Are you like me? And by “like me” I mean, do you sometimes buy something only to find out you already have a copy? That’s happened to me twice so far in December – I bought a CD by the Icelandic band Mínus, and a record from an obscure 1980s Seattle band called Medieval Sorcery. In both cases I not only owned them, but they were also in my Discogs collection. For the Mínus CD, I didn’t get the warning that I already owned it before clicking “buy” on Discogs because, well, it was a different pressing and I didn’t bother to actually confirm by looking at my collection. For Medieval Sorcery, I looked it up on my phone using Discogs while at the shop but… I wasn’t logged in. <sigh>
This record came to me via a different kind of mistake. It was part of a big collection of late 70s/early 80s punk and post-punk records bought by a shop, and I was lucky enough to have a short time window to take a first pass through them. I came away with some cool stuff including what I thought was an unofficial live record by Seattle band The U-Men… only to find out later it was actually by Pere Ubu using the U-Men name as a way of hiding this release from their label. While I was disappointed to have gotten the wrong U-Men, given that Ubu was the actual band I don’t feel too bad about it.
I’m not a Pere Ubu stan by any stretch, so I doubt I can tell you anything meaningful about this record. It allegedly features Pere Ubu performing alongside members of Red Krayola, and may have been recorded in Germany. Sonically it’s fairly clean, though a bit flat as is often the case with unofficial live records, the bass and organ more forward in the mix than the vocals, drums, and guitar. The songs are a bit loose, but not in a bad way, and we do get a bit of between-song noodling, which I like – it gives you even more of a sense that you’re listening to something live.
How many of these were produced? I’m not sure. The jacket on my copy is a folded over piece of cardboard, which is the same as the most of the examples I found online. However, I have seen a few pics of this same jacket inside a plastic sleeve with “Pere Ubu Germany 81” on the front in pink lettering and some of the tracks on the back. I’m not sure how that plastic sleeve fits in – was it part of the original release, or possibly some kind of later addition? Was this unofficial record actually bootlegged by someone (and is “unofficial bootleg” a thing?)? I don’t know.
This is probably of primary interest to the Pere Ubu heads out there. But regardless, it sounds pretty good and I’m happy to have it on my shelves.