Devo: C or D? S & D etc.

evidence here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/chattycathy7575/sets/938749/

It didn't work. Almost everything on those albums is just not Devo-ish at all.

I'm getting into Devo again after not listenening to them much for about a decade. I've got that Complete Truth DVD coming in the mail, hopefully tomorrow.

Uncontrollable Urge live in San Diego in 1981. My uncles were at this concert. Sadly, I was only 7 years old at the time, and could not go. :(

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BmxN3E548I

Yeah, I want to hear some live stuff and the Hardcore demo stuff.

devo : seriously fuckin' classic.

Anyway, CLASSIC, of course. Esp the Hardcore Devo stuff, the initial round of videos and the first couple/three albums. Love to hear some of the early-early live shows mentioned upthread.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkZwHVM64qg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-oQql7XXx88

wow, talk about missing the entire point

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9Ir60XdUCM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utrTwJ6p0Jg&mode=related&search=

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IMk_Y0WzIrA&mode=related&search=

i have been looking to download it for months now and can never find it.

devo = super.

Point is that DEVO were proud of being uncool (by conventional standards, anyway). See "Through Being Cool" and basically their whole persona. They presented themselves as this angry, sarcastic bunch of outsiders, not asking for entrance to cool culture, but laughing at it from the outside.

??? I'm sure I'm missing something here...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZejmxvQAwY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qIMttc0ciKU

Song's called Goo Goo Itch - that might be why you can't find it? Search for Hardcore Devo and you should be abe to get it!

>> devo = super.

Oh yeah.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_k8JAMGXiI

Thank you YouTube

Suffice to say it is awesome. The early part of the show mostly covers "Freedom Of Choice" material with the band rocking out on synths and keyboards. Gradually it becomes more like the 77-79 era and they move to heavy guitaring on the stuff from the first two albums, including some rarer songs like "Pink Pussycat". A couple surprises for me were how good Mark Mothersbaugh was as a singer, and how fucking tough Bob Mothersbaugh is as a guitarist. The solos on "Blockhead" and "Smart Patrol" are mindblowing. He well deserves the cover shot.

I think the brilliant "Urgh, A Music War" clip of "Uncontrollable Urge" is from this show (not sure though - it's been years since I saw that film.

My opinion is that almost everything is great up to and including "Oh No It's Devo" but they completely lost the plot after that. Total Devo is an absolute dog. Shout and Smoothnoodlemaps have one or two good songs each and are generally not as offensive. Search for "Are You Experienced" and "Devo Have Feelings Too" respectively.

The more recent Devo history is a McCartney-esque mix of inspired anthologising, depressing mythologising and embarrasing nostalgia outings.

In the first category the items to claim are the aforementioned live 1980 DVD, the "Hardcore" series, the Rhino Handmade cd that included the complete original recording of "Freedom Of Choice" with live drums, guitars etc and a ton of other goodies, and the best of the various "official bootlegs" available here: http://www.boojiboysbasement.com/

By the way the early, early live shows aren't that hot really other than for historical interest. The very first "Sextet Devo" 1973 Kent State show is on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_M9ZMo5TiU

In this lineup is Bob Lewis, who successfully sued them in the late 70's for intelectual property theft of the whole "Devolution" stuff.

I completely agree with this.

(back in the day i think that XTC were the closest we came to the band everyone likes -- certainly they bridged otherwise pitiless foeships)

And the vids from New Traditionalists were indeed the best.

So here's a bit of lost Devo lore -- the video for "Dr. Detroit," the theme song from the Dan Ackroyd piece of suck of the same name:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5aEBT3l3qg

Lost because it's not on the DVD video collection and they make no mention of it being missing for one reason or another (unlike the "Are You Experienced?" cover, which they specifically say is missing for rights reasons). Never saw it at the time but I do remember the song getting some top 40 airplay up in upstate New York, oddly enough!

"oh no, no the yellow plastic unit!"

Alex, has the 'weird' version of "Secret Agent Man" ever been released on any musical format or just as a soundtrack to the video?

I was thinking it was on one of those great Rhino collections like Recombo DNA or Pioneers Who Got Scalpted. But apparently it's not.

What is this C or D shit anyway? If we're talking letter grades, they were A+ on the first two releases. A on the next two. C+ at worst by the time of Shout.

Interviewed Jerry last year and saw them in a theater in Seattle. Fucking awesome for geezers playing punk. Great set list, and very few stage props. Just two solid hours of slaying hits with Josh Freeze on the drums.

Peter Conheim, Devo's archivist, regularly talks to fans in this thread on the Steve Hoffman forum. He went by "Wayne Neato" for a while, then finally revealed his true identity in order to address questions related to the archival screenings Devo had at MoMA, AFI in Silver Springs and elsewhere, and since then he's regularly communicated with the fans who post in that thread. Someone asked him about the doc and this was his response:

Wouldn't we all like to know. Unfortunately, it has still not been sold to any distributor yet. The movie business is in total freefall, with documentaries particularly hard sells. Terrible timing. And the fires certainly won't help matters over the next couple years.

*He's gone by "Wayne Neato" for a while

Awww I remember when he was in Negativland!

I saw him today at a memorial for a mutual friend and he said there’s going to be a screening of restored films at Ann Arbor soon.

Conheim just posted this:

Good news: the DEVO documentary has apparently been sold and so will be available soon. Details will follow eventually.

As mentioned by Sara, the restoration program is coming to the Ann Arbor Film Festival with some new additions to the program. Only FOUR days away and Mark Mothersbaugh and Gerald V. Casale will be in attendance in conversation with archivist Peter Conheim.

The doc is up on Netflix and it is pretty great