Harnessing chaos and charm, Pere Ubu’s David Thomas rewrote rock’n’roll

However, some years later, when a similarly excitable Rolling Stone magazine declared that “modern rock’n’roll reached its peak in 1978” with Pere Ubu’s debut album The Modern Dance, the band’s singer David Thomas took it as a challenge. “I wasn’t going to stop making music in 1978 just because everybody said ‘they’ve ended rock’n’roll’,” he insisted later. He put on “Disastodromes” – festivals of noise acts promising “confused, liberating disorder” – and even a rock adaptation of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. Original Ubu keyboardist Allen Ravenstine described “brutal” creative sessions, yet Thomas insisted that the 20 musicians he worked with in Ubu over the years would welcome further work together. Once, in Manchester, he started a show with a hilarious monologue in which Bon Jovi and Madonna were reduced to playing Holiday Inns while Pere Ubu had a global No 1.