UJ3RK5 – UJ3RK5 EP

UJ3RK5 – The Anglican, The Locator // Eisenhower and the Hippies, Booty Dread (Quintessence Records) 1980. A post-punk classic of dryly academic dadaism. UJ3RK5 (pronounced “You Jerks”) were a band of social misfits from Vancouver who released this wacky EP in 1980. Coming out of the ‘photoconceptualism’ or ‘post-conceptual photography’ art movement and launching the seminal career of Rodney Graham, UJ3RK5 recorded this EP and a couple other compilation tracks before calling it a day. The band was too tuneful and upbeat to really qualify as “no wave” but too fractured and ridiculous to simply be labelled “new wave”. So let’s just consider them “Last Days Music” and be done with it. I’ve read that Eisenhower and the Hippies was their “hit” but that is kind of a ludicrous statement, no? Now what really strikes me as weird is if you juxtapose the cover of the UJ3RK5 EP with say, a photo of Arcade Fire or something, you may realize that trends come and go but Canadian Nerds making highly literate rock is constant. Luckily, in UJ3RK5 case, the tunes match the image.