the stage show is called "Long Live Pere Ubu - The Spectacle". As David Thomas said

"Long Live Père Ubu!" is the album of songs that was the genesis of the entire mess. It is a great leap forward in our pursuit of hyper-naturalistic recording techniques by which we replace microphones in the studio with wooden boxes, junked radio speakers, metal horns, and electrically charged window panes. Sound itself becomes the narrative. Everyone is going to hate it. We know that. The story, though satiric and comedic, is utterly bleak, lacking charm (the usual counter-weight to the band's noire tendencies) and devoid of redemption. Few people have ever read Ubu Roi, fewer heard of it. Wonderful. Altogether two years of work. Père Ubu, the character, ruined Jarry's life. And now he's ruined our career. This thing is our Waterloo, our Bridge Too Far, our Pickett's Charge.

Well, somebody had to do it.

Those things that people do that make the world a better, more interesting place. See more here at Pere Ubu's place. For dates see the calendar page.