Uh, the dog ate my homework?

dog-bark

I should have known. It was a crime of hubris, posting twice in one week.Thinking I had a whole, say, five days leeway? And look at me, slinking back here with a half-assed post twelve (TWELVE!) days later.

For shame!

To compensate (?!) I give you two songs that BARK. (Or growl, in the case of Pere Ubu.)

Multi-headed all-singing, all-girl percussion hydra Pulsallama evidently did more cat-fighting than composing during their brief heyday. But brilliant one-off “The Devil Lives In My Husband’s Body” more than lives up to its improbable title, a suburban soap opera imploding faster than an AM Homes novel hopped up on Benzedrine and nitrous. Who else but Ann Magnuson could pull those vocals off with the appropriate elan, frisson, and sang-froid, I ask you? More barking! More cowbell! MORE FRENZY!

And now for something completely different. Goodbye NYC, goodbye dayglo kitsch. Hello Cleveland!

Pere Ubu never fails to amaze me. I haven’t investigated the new album “Why I Hate Women” fully yet (I’m planning on buying it at next week’s Knitting Factory show), but if “Two Women, One Bar” is any indication, it’s going to be a fine addition to their already massive body of work.

“Misery Goats” is not from the new album, but from 1980’s Art of Walking.

Equal parts goofy and sinister, this song walks a fine lyrical line —from the profane to the profound to the ridiculous and back again. Like their namesake, Ubu resist reductiveness. Their greatest asset is their seemingly inexhaustible sense of playfulness. I can’t think of another band that colors outside the lines with such gleefulness and, ultimately, such improbable grace. This song —which would sound weirdly hokey if summarized— makes me smile every time I hear it.

MP3Pulsallama, ”The Devil Lives In My Husband’s Body”

MP3Pere Ubu, “Misery Goats”

Pere Ubu Tour Dates | UbuProjex Home | Ubu Store | NYNoise Vol. 2, where you can find another Pulsallama track. | The closest the web gets to a Pulsallama home page. Hosted by former band member Jean Caffeine. But wait! There’s this one too! With MP3s even! It’s hosted by former band member Stacy Elkin. | Ann Magnuson Ann has a new album, Pretty Songs and Ugly Stories, due any day now.

APOLOGIES TO KEITH HARING.

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3 Comments

  1. thanks – haven’t heard that one forever (Pulsallama)

  2. James

    You might know this already, but David Thomas wrote the lyrics to “Misery Goats” as a playful retort to the “gloom and doom” school of post-punk bands (ie, Joy Division, Bauhaus, the Cure etc.). It’s his way of saying “Hey, life’s not so bad. Cheer up.”

    I’ve heard some songs from the new album. I didn’t like them at first, but they’re growing on me, at least a little. I might feel better about the record when I buy it, and here the music as a whole.

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