Pere Ubu : 30 Seconds Over Tokyo
There were a few other bands exploring the avant-garde ( Henry Cow comes to mind), but no other American single released in 1975 suggested such big and noisy changes were on the horizon. The riff may make you think of Sabbath, but Ozzy never wrote such poetic, disturbed lyrics. And then the whole tune implodes for minutes of noise. Had the punks followed Pere Ubu's lead instead of the Ramones, what would we have been hearing in 1977?
Great post. I can't claim to have been on board in 1975 but when a mate played me the Datapanik ep in (probably) the early 80s I was blown away by the ugly yet beautiful noise of it all. As you say if the zeitgeist had cottoned on to Pere Ubu instead of the Ramones, music would have taken a completely different direction. Sad to say (I suppose it is sad) the Ramones route was the conservative one but folk would never have thought of it in those terms back then. Being a tune and melody man I love Heaven http://tinyurl.com/nzkesbn from that ep. It's such an ethereally sweet song amidst the scrawl and scratch of the noise stuff. I love it all and thanks for bringing it to wider attention.
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