The legendary avant-garage frontman talks B-films, Orson Welles, and chaos.
If Thomas hadnt shouted it, I would have.
Of course there had been plenty of evidence prior to that night.
But lets back up for the sake of history and context.
At the moment hes overseeing the production and release of a series of career-spanning Ubu box sets.
Okay, now lets stop a second here and back up again.
Yet for it all, he insists hes not a film enthusiast.
Not as its generally understood, anyway.
The films that I most like are B-movies.
These secret, hidden, forbidden ideas were exciting to me by the nature of their obliqueness.
Culture happens in secret, beneath the vision of the social elites.
It is thereby preserved and passed on in sometimes vulgar language.
(Reading Raymond Chandler too much at a young age set that in stone.)
Finally, I am an American rock music and, to an extent, films are uniquely American.
All I know is being an American.
I find multiculturalism to be simply another more invidious form of imperialism.
In a way it was in essence turning the idea on its head.
Come to think of it now, though, maybe it does work the same way.
Thomas, however, was one of the first to offer the same treatment to more recent cult films.
Strangely, the one person you dont have affection for is Mary.
I have always wondered if that was intentional.
Reference: Wichita Line Man.
Evidently, Steven Spielberg has said there was supposed to be such a scene.
With all due respect to Mr. Spielberg, I knew that as a kid when I first saw it.
Despite his deep respect for B films, Thomas unhesitatingly cites fellow Midwesterner Orson Welles (see?)
Pere Ubu even took the title of their 2013 album from Welles 1947 noir filmLady from Shanghai.
It makes a great deal of sense.
And as a result, both were forced to work independently for get that vision out there.
I found his ideas inspiring in one way or another, Thomas says of Welles.
He also seemed to have a firm grasp on just getting on with it.
Im a big fan ofMacbethandTouch Of Evil well, all of them.
And I am inspired by his spirit in the face of everything he faced.
I should have played him in that biopic!
Its not that farfetched a notion.
There is a certain undeniable resemblance, after all.
He also starred in a London production ofShockheaded Peter.
I asked if, along with everything else, he had any interest in moving into film himself.
Im also a firm believer in the Alfred Hitchcock dictum that the thing wrong with film-making is the actors.
Throw me into a disaster and I will excel.
The notion of an ending irritates me.
One huge mess in which to interweave meaning and revelation.
Sort of like Real Life.
