Story of Pere Ubu - 6

Cleveland spreads out and away from the flats of the Cuyahoga River. Ancient heavy industries, the steel mills, petroleum and chemical works of the Rust Belt, are hunkered down along the crazy snaking river banks just waiting for the good days to return. The good days won't. At the mouth of the river, along Old River Road, is John D. Rockefeller's first warehouse, birthplace of World Empire. This warehouse got to the year 1976 as a dark and forgotten bar called The Pirate's Cove, a haunt for the sailors from off the lake freighters that dump ballast in great stoney heaps just across the street. The owner, Jim Dowd, with nothing to lose, gave Ubu Tuesday nights. A mob of 35 customers on the first night earned Ubu a promotion to Thursdays. Ubu played nearly every week for a year sharing the stage with local and touring groups in the early days of the new wave. The spring and summer of 1977 came to be special days, a season of unique ideas.

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