david thomas died

It was of course sad to hear that David Thomas died a few days ago though without wishing to be glib it seems like the last few years - quite a while before I took this picture of him in Oslo on the 11 October 2019 - he was on borrowed time, whatever that literally meant. I was a huge fan since my late teens particularly of the Pere Ubu albums mainly from Dub Housing through to Song of the Bailing Man and his subsequent solo career up to Monster Walks... though there was plenty of incredibly good stuff after that time with and without the PU name, of course. 

I didn't know him, but I did really enjoy his output. 

pere ubu terminal tower and ninni forever band uusi yhtye

 

So I was crowing a few weeks ago about how I didn't buy a copy of Modern Dance when it was offered to me by the universe but what I didn't mention was that, spare prick that I am, I did then go and buy a copy of Terminal Tower which is the 1985 compilation of most of their non-LP material up to that point. I bought this when it came out but somehow lost track of that copy. It's a pretty great album, not least because it covers the gamut of the first iteration's trajectory from rock outliers to anything goes experimentalists (and a stab at something like pop, the first of their real 'well, this could be an insane novelty hit record like Renee and Renato or something' records). 

I'm listening to it now and realise that only one of my speakers is working, so I'm getting an interesting remix of the overall and hearing things I never realised were there before, percussion/guitar overdub bits that were obviously always part of my experience of these recordings but they're now a lot more prominent and while I am not thrilled by the prospect of fixing the speaker shizzle I'm finding it an experience right now.

My other great listen during the week has been Ninni Forever Band, specifically their album Uusi Yhtye which has some absolute standout tracks on it (the big hits are 'Söin Auringon' and 'Tää Ääni'). Ninni is Ninni Luhtasaari who is also known as Dumb Pint in, yes, sorry, Pintandwefall but here the songs are in Finnish. I am very up for that. One of the songs is called 'Foliopallo' which means 'foil ball' which is hard to resist. I know you're not interested but whatever, I'm not being paid by the word here. 

'Uusi Yhtye' means 'new band' but they had been a band for ten years by the time this came out, so lol. I see their first album is available from a Finnish vendor who can also supply me with all the Bogart Co. records I could want. It's probably time for me to put the computer away for now.

congratulations on adding to your collection

...that's what discogs says when you buy some record or other on discogs. I hate it. I don't think of myself as having a 'collection'. But I am also aware of how I have developed, bizarrely really, a big fat record 'collection' again in the last few years, almost despite myself. When I helped to make the Broadway album in, um, 2016 or thereabouts, or was it earlier, I funded the recording primarily from selling my albums, getting a few hundred dollars at a time. I don't even remember what they were. It wasn't indiscriminate selling, and there are some I would never part with, but essentially I was like 'I don't care about albums that much, and I'm downsizing anyway - what difference does it make'. Somewhere along the way I've started building it all back up again, but very different. There's a lot more non-English speaking stuff in there, which builds on a few bits and pieces I've long treasured like Skaldowie, with amazing things like Barbara, and all those incredible Awesome Tapes from Africa LPs. Oddly enough while I love a lot of records from Finland they are often in English eg Tasavallan Presidentti and did I ever mention I kind of like this group called Pintandwefall? But I am also getting into Litku Klemetti, her songs are in Finnish, remind me to tell you about her sometime. 

Anyway this evening I saw this advertised and I was like, hmm. I don't have a copy of The Modern Dance  and this one is white lol. I could easily have nabbed it 'for my collection'. But I kind of like being a massive PU fan but not owning the album everybody who doesn't know anything thinks is their best. I do have two copies of Art of Walking though, you know, the one that was supposedly a mispress of an earlier iteration, and the other one. I'm the only person who likes that album. It is the greatest though. It fucks, as young people say. 

So I am in a way interested in what the artefacts you do and don't accumulate say about you. Not you. Well, maybe you. I also don't have any records by The Beatles, Pink Floyd, The Rolling Stones, The Who, Genesis, The Sex Pistols, Public Image Ltd, Kate Bush, Fleetwood Mac, Queen, AC/DC or Michael Jackson. Now you won't want to come round when I ask you over to listen to records will you! You know it'll end up being a procession of Pintandwefall sides mixed with the Bee Gees. Ugly.