Pere Ubu, RIP David Thomas
David Thomas remembered by Jeff Economy (June 2025)
I crossed paths with David Thomas a number of times over the years, and the last one may have been the most poignant. In June of 2023, I arranged with David’s manager and partner Kiersty Boon to film what turned out to be Pere Ubu’s final New York gig, which promised to be a one-of-a-kind affair with the band comprising Allen Ravenstine, Tony Maimone, Eric Drew Feldman, Michelle Temple, Kiersty, and the MC5’s Wayne Kramer.
The show opened with David reading a narrative version of “Turquiose Fins” while the band slowly began filling in the aural landscape around him, resulting in a thoroughly abstracted version of the song. It felt a bit like a long introduction for the song more than the song itself, but it quickly became apparent that this was the plan for the evening as David announced that tonight, Pere Ubu was going to put end to the song as we know it.
It was a promise he made good on. It wasn’t at all clear how much had been agreed upon in terms of instruction or approach, and there was a tentative, uncertain quality to the music. Sometimes it worked, making you feel like the songs were literally being pulled apart in real time, but when it didn’t, it felt undercooked and aimless. Ubu was constantly going back and forth over the line between brilliant and exasperating, until I wasn’t sure which was which. There were also moments of surprisingly understated beauty, such as an impromptu duet between Thomas and Temple where she played only a twelve-stringed Bolivian instrument that she said afterwards had been a gift from a friend.
As the evening drew to a close, a long-running bit where David had complained throughout the set about the difficulties he was having with his new Apple Watch paid off in an unexpected punchline. After yet another complaint, David asked Wayne what time it was and instead of just saying “It’s time to… kick out the jams!” Wayne answered “It’s 9:30.” “No, what time is it!” “It’s 9:30!” Wayne had so thoroughly missed the most obvious of cues that when it clicked and they did launch into the trademark song, it felt like a truly spontaneous moment and provided a catharsis to the crowd, which had been patient and utterly respectful throughout. After that, an abstracted version of “Final Solution,” then a ghostly cover of Neil Young and Crazy Horse’s “Running Dry (Requiem for the Rockets)” - in Thomas’ rendition the last line was “I need someone to comfort me, I need someone to tell” - and that was the end.
By that point, I was at a loss at what to think and barely prepared to talk about it when Kiersty and David invited me out to the alley so David could have cigarette. I wheeled him out and he asked me what I thought. I told him “The song has been thoroughly assassinated” but I wasn’t sure he took that as the compliment I intended it to be. In a surprisingly vulnerable manner, he went on at length about his feelings about the show, his frustrations and disappointments with what he’d hoped for vs. what he’d accomplished. In those moments, I saw him with his defenses down, the creator still wrestling with what he’d created. He seemed to be so worked up that I frankly wanted to give him a hug, but I sensed it wouldn’t be received in the spirit with it was intended and thought better of it. We went back inside and he was immediately pulled into a dozen other conversations, and that was the last I saw of him.
I’ve thought of that night often ever since. Here was a band I’d seen countless times over the years at the end of their road, when the most obvious thing would be for them to go out with a bang in front of a crowd primed to grant them a victory lap. They’d been performing for the better part of five decades, and had earned the right to do whatever they wanted, including taking the easy road and basking in adulation. Instead, they refused to play it safe up to the very last, taking their material and pulling it apart until there was little left, not so much deconstructing the songs as disassembling them, leaving the parts strewn about the stage as if they were reducing their entire history to its essentials so it could be picked up and put together entirely different the next time around.
Long Live Pere Ubu.
