Devo: C or D? S & D etc.

Devo were great. Underrated guitar player, too.

You can google it.

Try Wikipedia.

"Devo actively embraced the Church of the SubGenius in the early 1980s. In concert, Devo often performed as the opening band for themselves, pretending to be a Christian soft-rock group called "Dove (the Band of Love)". They also recorded "E-Z Listening Muzak" versions of their own songs to play before their concerts. In 2001, members of Devo formed the surf band The Wipeouters, claiming that it was actually a reunion of the first gararge band they formed while in their early teens."

V

I just bought the reissue of 'The Complete Truth About...' on a loan (tee-hee!), and I've been scarred for life just by going through it in a hurry. Has anybody seen that "Through Being Cool" video? Two words: BRAIN DAMAGE (in a good way... like LSD, ya know!). Everybody should see this should they have the chance, now that it's on DVD. Being drugged outta your mind would probably help also. It is surprisingly disturbing, moreso than you would expect... even for someone like me.

http://www.newsobserver.com/lifestyles/story/2261615p-8641132c.html

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.

Box set of early stuff on the way: https://shop.clubdevo.com/products/art-devo-1973-1977-box-set-akron-gold-vinyl-dev

Tracklist

Exhibit (A) 1973-1976
Boojis Industrial Death
Total Love
Auto Modown (Early version)
Space Girl Blues (Early version)
Live Forever
Androgyny (Live at Kent Kove 74)+
Fraulein (Kent Kove 1974)

Exhibit (B) 1973-1975
Bicentennial Birthday
Man From The Past
Midget/My Lai Mama (Kent Kove 74)
Shimmy Shake
All Of Us
Hubert House
The Tinkle Tune

Exhibit (C) 1973-1975
Private Secretary (Kent Kove 74)+
I Don’t Know Why
Dixie
Pigs Waddle (Kent Kove74)+
Death Of Lt. Casanova (Kent Kove 74)

Exhibit (D) 1975-1977
U Got Me Bugged (Instrumental version)
I Don’t Know What I Do Do
Huboon Stomp
Can U Take It (Early version)
Uncontrollable Urge (Early version)
Everything’s Gonna Be Alright
Falling In Love Again

Exhibit (E) 1975-1977
Devo Corporate Anthem (Early version)
Shrivel Up (Early version)
Smart Patrol (Early version)
I’m Lost at Home
Untitled
Never Go Back
Secret Agent Man (Mark vocal)

Exhibit (F) 1975-1977
Social Fools (Early version)
A Plan For U (Early version)
Nutty Buddy (Live at JB’s 76)
Dogs Of Democracy
Race Of Doom (Early version)
Space Junk (Early version)
Primal Satisfaction*
End Message

Exhibit (G) 1975
Untitled Montage (Harlan Hall)
Untitled Montage (Harlan Hall)

Exhibit (H) 1975-1977
Untitled Montage (Harlan Hall)
Untitled Montage (Greenwood)

Probably some overlap with the Hardcore releases, but can't really tell from the vague "early version" description. Honestly, I'd just rather have some more complete live shows from 1978-1981

I'm guessing they won't be the exact same recordings, if something is an "early version" of a tune that only appeared on Hardcore then I assume it's even earlier than that. I've heard the fanmade Hardcore 3 & 4 comp and although some of the material is interesting the recording quality is so low it's pretty much unlistenable. idk it's kinda hard to imagine there's anything worthwhile left in the vault after both the Hardcore & Recombo DNA releases (the latter of which really needs a repress), plus this is limited to 500 copies which implies it's for the hopelessly Devoted only. still worth a download I guess.

Race Of Doom (Early version)

assume that this is the version below which is very good and doesn't appear on Hardcore 3 and 4 comps, so maybe there is still some interesting stuff left to release?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PM3y01jb504

interesting, looks like none of the pre-mark stuff here so no "columbo dick", also i guess they don't have a recording of beehive from this era? a lot of these songs aren't really good (many of them are on bootleg), but there's certainly some historical interest here. my gut here is that there isn't any overlap with the "hardcore" releases, that it's all stuff that wasn't on the hardcore records. we'll see tho! it would also be interesting to see the full "sextet devo" video see release.

anybody know where that long rehearsal take of "freedom of choice" is from and if there's any more where that came from?

All all thread spuds aware of this site? https://boojiboysbasement.com Just checking...

anyone hear the boxset yet? I think most of the tracks have been compiled here:

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhWOj_4g_IpLiFuOzjGKNQxfpi1iEFNie

wondering if the sound has been cleaned up at all because most of these sound pretty rough. fun clicking through these though, feel like half their studio output has roots to that 1973-1977 period. even a couple of the songs on Total Devo!

also, regarding the rough sound quality: I've kind of wondered if parts of the Hardcore comps were actually re-recorded since noticing that "Fountain of Filth" sounds like it was from a much later session. "I Need a Chick" specifically, the drums on that are nothing like the other tracks, and surely that sample at the end isn't from the 70's?

listening to it now. really happy that the version on here is much less ambiguous than the previous version i heard - this is _definitely_ a satire on people who see androgyny as a threat, people who think it, I don't know, disfigures the face of man and woman, or something. it's actually really interesting because the attitude it's parodying _does_ strongly resemble the stupid shit bigots say about gender non-conforming people today.

sound quality is predictably rough but is _way_ better than the bootlegs of a lot of this material.

Consumer alert on the new 50 Years Of De-Evolution LP box set just released (via the Hoffmanites). Apparently "Smart Patrol" fades out at the end and "Mr. DNA" is dropped, which is just plain crazy to me. Also, all the New Traditionalists tracks are running fast.

whoa yeah, "Smart Patrol" is listed at 3:43, that's a baffling decision. I have never really thought of them as two separate tracks.

wonder if speeding up the NT stuff is because they felt it was too slow to begin with? I'd heard the tapes were damaged, or something...wonder if the CD's like that

anyway, I'm not really interested in this, looks to be very little new there. if you ask me they need to reissue Recombo DNA and/or Something For Everybody

basically just some single edits and a '74 version of "i'm a potato"?

Re: New Tradionalists tape damage

New Traditionalists was the band's first fully self-produced album. It was recorded on a then-new brand of 2-inch tape from 3M. Unfortunately, when Devo began recording the vocals for the album, the edges of the tape had begun to disintegrate. After asking Warner Bros. if they could start over and re-record the album from scratch and being denied, Devo transferred all the work they had done to digital reel-to-reel tape and finished the album via digital recording at the Record Plant in Los Angeles, California.

Which IIRC caused the original vinyl/cassette release to sound a little muddy, and hich they were able to correct on the last CD master.

Anyone else see Mark Mothersbaugh, Peter Conheim and Gerald Casale premiere the new restorations of their films at MoMA tonight? It was pretty nice - sold out but luckily they squeezed in a lot of people waiting in the standby line. (Spotted Steve Shelley in the audience - didn’t realize he was a big Devo fan.)

At one point, someone mentioned Gerald’s brother, Bob, and he said even though it’s been nearly ten years since his passing, he still hasn’t removed his number from his phone. Thought that was pretty sweet.

Wow @ this. Jerry Casale interviewed on the BBC... in 1970!

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

"Next: UFO Expert"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1AdD6EfVuQ