Will the cd reissues have original cover art, bonus pictures, extra tracks, cd-rom, etc.– goodies to sweeten the deal and cause diehard Pere-heads to go wobbly?
The art will be as close to the original as we can get. Much of the original art is long-gone and John has had to reconstruct it from album sleeves. He has taken the opportunity to tidy up some things and sometimes enhance his original ideas. The NPT front photo, for example, is different because the original Mellen film negative was damaged. The difference is very slight. In all cases John preserved the spirit of the original packaging. As for extras, remember that the intention of the original packaging was to supply the minimum of personal information. We refused to print band photos or even list instrumentation. Note also that Pere Ubu has never generated out-takes or alternative mixes. In 1977 we asked Cliff Burnstein how long records were supposed to be. He said 36 minutes. We wrote and recorded songs until we got to 36 minutes and then we stopped. Then we mixed the one possible version of each song and stopped. That’s the spirit of those albums and the spirit that prevails in th
