The Pere Ubu legacy, bravely re-circulated for public consumption by Thirsty Ear Records, continues it's assault on millennial normality with 1982's Song of the Bailing Man. It's the second Pere Ubu album to feature the talents of madcap guitar experimentalist Mayo Thompson, and the first to feature future Golden Palomino Anton Fier on drums. Here, our obscure, too- creative- for- their- own- good heroes seem to make a conscious choice to leave some of their earlier implacability behind. After all, the rent must be paid, even if you are a troupe of rococo absurdists living out an existence in some grainy alternate space-time continuum light years ahead of the lumpen rabble.

But, of course, even Ubu's mightiest attempts to sound more commercially acceptable still fail miserably. And lucky for us, they didn't exactly become Madonna. It's certainly not the kind of stuff your average new wave hair-stylist/Boy George disciple would've lent an ear to for any length of time. I also think it's safe to say that none of these songs will be included in nostalgic 80's compilations, or on soundtracks to inevitable sequels like "Return of Valley Girl," "200 More Cigarettes," or "Pretty in Pink II: Through the Portal of Time."

The obvious Beefheart influence underscoring the band's core sound can still be felt in a big way. Thompson's odd semi-linear melodies spill effortlessly from his guitar on the unforgettable "Thoughts That Go by Steam." This kind of playing really presages the sort of fine-tuned recklessness and advanced primitivism Marc Ribot would later employ to great acclaim in the world of quasi-mainstream rock on Tom Waits' Rain Dogs.

On "The Long Walk Home," the band jettisons off into warped-jazz territory, featuring some brain-scrambling Sun Ra piano fills which de- and re-construct themselves throughout. Then the song structure suddenly lurches back into an ostensible main rhythmic figure with frenetic drum rolls and loop-de-loop guitars doing figure-eights around the rhythm section. Tempos accelerate and de-accelerate at the drop of a dime here in Ubu-land.

"Use of a Dog" is, musically-speaking, conventional enough, with a pretty standard verse/chorus/verse approach driven by Tony Maimone's lyrical bass (which seems to have a much larger impact on the band's overall sound than on past outings). Suave Herb Alpert horn sections rise to the foreground. Mayo Thompson's squeaky clean phrases zig-zag through the nooks and crannies of the song.

The manic herky-jerkiness of "Big Ed's Used Farms" is another David Thomas tour-de-force performance piece. Here, he gets to make sundry farm animal noises while acting as if he's being slowly pumped with helium. "A Day Such as This" re-explores the Ubu of old on a 7+ minute excursion into barren, repetitious soundscapes that can either fascinate, or drive one to slowly peel layers of skin tissue off their body.

And there you have it. Basically, these are your average Pere Ubu non-hit songs that ponder burning questions concerning paleontology, biochemistry, geometry, zoology, and the language and communication barriers between man and animal. In another solar system, perhaps a few of the tracks on Song of the Bailing Man would be top-40 hits. But here on Earth, Thirsty Ear is doing its damnedest to see that we sit up, take our conventional heads out of our conventional asses and listen to the sounds of what would rightfully be AOR pop music. That is, if our culture was one in which we all walked on our hands, spoke in hieroglyphics, and collectively worshipped an omniscient geranium.

-Michael Sandlin