Some of you might be unaware that Pere Ubu is even a functioning band anymore. Hey, that's understandable; they've kept a low profile stateside for years now, and have been hopping from label to label since their post-hiatus comeback, The Tenement Year saw release on Fontana in 1987. But the truth is they never really went away. They've taken a few multi-year hiatuses, sure-- even gone through more line-up changes than the '87 Indians-- but they've been out there, hitting and missing with a slew of albums since the mid-70s.
And if you are haven't been keeping up with Cleveland's finest export since Roberto Alomar then it might surprise you to find out they're still pretty much on top of their game (which you can't say for Alomar). All 14 people who bought their '98 effort Pennsylvania, back me up on this. I too was a Ubu-doubter, believing they'd faded into irrelevance around about 1983, but then I happened upon Griel Marcus' "Best Albums of '98" list and found Pennsylvania sitting pretty at #1. I wanted to believe Marcus-- after all, I do stay up late into the night bent over my heavily worn copy of Invisible Republic, peering Kabala-like for eschatological insight and stock market tips, but I must say I was a tad skeptical. Figured Marcus was just putting us on, trying to be difficult and outspoken. Still, the curiosity had me.
So after doing some recon, I located a copy of that record in a little shop just south Terre Haute, Indiana, and to my delight I found Marcus' estimation of the album to be pretty freaking accurate. "Best album of 1998" is a ridiculous claim, but it's solid straight through and its hermetic vision of the American cultural landscape was novel and pleasantly confounding. It was the kind of album that, had it been a young band's debut, would have caused a much bigger fuss, but as it stood it was an album from a bunch of arty geezers led by a washed-up Beefheart imitator, and so it passed largely unnoticed by the small chunk of listening public that might have possibly cared.
Gentlemen, now's your chance to get in on the ground level with the follow-up, St. Arkansas. When ol' Griel releases his Best of 2002 and maybe a dozen people rush to their local wax-monger, you can be all, "Shit, dude, I've had that album since summer," and appear really wise. Mind you, I'm not saying this is the best album of the year-- although, barring the absolutely unexpected, it will race neck-and-neck with Neil Young's Are You Passionate? for worst cover art of the year. They share that first-year Photoshop quality usually reserved for only the best Blue Oyster Cult double live albums on CMC International.
As for the music, though, St. Arkansas is roundly excellent, which no one in possession of their critical faculty and any one other Neil Young record can say of Passionate. It's a companion piece of sorts to Pennsylvania and shares much the same vocabulary, though St. Arkansas is the darker of the two. Which is to say, it's more subdued and less rock-oriented, relying more on beat-style spoken-word storytelling and found sound. There are some decently angular post-punk guitar moves here though-- something to show the kids who's boss-- but this incarnation of Pere Ubu relies just as much on its rhythm section.
Singer and frontman David Thomas (who somehow finds time to lead this band in addition to running like a bajillion burger joints and also recently dying) is in top form. He sounds less and less like Captain Beefheart as time goes on, and more like what you'd get if Jim Henson had been commissioned to create an animatron android of William S. Burroughs, like for Chuck E. Cheese or something. I realize this description is a bit ambiguous (these supposed to be good qualities?) but so is Thomas' voice-- it can be funny and scary simultaneously, both annoying and enthralling. Exploring the difference between wheezing and whining, sometimes brooding and sometimes absurdly chipper, it's an incredibly expressive instrument.
As far as I can tell, St. Arkansas is the complex tale of a sharp-dressed trucker (a ZZ Top fan, one might assume) whose passion in life is the open road. He also has a thing for AM radio that I don't really get; the only good thing I've ever heard on AM was Art Bell and Cincinnati Reds broadcasts, and neither ever offered anything like what I'd call salvation. I can only assume Thomas is talking about some bygone era of AM, maybe the one Jonathan Richman so joyously celebrated in "Roadrunner." The tone here is wholly different, though. When Thomas repeats the mantra-like refrain, "The radio/ AM radio/ Oh, the radio will set you free," on album-closing "Dark," it's not a hopeful assurance but rather a mournful, wistful recollection of a promise heard long ago during a simpler, more innocent time.
To make a long and oblique story short, the trucker loses his hold on reality, ditches his wife and friends, and drives off a bridge or cliff or something, or maybe into a deep dark forest. It's obvious the songs form some sort of larger narrative, but beyond that, it's hard to know exactly what's happening. There's some water involved, and a "ring of fire" he must "feed," and some greasy spoon diner where everyone is welcome. I don't exactly think this was meant to be some sort of mystery to be unlocked like a David Lynch movie. You can have fun trying to figure it all out and connect all the recurring imagery, but likewise, you can just let it roll and enjoy the ride.
