Lost In Tyme Blog

Tripod Jimmie - 1982 - Long Walk Off A Short Pier

1 Autumn Leaves
2 Thank You Very Much Next Week
3 Mirror On The Wall
4 Empty Seed
5 Bowl Of Cherries
6 Nu Spartans
7 Joe Granville
8 Jimmie Sings
9 Women In Uniform
10 Spike The Dike
11 Franco-America

Tripod Jimmie "Long Walk Off a Short Pier" Do Speak do3, 1982.

*** Terrific debut from the band led by ex- Pere Ubu guitarist, Tom Hermann. Great post-punk/funk stuff: agile drumming, meaty basslines, Hermann's lacerating guitar and his Byrne-like voice. Not dissimilar in places to early Talking Heads, but not as mannered. Excellent live-in-studio recording made "on the shore of Lake Erie." I became aware of this fantastic lp when avid fan, Steve Albini played it on a local radio show. References: Come On, The Fall, Styrenes, Electric Eels, Mirrors, Couch Flambeau. ***

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Tom Herman is a guitarist and composer.

He was a founding member of Pere Ubu, performing and recording with them from 1975 to 1979. He quit the group, then rejoined in 1995. One of his main reasons for leaving Pere Ubu (one among many) was that the band wasn't as interested in spending time on the road as he was. He left and, ironically, never got back on the road with a band until rejoining Pere Ubu in the nineties.

After leaving Ubu, Tom spent some time working on an oil rig in the south as well as playing bass in a hotel band. Eventually he started working as a mechanical technician, repairing equipment in hospitals and occasionally restaurants.

In 1980 or 1981 he moved to Erie, PA, where he started Tripod Jimmie with bassist Lenny Bove and drummer Roger Prehoda. The band was named after photographer friend Mick Mellen's three-legged dog and/or the tape deck mounted on a tripod that functioned as the fourth member of the band. The tape deck was used to play tape loops which the band would then play "with" rhythmically or "against" (where the loop served more as a textural element) depending upon the demands of a particular song.

While notably different from Pere Ubu, the two bands do have similarities. The band's music bore a relation to R&B, but in a unique sense. "... one of the things I was thinking about at the time was what it would be like if some alien was exposed to all relevant information about R&B except actually hearing it," as Tom put it. This thoughtful and conscious approach to the band as a project shows a similar sensibility to Ubu's.

Some time after recording the album Long Walk Off a Short Pier (which was in fact recorded on a pier), Tripod Jimmie moved from Erie, PA to Oakland, CA in the mid-eighties, swapping Roger Prehoda for Glenn Reynolds on drums. This lineup released the album A Warning to All Strangers. The band broke up in 1988 and Tom dropped out of actively playing music for a few years.

In 2003, Tom recorded an album called "Wait For It", which was issued by Return-to-Sender Records in 2004. Highlights include a cover of Blind Lemon Jefferson's "Jesus" and "Red Haired Girl".

In early 2005, Tom left Pere Ubu again. In August of 2006 he played on stage with Oakland rock band Ovipositor.

One critic has praised Herman's playing, describing it as "postmodern Chuck Berry riffing."