

Peter Laughner early 1976. Photo Credit: Mik Mellen



Peter Laughner was a singer-songwriter-guitarist and apparent force of nature who has been credited with jump-starting the underground music scene in Cleveland, Ohio in the 1970s. Laughner was perhaps most famously a founding member of Pere Ubu—you might say he was their Syd Barrett—and before that Rocket from the Tombs, the legendarily bonkers Ubu predecessor with David Thomas and three soon-to-be Dead Boys. He had a group with future Contortion Adele Bertei called Peter and the Wolves. Laughner was involved in many different combinations of Cleveland musicians, all of them short-lived. He was a Dylan-imitating folkie (although a very good Dylan-imitating folkie to be sure), in a jugband blues combo and he went to New York to jam with Tom Verlainewhen Richard Lloyd briefly left Television. He was also a memorable writer for CREEM and various local Cleveland alt-weeklies. His biography makes it seem like he was trying several musical directions simultaneously and enlisting others to his various causes, and volunteering for theirs in turn, creating sparks and willing a scene to happen by sheer force of personality.



The new Peter Laughner box set from Cleveland-based Smog Veil Records is a very, very unusual pop culture product. It’s also a difficult thing to “review,” resistant to any sort of standard approach to that task. Many box sets celebrate a lifetime’s musical achievements, greatest hits, but Peter Laughner died at the age of 24. He had no hits, in fact he was apparently only ever in an actual recording studio