Devo: I Can't Get Me No

Devo left their footprints through an awful lot of Seventies and Eighties culture, probably more than you realize, with ties to Neil Young, the Pretenders, Square Pegs, Pee Wee Herman, the Kent State massacre, even the great Toni Basil. They made an early appearance on Saturday Night Live, reinforcing that show’s reputation as a supporter of the avant-garde even while, half the time, they were still inviting musical acts like Meat Loaf and Judy Collins. (Fred Willard was the host.)

I remember watching this live as a wee tot, although I don’t remember my reaction (I probably hated it). It’s pretty amazing, though, isn’t it? I’m a little surprised that they came out with three guitars and a bass, since Devo was promulgating what would evolve into New Wave synth-pop. The bassist is real good, too. 

Devo's label wanted to get the Stones' blessing before they released this, so Mark Mothersbaugh and Gerald Casale found themselves sitting down one afternoon with Mick Jagger himself. The New Yorker picks up the story:

As the sounds of the cover filled the room, Jagger sat stone-faced.... “He was just looking down at the floor swirling his glass of red wine,” Casale recently remembered, adding, “He didn’t even have shoes on, just socks and some velour pants [! - ed.]. I don’t know what his habits were then, but this was early afternoon and it looked like he had just gotten up.”

For thirty seconds or so, the men sat in silence, listening to the weird robo-funk coming from the boom box. Then something changed. “He suddenly stood up and started dancing around on this Afghan rug in front of the fireplace,” Casale said, of Jagger, “the sort of rooster-man dance he used to do, and saying”—he impersonated Jagger’s accent—“‘I like it, I like it.’ Mark and I lit up, big smiles on our faces, like in ‘Wayne’s World’: ‘We’re not worthy!’ To see your icon that you grew up admiring, that you had seen in concert, dancing around like Mick Jagger being Mick Jagger. It was unbelievable.”

Let’s take it from the top: Devo was formed in Akron, Ohio, by the Mothersbaugh and Casale brothers, along with a drummer who would later be replaced by the great Alan Myers. Gerald Casale and Mark Mothersbaugh had been students at Kent State in 1970 when four protesters were murdered by the National Guard, one of them being Casale’s friend Jeffrey Miller. That helped inspire the concept of de-evolution, which would eventually give the band its name. Chrissie Hynde was there, too, and played in a band with Mark Mothersbaugh before Devo got off the ground.

After seeing the band’s short 1976 film The Truth About De-Evolution, David Bowie lobbied his label to sign them. The uniforms they wore in the film came from Gerald Casale's day job doing graphic design for a janitorial supply company. Neil Young recruited them to appear as nuclear garbagemen in his film Human Highway, which Mark Mothersbaugh ended up scoring. Gerald Casale and Toni Basil began dating, and Devo backed her up on her debut album Word of Mouth (which actually post-dated “Mickey”), including three Devo covers.

Devo itself finally landed on the pop charts with the MTV fave “Whip It,” which went to Number Fourteen on the Billboard pop charts in 1980. In 1982, they played at Muffy’s bat mitzvah on Square Pegs. I seem to remember a character on that show wearing plastic Devo hair, but can't find any references or pictures thereof. A little help?

Unfortunately, that’s about all there is to the Devo story. Mark Mothersbaugh went on to produce the music for Pee-Wee’s Playhouse, and turned into a highly successful TV composer, but “Whip It” would be their only Top Forty hit. Their theme for Doctor Detroit peaked at No. 59 in 1983, and they never even made the Hot 100 after that.

The Matched Set It’s gotta be Kraftwerk, right? We’re going to deal with Kraftwerk a little later on, but like Devo, they were as much an art project, deconstructing pop music, as they were a band. They were also a little shy on the hits, with just “Autobahn” squeaking into the Top Forty.

The Verdict I want to like Devo more than I do. “Satisfaction” is brilliant, “Whip It” remains a terrific single, and their commitment to the whole art-project concept is admirable, especially since it’s a really cool concept. Their only problem is the music – aside from those two singles, there isn’t anything in the Devo catalog that I actively like, and a lot of it, like “Through Being Cool” and “Freedom of Choice,” is pretty bad. I suppose I could be convinced otherwise, but for now, I’m voting No on Devo.