Pere Ubu: Elitisim for the People 1975-1978

I'll take your word for it, and get the 'download' version from Hearpen.com , then.

 

You'd be 'shocked' at how 'poppy' they were in the '90's........ they had some 'catchy' tunes that made me hum them, when no one was around!

 

Oh, I heard all that stuff - I dropped out at (checking) Pennsylvania. I love and respect David Thomas and he's among the top few of live performers I've ever seen, but aside from his songs on the Hal Wilner Harry Smith Project nothing has jumped out and grabbed me recently, where recently means the last ~20 years. The website is a total hoot, though.

See, that's the thing. He's an engaging writer, and you already know he's smarter than you are. He hates all the vinyl releases of his material and feels they are all unworthy for this reason or that. I dismiss all his complaints because that's how I heard the records at the time, when it counted, and he can fiddle with them all he wants to now and he may improve the experience for himself and some others, but he'll never improve it for me.

 

It's not the "Hearpen singles", it's the Hearthan singles.

​

 

The files are found at band camp

 

Let the creator decide that.

http://www.ubuprojex.com/hearpen.html

 

That's true, and I kind of let myself be swayed by his line of reasoning. But when he says things like the second side of all versions of the Dub Housing vinyl are distorted, but very slightly, and I hear nothing amiss after all these years, I have to wonder.

 

And given the kind of character he is, you have to wonder whether he might be making these things up just to mess with uber-fans' heads.

 

I don't think so - for all the chaos in the work he's really personally into regimentation. I was told by someone who worked with him that he's really into doing his income taxes.

 

even "the creator" can't re-write history.

 

Ah, thanks for pointing me in the right direction. The flac dowload option doesn't specify if those files are hi-rez or not, but you're saying they are 24-bit/96kHz?

 

Regardless, the album we're discussing in the box set to which this thread is dedicated is called 'The Hearpen Singles' - just look at the picture in the first post - so your pedantry is overruled.

 

I recently listened to my vinyl copy of Modern Dance after not hearing it for decades, and I was pretty blown away by how great the sound quality was. For some reason I have a UK pressing from 1978. Totally didn't remember that, or that it had really good sound quality.

 

It's not pedantry. They came out on the Hearthan label. that's history

 

Well, you know, I just got my head straight. Yeah, the early Ubu singles were on Hearthan ...... sorta. One of the four wasn't, the one I don't have.
Ooops. So, understandably the guy wanted to have all four singles compiled together, OF COURSE. But if he did he (or whoever) couldn't call it "The Hearthan singles"
since once of them wasn't (nice ring to it though). And he (or whoever) refused to be reduced to the generic and nondescript "Early Ubu" kind of thing,
so a NEW name was made up. Personally, I think it just confuses matters, but I absolutely sympathize with the compiler's quandary.

 

I know I've got a later UK copy somewhere around here with like a silver-tone cover, obviously recut because there's this huge runout groove on each side. I can't put my hands on it, but I think that was supposed to be some kind of limited super-cut version of the record. I probably listened to it and thought it sounded good, and lost it. Anyway, is that what you had, or was it an earlier version on Mercury or however it came out originally in the UK? I never had any complaints about the US Blank original, myself. It (and even more so Dub Housing) really stood out at the time for sound quality and stereo fun, even non hi-fi oriented folks I knew at the time noticed the difference.

 

Any word on this? I'm definitely interested if these are high resolution, I have the 5-CD 'Datapanik' set and to be honest I thought it sounded great, if they've improved on it I want to know!

 

For anyone looking for the downloads they are here: pereubumusic.bandcamp.com/album/elitism-for-the-people-1975-1978

 

Posted a question about this on the Bandcamp contact page - no reply yet, but I think we can expect the download product to be 16/44.1 even though the transfer was done at 24/192.
If anyone knows please chime in.

 

Got a response on this from Fire Records tonight...

Subject: RE: Elitism For The People 1975-1978
Hi James,
The audio uploaded to BC is192/24 WAV. Bandcamp converted this to FLAC, via a process approved by David.
Thanks,
Michael​

Still be good to hear from anyone here who got it in case BC downsampled it for any reason.
Seems almost too good to be true for a digital boxset to be offered in hi-res without the typical hi-res premium attached...

 

I always thought the U.S. Blank of Modern Dance and my Chrysalis import of Dub Housing sounded amazing, Dub especially seemed to stand out sound wise.

 

It does contain the original Modern Dance single mix, with the sound of a toy used as a sort of percussive effect. In the common mix, the toy sounds are replaced by the sound of a hammer striking metal. As far as I know, the single mix is not available anywhere else, including the Data Panic 12 inch or the Tim Kerr singles box set. I'm surprised they don't mention this in the marketing materials.

Also, the downloadable high rez files sound great to me.

I haven't checked recently, but this was really hard to find when first released, as if they only released 10 copies total. I understand that there might not be a huge demand for this but if you are going to release something at least make enough for the 50 people worldwide who want it to be able to buy it.

 

Mine is the Mercury UK version, dated 1978. From that same era I have a Chrysalis Dub Housing. Haven't listened to that in a long time, so I'll have to pull it out.

 

I bought all of the Pere Ubu vinyl output as they were released (singles/EPs/LPs) through the 80s and have a lot of the CDs (and the DualDisc) of the music from that era as well. So I was not interested it the physical product of this. I did get interested in this download.

Just a heads up for anyone else that may buy the download. The download page defaults to MP3. To the right of MP3 is a very little arrow. I did not notice this for a couple of seconds. It does not look like the drop-down boxes that I am used to seeing. I clicked on that arrow and it revealed the other file options. I wanted FLAC. For those that may be interested in ALAC, it was 1.5GB while the FLAC was 4GB. (These files are zipped, BTW.*) So I am thinking that the ALAC must be of a lower resolution than the FLAC due to the difference in file size.

The FLAC files are 24/192. (Not bad for $31.)

I'll report back when I get a chance to listen to these. It may take a couple of days before I get a chance to do that.


* Oddly, the zipped and unzipped file folders turned out to be the same size - 4.01 GB.)

 

I was able to download several different formats with my code from the box set.