Track Listing

1. Long Walk Home
2. Use Of A Dog
3. Petrified
4. Stormy Weather
5. West Side Story
6. Thoughts That Go By Steam
7. Big Ed's Used Farm
8. Day Such As This
9. Vulgar Boatman Bird
10. My Hat
11. Horns Area Dilemma

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #129382 in Music
• Released on: 2000-10-31
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .21 pounds

CD Description
The most restrained album of Pere Ubu's career, 1982's SONGOF THE BAILING MAN was the group's last before a five-year hiatus. Newest Ubu member Mayo Thompson (vocals, guitar), who had joined prior to 1981's THE ART OF WALKING, is almost entirely in control here, and the results sound more than a little like the whimsical art-rock of Thompson's once-and-future home, Red Krayola.
Although group leader David Thomasstill sings the majority of the songs, even he seems to have retooled his unique vocal style to conform with the mood set by Thompson's skittering, playful guitar lines and Tony Maimone's springy, melodic bass. SONG OF THE BAILING MAN is considerably less dark and more song-oriented than the albumswhich preceded it, but it also lacks the pop tendencies of the albums made after the group's 1987 reformation.

Customer Reviews

Quite possibly Pere Ubu's best
In reviews of Pere Ubu's work on the Internet, this album is often denigrated or at least played down compared to other, especially earlier, releases, and granted - if you're into the avant-punk of early Ubu, this album is probably not for you. But if you're into a swinging, eclectic, atmospheric combination of rock, jazz, noise and folk music inspired insanity that sounds like a jazz combo on hallucinogenic drugs playing rock tunes in the urban wastelands of Cleveland over a crackling short wave transmitter, combined with bursts of stream of consciousness lyrics and more bizarre details than you could shake a stick at, this one might just be right up your alley. The album is a triumph for bass player Tony Maimone who holds together the band even when guitarist Mayo Thompson and drummer Anton Fier (to say nothing of Allen Ravenstine on synth and vocalist David Thomas) are furthest away from the beat. Heartily recommended!

Accessible and enjoyable but no masterpiece
Songs Of The Bailing Man is an understated display of the talents of this remarkable band. Not all the songs are particularly memorable but there are enough highlights to make this an essential album for the devoted fan. The instrumental mix and arrangements, especially clever use of the synthesizer, deliver the expected magical textures, but they often seem to fade without leaving much of an impression.

The jazzy Long Walk Home is followed by Use Of A Dog with its lovely stereo sound effects, while the buoyantly percussive West Side Side Story and the atmospheric Thoughts That Go By Steam are charming but not exceptional. Big Ed's Used Farms is a frenetic short piece and the long track A Day Such As This approaches greatness in its structural complexity, brilliant rhythmic patterns and clever wordplay.

The album concludes with another highlight, Horns Are A Dilemma, a quite accessible and appealing song. All the elements that make Pere Ubu so distinctive are here: the quirky arrangements, the dramatic vocals and the Beefheartian weirdness, but Bailing Man is not one of their best works. I recommend their masterpieces The Modern Dance, Dub Housing and Worlds In Collision.