DEVO TO PLAY LIVE AGAIN!!!

unless you are dying to look at those handsome gents that are DEVO.

I'll do that for George Clinton and co. or whomever else plays there these days (I don't think I've bothered going to Summerstage since the mid-90's), but for Devo, sorry.....gotta be closer.

TO PURCHASE TICKETS:
Tickets will be available at the Roseland Ballroom box office without service charge on May 1st from noon to 4PM ONLY. Roseland Ballroom is located at 239 West 52nd Street. For more information call (212) 777-1224.

Any remaining tickets will be available beginning Monday, May 3rd at the Irving Plaza box office without service charge. Irving Plaza is located at 17 Irving Place at 15th Street. For more information call (212) 777-1224.

Tickets are also available at select Ticketmaster Outlets, Online at www.ticketmaster.com & via Charge-By-Phone at (212) 307-7171

But I want to go to this. But I swore we wouldn't take a vacation this year. But it's DEVO and the YYYs! But it's expensive! But it's my birthday (kind of)! I don't know what to do!!!!

I'd rather gouge out my eyes than see Stellastar.

Get a flat tire? It's Stellastar's fault. Did you dog die? Blame Stellastar.

It was annoying enough when Jonathan Fire*Eater did it!

I'm actually relieved it isn't. Keeps the riffraff out. It'll still be hot and crowded, but perhaps the audience won't be QUITE as rude and boneheaded as the usual "I'm only here cuz it's free" Summerstage turnout.

Really anything would be better than the last time I saw Devo. The spuds were great, but the Violent Femmes and Ween opened up (this was in '97 or '98 or so). I'll take Yeah Yeah Yeahs fans over Violent Femmes fans ANYTIME.

so did they consult with Shellac for setting this show up? Will there be Pop Tarts or Krispy Kreme donuts available for the devo-tees?

http://the-wall.net/%7Edevo-obsesso/images/latest_news/nike_la_4-04/laplaca_urge2.jpg

July 18, 2004 -- This week might seem like an odd time for Devo's return to New York City, where they last played well over a decade ago.

After all, the band's early '80s heyday - when their record "Freedom of Choice" went platinum, driven by the frenetic smash single "Whip It" - is long gone, and Devo hasn't released a new record since 1988.

But Jerry Casale, who founded the band with Mark Mothersbaugh in the early '70s, when the two were art students at Kent State University, figures Devo's appearance at SummerStage this Friday is perfectly timed.

After all, the edgy art-rock band was built around the concept of "de-evolution" - a belief that mankind is in a continuous state of regression - and Casale points out that recent events prove they were more right than they'd ever imagined.

"Considering the kind of corporate feudal state that we live in today, our predictions came, unfortunately, all too true," Casale told The Post, speaking on the phone from his Los Angeles home. "At one time we were supposedly at odds with the culture and we were futurists, and now all we are is the house band for a devolved world.

"We just sit in amazement saying, you know, we did warn people, but we never thought it would go this far."

The SummerStage show doesn't necessarily mark a reunion for Devo, which also plays Thursday as the headliners of Run Hit Wonder, a Nike-sponsored Central Park road race featuring appearances by such early '80s flash-in-the-pan bands as Flock of Seagulls and Tommy Tutone.

The band, which currently plays some half dozen shows a year at odd special events, never exactly broke up.

But as their popularity waned in the late '80s they "went into some kind of hibernation," said Casale, and ceased touring and putting out records.

"No matter what we did, people either ignored it or critics didn't like it. We couldn't get the right kind of offers for touring, and radio was going in a whole other strange direction, and it just became obvious," said Casale. "It was kind of like Luke Skywalker when he jumps into the void because he sees he can't win, so he dives into the void to fight another day."

Devo busted out the jumpsuits and the flower-pot hats in 1996 to play a number of shows on the Lollapallooza tour, which offered them a chance to connect with some of the many younger bands that have cited the band's quirky, robotic electro-pop as an influence. (Beck, Moby, Nirvana, Sonic Youth and Soundgarden are counted among the band's fans, and their influence can be heard in newer bands like the Hives and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, who will open the SummerStage show.)

But mainly Casale and Mothersbaugh have been devoting themselves to their new careers - Mothersbaugh as a composer of film and TV soundtracks, Casale as a director of music videos and television commercials. Still, Casale doesn't rule out a new record at some point in the band's future. "I would never say never," he says.

So is he surprised to still be at it more than two decades after the subversive group of spud-fixated art geeks in yellow jumpsuits became unlikely chart-toppers?

"No, I'm Devo whether I want to be or not," he says. "Devo is a state of mind."

sans energy dome tho sadly

Did anyone here go to the gig at the Fourm? it was intense.

The new songs are actually not bad in my opinion. I mean, who really gives a shit about new Devo material at this point anyway, but they are better than 95% of the last two albums. I really think that production is their main focus now. They have become masters of the ultraslick movie soundtrack whooshiness thing but I wish they would think about getting a cool, creative producer to work with them instead of doing it themselves. That would perhaps put their creativity back into the songwriting, arrangements and so on. Their best stuff was always done with big-name producers with lots of ideas and their own sound.

The best song they have recorded in the last 20 years was Huboon Stomp from the South Park Chef Aid disc - but that was an old song, written in the mid-70s. And it is really mad. These new songs are quite sedate in comparison. They try to make them as exciting as possible by polishing them to perfection, but it's the lacklustre songwriting that causes them to fall short.

Still like them though.

Voting starts tomorrow on the twelve songs that will make the upcoming album:

http://songstudy.clubdevo.com/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fO9GEicoX0c

Ugh. Auto-tuned DEVO is not what I was hoping for. I'm doing the study now and so far I've heard one song I like out of sixteen.

My favorite was Sumthin, but there were at least ten I honestly felt good voting for. And then another two that would be my preferred filler.

I'm a big fan, but this is an over-produced post-Shout parody of themselves. Bummer.

Fresh was my favorite. Sumthin starts with the Whip It beat :(

I'm a big fan too, but I guess I'm too generous.

Cap'n Save-a-Mothersbaugh

Auto-tuned DEVO

I think these may be the worst words in the English language (and also why I am not going to hit "play")

Sorry to be a spoiler Spacecadet. It's not criminal over-use of auto-tuner. But it is there...

Complete Philly show is up on YouTube, with a pretty good zoom lens and from behind the soundboard:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJpyQQjXZNg

I had modest expectations given their age and that two members of the classic line-up are no longer with us (though tbf Alan Myers stopped touring with them 40 years ago), but this looks like a really solid show. The performances from the classic era were pretty intense and athletic (check out the one for Paris television in 1978, my personal favorite until something better circulates) but if you never saw any of that footage before, I don't think you'd realize that Mark had slowed down because he's still in good health and fairly active onstage.

Kind of wild that Freese has been in this band for 29 years

Jeff Friedl is playing on this tour, but Freese apparently comes back once in a while. (I think he sat in for a few shows in 2020 after five years away?)

FWIW, here's the Paris television performance, but someone reinstated a handful of songs that were cut out of the broadcast (though the reinstated songs are in poorer quality with substantial stretching). There are two complete 1978 shows that were filmed in Devo's archive, reportedly in excellent quality - hopefully they'll get a nice Blu-ray or DVD presentation someday.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JCjn3pksCk

Lots of big Devo news: Netflix announced they were the ones who acquired that doc so it's coming soon. And Devo is actually touring with the B-52s! Another band from that era who's touring after an ostensible "farewell" tour, but I don't care, I'd rather see them play again.