How did people initially react to Pere Ubu when you started playing live?
To the established rock bands, the ones playing the rock clubs, we were amateurish. We looked plain. We were too incompetent, it seemed, to learn the conventions of the craft, or, worse, we were ignorant that such things might exist. Our method, according to one local “celeb,” involved taking lots of drugs and banging around on our instruments in a stupor until it was time to stop. (Which was very insulting considering how much rehearsing we did and how tight we were.) Our supposed “peers” in the local rock scene considered us to be unworthy. We occupied an underground. But, worse, an underground in the life of a city that was itself considered to be nothing more than a backwater. Everything meaningful, cutting edge, avant garde, we were patiently informed, was to be found only in New York City. We were nothing but provincial rubes. We quickly acquired a hardcore of about 150 local fans but considering that the entire “underground” scene probably consisted of no more than 100-200 peopl
