Thomas triumphs at Disastodrome

Midway through “Mirror Man,” his mesmerizing “rogue opera,” David Thomas on Saturday at UCLA’s Freud Playhouse interjected that a verse he was about to sing was “the only good thing I ever wrote.”

Badly we pass the time away.

We pace through our rages, or stare from the depths of our own separate cages ... aware of the dark.

It is a memorable verse that captures the essence of the two-act “Mirror Man” -- desolation and isolation in the American West. The opera is a mood piece more than a story, threading barely-if-at-all-connected vignettes and confessions from a series of drifters and lonely souls.

Thomas was part ringmaster, part Greek chorus, part Big Daddy and part cranky guy on a front porch guiding, complementing and barking at the small cast that included former Pixies leader Frank Black, singer-songwriter Syd Straw, former “Cheers” regular George Wendt, musical gadfly Van Dyke Parks and poet Bob Holman.

Scored by a four-piece band’s hauntingly noir electro-jazz music, the presentation echoes all sorts of things, from Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road” and Harry Partch’s hobo pieces to Robert Ashley’s various TV operas and Tom Waits and Robert Wilson collaborations.

But for Thomas to call that one verse the only good thing he’s written had to have been disingenuous, coming at the midpoint of a three-day series that showcased the depth, breadth and vitality of his nearly three-decade career as a truly singular outre-music force.

Billed as Disastodrome and presented under the auspices of the ambitious UCLA Live program, the weekend kicked off Friday with a concert opened with an involving solo set by Black and the shadowy blues of the obscure Kidney Brothers (a big influence on Thomas).

Thomas then headlined with the accompaniment of Two Pale Boys, an astonishing, hypnotic electronics-enhanced duo of trumpeter Andy Diagram and guitarist Keith Moline that he’s worked with for years. Sunday it all concluded with a bang in the first performance in 27 years by Rocket From the Tombs, the avant-garde proto-punk band Thomas fronted in mid-’70s Cleveland, and then a closing set by Pere Ubu, Thomas’ avant-garde standard-bearer band.

And that’s not even taking into account such offstage elements as Steakburgers by Eddie, at which Thomas associates grilled burgers for fans while the star gave a rant on art aesthetics in the courtyard outside the Freud before Saturday’s show.

Close behind “Mirror Man” for both fan anticipation and delivered thrills was the Rocket reunion. In its brief existence, the band was barely known outside a small circle of Cleveland rock fans, but it spawned both Pere Ubu and punk avatars the Dead Boys (featuring Rocket guitarist Gene O’Connor, a.k.a. Cheetah Chrome), and its reputation has grown over the years.

Sunday’s performance justified the reputation as O’Connor, Thomas (who back then called himself Crocus Behemoth -- an apt description) and bassist Chris Bell were joined by Television’s Richard Lloyd (filling the role of Rocket co-founder/visionary Peter Laughner, who died in 1977) and current Ubu drummer Steve Mehlman. It was an explosive, revelatory set.

Ubu’s closing set was almost anticlimactic after that, though the current lineup has polished the once-jagged music in a way that places it between Captain Beefheart and Talking Heads. Thomas’ verbal bite and avoidance of conventional formalities, though, ensured rough edges and spontaneity in keeping with Disastodrome’s insistence that “nothing can go wrong.”

That concept did get tested in the Ubu set, however. Fighting exhaustion from the grueling weekend duties and battling technical problems, Thomas slumped in a chair, tangled in cords, and declared himself “unhappy.” But he rebounded nicely to close out the three-day highwire act triumphantly.

Sunday he quipped that when asked how it feels for Pere Ubu to be the most successful experimental rock band in the world, he replies, “Honey, we know what we’re doing. We don’t have to experiment.”