Reportedly, the recording sessions were stressful and contentious. Pere Ubu's then-record label, Chrysalis, was unhappy with the finished product and refused to release it in America. After one U.S. tour in support of the record, guitarist Tom Hermann left the group.[3][4][5]Allen Ravenstine stated Hermann's departure was due to the group heading into a direction that was no longer "rock and roll".[6] At the time, Thomas briefly joined the Jehovah's Witnesses.[7] Ravenstine remarked that this contributed to Hermann leaving the band: "[Thomas] was trying to get his Jehovah's Witness message in there, then he [Hermann] got very upset. So that was the end of him".[7][6] The affiliation was reflected lyrically in the final song on the album "Jehova's Kingdom Come!".[7]
Recording and production
David Thomas stated when recording the album sound issues from Suma Recording studio brought some issues[3]:
I pushed maybe too hard and not wisely. I was determined. All The Dogs Are Barking was the breaking point. It was a pop song in the nature of what we had done before, a rock song with catchy hooks. I told Ken (Hamann, the engineer) to erase everything but the overdubs."
The lyrics for the song "The Voice of the Sand" are based upon the poetry of Vachel Lindsay.[3] Thomas remarked:[3]
We wanted maracas in The Fabulous Sequel. Suma only had one of a pair. Nobody wanted to take the time to go into town to get another one so we put some mics out on the gravel drive outside the front door and all walked around in different-sized circles until we got a maraca sound. Allen tried sawing through a drum head to get the sound. I can't remember the other ideas. That was the spirit of the album
New Picnic Time has been described as the "black sheep" of the band's catalog as it featured a more experimental sound than any of their previous albums up to that point and originally didn't see release in America, only being toured once.[3][7] On September 15, 1979, Dave McCullough reviewed the album for Sounds, writing: "It's a drunken, wanton, wilful sounding album with a spine as elastic and as totally absorbing as Beefheart...exhilarating, funny, somehow very vital music."[16]
Writing in Melody Maker on September 8, 1979, John Orme noted, "They don't ask to be loved, but they do invite it. Whichever, they are open to instant embrace or rejection. Their music doesn't float on calm waters: it submerges, spurts, takes rapids, often half-drowns on its back... Having fallen in a big way for the last Ubu album, I approached New Picnic Time with much suspicion... Ubu have developed a wider maturity in scope, feeling and atmosphere, and I can only praise them for it. Don't forget to laugh."[17]
In a retrospective review, Scott Laurence of the Herald-American (July 5, 1999) described the album as "Weird. Weird and wonderful. Weird, wonderful and so far beyond the expected that these deconstructions of popular music are as charmingly retro as the Beatles and as modern as today's blendings of funk, hip-hop and alt-rock. Revolutionary and demented yet full of fun, Pere Ubu are indispensable to any collection of 20th century rock."[18]
New Music USA's Rick Moody remarked, "I have been saying that the Pere Ubu album entitled New Picnic Time, from 1979, is the scariest album ever made..." Additionally, he stated "[...] was the rejoinder to any questions about what exactly Pere Ubu wanted, and the rejoinder was a mammoth stick in the eye. Gone, almost entirely, were the more user-friendly aspects of Dub Housing, and in their place we heard a willful insistence on experiment and double-crossing, but also expressive darkness. Let’s look closer".[7]
The Cambridge Evening News wrote that the album "veers wildly between irritatingly inconsequential noises ... and surprisingly catchy riffs."[19]
On the 1989 Rough Trade CD, the song "Jehovah's Kingdom Comes!" was re-titled "Hand a Face a Feeling" (a phrase from the lyrics). For subsequent reissues the song was remixed, removing all references to Jehovah, and re-re-titled "Kingdom Come". On the 2017 Fire Records reissues (and the 2016 box set Architecture of Language 1979 - 1982) the song was edited, removing approximately twenty-five seconds of music. The title of the opening track "Have Shoes Will Walk (The Fabulous Sequel)" has also varied from release to release.[citation needed]
Year of Release
Place of Release
Format
Label
1979
United Kingdom, Europe, Germany
Vinyl LP
Chrysalis
1983
Italy
Vinyl LP
Base Record / Go International
1985
Netherlands
Vinyl LP
Rough Be•Ne•Lux
1989
United Kingdom & United States
CD
Rough Trade
1998
Japan
CD
Bomba Records
1999
Italy, United States, United Kingdom
Vinyl LP, CD
Get Back / RTI Music / Cooking Vinyl / Thirsty Ear
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