here is the info file from Dime
Pere Ubu (late 1977 or early 1978)
Ohio"The U-Men"
A liberated vinyl bootleg on the Tri-City label
According to the LP this was recorded at Club Wow and the Christmas Show at Interstate MallIt has also been reported that this was recorded at The Pirate’s Cove in Cleveland on September 6, 1977
Unfortunately, I sold my vinyl of this long, long ago. This if from the tape I made of it before its sale more than 10 years ago. It is surprising to me that this has never turned up here before (to my knowledge)
Ubu has acknowledged the existence of this boot for at least 15 years, listing it in their "history of the band" but for some reason has never released any of these historical recordings officially.
I bought this in 1979 or early 1980 at a great record store in Lexington, KY. The days of walking into a store and finding a treasure like this are gone, and I miss them. Bittorrent may be more efficient and enable more things to get to more people (both good things) but the thrill of discovery, anticipation, and the wonder that someone would actually go to the trouble of making an LP of this is indescribable to someone who didn’t travel that path all those years ago. Don’t get me wrong, I love this bittorrent stuff and am glad so many people go to the trouble to digitize their recordings and share them with us all. Thank you.
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THE SONGS:
The LP had fake titles (in parentheses)
01 Heart of Darkness (Hard To Start)
02 Heaven (No Problem)
03 Modern Dance (Mad Doctor)
04 Drinking Wine Spodyody (491)
05 Humor Me (Help Me)06 I Will Wait (First World War)
07 Real World (Random Ages)
08 My Dark Ages (My Back Ages)
09 Sentimental Journey (Doris Day Sings)
10 Life Stinks (Little Skunks)
11 Street Waves=================================================
THE BAND:
David Thomas – vocals, keyboard
Tom Herman – guitar, bass
Allen Ravenstine – EML synthesizers, sax
Tony Maimone – bass, guitar, keyboards
Scott Krauss – drums=================================================
THE SOUND: Quite nice for a vinyl boot
Allen is all over this.
Why are there so few REAL synthesizer players?=================================================
THE LINEAGE:
audience ? > vinyl boot > cassette > Nakamichi BX-2 with azimuth adjustment done > digitize via Audacity > FLAC 8 via xActAN ALMOST RAW TRANSFER
I manually de-clicked it VERY carefully
You can still hear some surface noise here and thereNo noise reduction or eq was applied.
Tape player (Nakamichi BX-2) azimuth adjustment was done.=================================================
AZIMUTH ADJUSTMENT:
If you use cassettes and want the best playback (for either listening or conversion to digital) YOU REALLY SHOULD KNOW THISgo to:
http://www.dimeadozen.org/torrents-details.php?id=96904
Download
It’s only 4.5 mb
Read itIt is also in the DIME Wiki; http://wiki.dimeadozen.org/index.php/Azimuth
The actual adjustment is VERY easy (there is mor
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COMMENTS:In fact, the entire show has been torrented here on Dime before from either the master used for this bootleg, or from a different source entirely.
From Dime member GaryM:
Hey Doinker,
This has been uploaded before – here’s the real info U-MEN LIVE AT CLUB WOW / XMAS CONCERT AT INTERSTATE MALL"PIRATES COVE – CLEVELAND, OH 09/06/1977
Heart Of Darkness
Heaven
The Modern Dance
Drinking Wine Spodyody
Humor Me
I, Will Wait
Real World
My Dark Ages (I Don’t Get Around)
Sentimental Journey
Life StinksWhich copy do you have? (I have the original vinyl) The originals were done by my buddy Jim of CLE mag – these were put together at The Drome record shop in Clevo that we both worked at – it was dangerous doing it because 1)Crocus (David Thomas) also worked there & 2) Ubu reheared in the basement. The original discs were put into whatever empty promo covers were lying around (I think mine is in a Blues Brothers) with a small U Man paper sticker on it. These bootlegs were later bootlegged as The U-Men – Live At The Interstate Mall, witha "real" cover.
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In comment #2269948 merday wrote something like this:
When this came out back in the vinyl bootleg era it was rumoured in bootleg circles, and confirmed in various legit and underground publications, that it originated with Ubu itself as a swipe at their record company, who refused to release an album of a band tormenting shoppers in a shopping mall! At least that was the info circulating in top-level bootleg circles at the time it appeared for sale here in Ontario, Canada.
Best estimates were 300 copies with 3×5" pasted slicks at the time, and it is indeed a hilarious and delightful document; it is extremely rare in its original form, and a must for any Ubu fan, whatever the origin.
Naw – I remember Jim was in fear of being discovered. If Ubu had wanted an album they would’ve been able to put it out on Hearthen<(as Hearpen was then called). Even after they signed to Blank/Mercury, they were able to put out the Modern Dance/Heaven single , so don’t think that was much of a deterrent. Also, John "Johnny Dromette" Thompson was working with Ubu, so they would have a lot better sounding tape available.
Don’t know why it popped into my head, but another "cover" used for the originals was Patti Smith Radio Ethiopia.
300 sounds about right. Even then, that was pretty standard. The 1st 2 45 sleeves were even less – something like 200 for 30 Secs & Solution