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Listen to Stay Sick Turn Blue broadcasts with with these links.


David Thomas Headlines

Crocus Behemoth On The Radio

Crocus Behemoth presents a monthly internet radio show on Louder Than War Radio from 10pm-midnight, London time. It's called Stay Sick Turn Blue. See Calendar Page for schedule. The February show featured an interview with Wayne Kramer; the March 10 show an interview with Van Dyke Parks.
Get involved by mailing a contribution for the 'Can He Stand It?!!?' segment. Send in a track and if it's chosen, we'll see how long David can stand it before he hits the abort button. Send your track (every track must be attached in mp3 form and must be commercially available). Send questions or suggestions. Email staysickradio@gmail.com. A list of songs played can be found here.

Postcard

David has published a book of postcard poetry called, strangely enough, 'Postcard.' It's available here.

Rules For Analyzing Conspiracy

1. Love your neighbor.
For those fearful of all things Biblical, consider the Declaration Of Independence, "All men are created and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among them Life, Liberty and the Pursuit Of Happiness." Of course, there's God again. Great thinkers throughout history believed in God... because of the evidence. Still, many prefer Government as an advocate - the federal government, the European Union, the Queen, the State of Ohio, etc. Good luck with that.
2. Everything you know is wrong - repeat once a day.
The scientists of ancient Sumeria recorded a period of time when the immutable sun rose in the west and set in the east. Why did all ancient civilizations devote inordinate resources to constructing monuments that track the heavens? What? For fun? Because of superstition? Gimme a break.
3. The only place to really hide something is in plain sight - see E.A. Poe.
4. From the perspective of Fortean Science, the object of a Conspiracy is likely to be an effort to convince a sector of the public to embrace as reality a theatrical and fictional construct. Consider UFO Theater.
5. Follow the money to those who profit from Conspiracy Theater.
6. Declaring that God is 'on your side' establishes one as an enemy of God.

Setting The Record Straight #2

Scott Krauss and his buddy Nick Blakey like to claim I fired Peter Laughner. Peter quit. It went like this. Tim Wright and I were Peter’s best friends in the band. We were alarmed by his alcohol and drug abuse and the toll it was taking on him. He often carried a gun, which with his state of mind was a deep concern. He boasted that his doctor had told him he had a year to live unless he quit the alcohol abuse. Tim and I were unwilling to stand by and watch him die. We were not willing to enable his behavior. We called a meeting. There was no other agenda but to confront him with some sense, some ‘tough love.’ In the middle of a stumbling preamble from me, Peter interrupted, saying that he thought we had come to a parting of the ways. In the year that followed, his ‘friends’ ushered him to his grave, finally making a stop to buy a bottle of booze on the way back from his last trip to the hospital. He was dead the next morning. Good friends.

Setting The Record Straight #1

In 2000 the Rock N Roll Hall Of Fame honored Pere Ubu. Scott Krauss gave a interview to the Cleveland Plain Dealer smearing Pere Ubu, at one point demanding that David Thomas just send him the checks he's owed. He knew that, at that point, I had nothing to do with accounts and the checks didn't come from me but from manager Nick Hobbs. Communex looked into Nick's accounts. In the three years prior, Krauss received checks of three and four figures each year. My father got to read that before he died.

Pere Ubu Understands America And I Don't

A considered analysis by academic Robert Loss, of the Columbus College of Art And Design. More accurately, David Thomas Understands America...

The Last Best Hope For Western Civilization - Rock N Roll?

By the time I formed Pere Ubu in August 1975 I was able to choose from a body of local musicians who, like me, were fed up with the music business, didn’t want to be in yet another band, and had little patience left with Rock N Roll. A year before I had written Final Solution, a send-up of the starry-eyed 60s mythos of Rock N Roll Rebellion.

Click here to read more

Any yet, after 46 years of fighting my corner, nearly alone and sometimes at odds with members of my own band, I have had an epiphany thanks to Richard Ashcroft (formerly of The Verve). He refused to appear at music festivals run by the government or under government restrictions designed to mollify citizens alarmed by confusion, mixed messages and weaseling in the face of the pandemic.

Bad move, Boris. There is just enough left of Rock N Roll, even in 2021, to make a musician a bad choice for an ally. I have no political opinions or criticism. I speak only of practicalities. Likewise, I have no patience with the likes of Van Morrison’s conspiracy angles. I’m sure any number of musicians have similar views. Maybe Richard Ashcroft. I don’t know and I don’t care enough to research it.

To mask or not to mask? It’s irrelevant juxtaposed to any degree of social concern / responsibility or even basic politeness, i.e., cut the crap and just be bothered enough to care for your fellow citizens even if they are wrong.

The point is this. Rock N Roll still has the power to create a formidable base of people inherently uncooperative and antagonistic to coercive, abusive and / or cynical, self-serving authority.

What the hell is a government good for anyway? We are told social distancing and masking, etc., is to be a matter of individual choice. OK. I’ll buy that. But then so are taxes, bicycle lanes, fighting the Nazis, traffic lights, parking fees, etc. etc. etc. Murder and robbery anyone? Right!

Years ago, in a different world, my brother exploited the greed of credit card companies, absolutely legally mind you, to earn tens of thousands of dollars, two free cars and dozens of other perks. He actually employed people to aid him. He had no interest other than Beating The System by playing its own game to an unimaginable extreme. He had been a chess master at 17. He held up a cheap plastic trophy. “This is what I got for being a master,” he said. He held up a bag of money. “This is what I get for using the same skills.” He’d leave bags of cash sitting around his never-locked home, like trophies. I always said that with a thousand like him I could bring down the whole system.

With Rock N Roll still exerting power, there is a body of hundreds of thousands such people. Maybe that's Western Civilization’s last best hope. Ironic. Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard and Ozzy Osbourne to the rescue of William Shakespeare, Martin Luther and Abraham Lincoln.


DPK and Soup Shows Available

DPK TV (Datapanik TV) kicked off June 5 2020. It's an (actually) live livestream hosted by David Thomas and Communex (Kiersty Boon). $5 a month gets you access. You can delete membership, hassle free, anytime. Join and become a Patron or go to the DPK Page for access to past episodes - free to Patreon Fannatics and available at a nominal rental for others.

Albums


The Sound Of The Sand (1981) Winter Comes Home (1983) Variations On A Theme (1983) More Places Forever (1985) Monster Walks The Winter Lake (1986) Blame The Messenger (1987)

Monster Box Set (1997) Mirror Man (1999) Bay City (2000) Live Free Or Die (2017)


EREWHON (1996) Meadville (1997) Surf's Up! (2001) 18 Monkeys on a Dead Man's Chest (2004)




David Thomas Special Projex


David Thomas Solo Projects David Thomas and two pale boys Cutler Thomas UbuDoll Greenland David Thomas and foreigners

The Book Of Hieroglyphs Pere Ubu Scrapbook Chinese Whispers, The Making Of Lady From Shanghai Cogs, The Making Of Carnival Of Souls Baptized Into The Buzz

Living Room Concerts Disastodrome 1998 Disastodrome 2003 Geography Of Sound Lecture

Mirror Man Bring Me The Head Of Ubu Roi Long Live Père Ubu! - The Spectacle Lost In Art, The Ballet

It Came From Outer Space X, The Man With X-Ray Eyes Carnival Of Souls

Bay City Mirror Man Two Pale Boys How To Be A Singer Surf's Up!




Articles and Essays by David Thomas