05-05-2025
David Thomas obituary: influential punk rocker
Had the wild, absinthe-drinking iconoclast Alfred Jarry been born in a different age, he might have written rock'n'roll songs rather than his absurdist, avant-garde play Ubu Roi, which so shocked Parisian society on its premiere in 1896 that it was banned.
At least, David Thomas thought so, and named his band Pere Ubu in honour of Jarry's extraordinary creation. An audacious mix of punk thrashing, fractured art-rock, synthesiser weirdness and off-kilter pop over which he yelped in an atonal howl, this transgressive sonic bombardment was what Thomas liked to call 'avant-garage' and he was proud that his music was too anarchic ever to trouble the charts.
'Our one significant success is that we are the longest-lasting, most disastrously uncommercial outfit to ever appear in
