Devo's De-Evolution (1984-1990)
Total Disappointment drummer (far left) with "Mark Witherspoon" (center)
by Spenser Thompson, Part 2
(October 2018)
Alan Myers, the drummer who laid down some amazing ideas that fit the quirks of the songs and was more than a "human metronome" (as Jerry eulogized him, to my frustration) was gone. Being an electrician in the Valley was apparently more fun. His replacement was a "Total Disappointment." His drum breaks seemed to span 8 measures. The funky staccato of Devo, to me one of its trademarks, went down the tubes, so to speak. To Devo's credit, the new guy the guy found them, and not vice versa.
Enigma & The Dead Horse
Devo had always been an enigma and the band got a deal with a record company of the same name for Total Devo. Enigma was an independent label that was the first label to release the Sonic Youth's (yes seminal) Daydream Nation which twisted pop and punk like taffy -- in the same year of Devo's comeback. Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore was the ultimate punk artiste, the Lower East Side heir to the ultra-swank No Wave genre. In a way, he launched forth the gestational period (of John Cage and with Glen Branca) into the popular music world with his band. Check out "Too Much Paranoias" with its broken-motorcycle guitar as a likely Thurston inspiration.
Jerry (via Ear Candy)
[Enigma] was the beginning of the real end. It was a mistake. After, we parted way with Warner Bros, Warner's kind of dirtied the waters for us. You know how it is. In the world of the "Big Three" [record labels] they [Warner Bros.] tell everybody else [other record labels] to lay off and everybody is scared so they do. Enigma didn't care, but then Enigma didn't care about anything. Enigma certainly didn't care about their artists. They didn't know how to promote records and they took a 50 million dollar cash infusion and promptly blew it; but they got nice houses and cars out it.A band picture, accompanying an article in a local rag, showed the spud boys in a thicket at the La Brea Tar Pits, where archeologists still sift scrape downward for dinosaur bones. In reference to Enigma, the interviewer asked, "Aren't you a big fish in a small pond"? A hundred yards away, a life-sized sculpture of a baby Wooly Mammoth was going under in hot bubbling tar--its mother futilely reaching out with her trunk.
Rolling Stone -- who had put Dylan on its cover 11 times to that point gave Total Devo one star, and in a cruel takedown, ended the review saying that the drum sample sounded like "a dead horse being beaten." OUCH. They really know how to hurt a spud. Noting Devo's de-evolution, they write:
"Actually, they're making the kind of vapid music they used to ridicule in countless songs and interviews. Unless I'm missing some sort of immensely subtle concept, there is not a shred of irony in lines like When I see you/I want to holler/You make me steamy/Under the collar/You -- you know you're my/Sweet hot chihuahua.' De-evolution, indeed."Rolling Stone, the establishment 60's-70's institution, and with few competitors, always hated Devo. Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo! was grudgingly accepted as important although not much fun: "It might not define the Seventies as much as jump the gun on the Eighties." The reviews were out of sync -- the beginning and the end are nowhere to be found. Rolling Stone also accused Freedom of Choice of "suspicious emptiness." A year later, in 1981, they wondered (in an article title) if Devo were: "Sixties Idealists or Nazis and Clowns?"
Deal with the small Enigma records = creative control
Westwood Tower Records In-Store Reconnect!
Rolling Stone Review
MTV "Pump or Dump"
Concept: LP would invoke various periods in their music
"Superhit" Disco Dancer
Devo-ization cover "Don't Be Cruel"
Message song
Hit only Devo could make: Baby Doll
"Re-introduce" Devo via concert "Script"
???
Profit
In-Store Appearance (Los Angeles, 1988)
For the comeback, Devo would do their duty and begin at the beginning, reconnecting with their fans at Tower Records in Westwood, a tidy and upscale shopping district next to UCLA.
The door opened and Mark positioned himself on the second level of the store, resting his chin in his hands, conveying a wistful attitude through completely dark lenses. Nonverbally he said, "look at you all, the ragged Devo army, you stayed with us." I am not sure if it was a look of appreciation, or pity, or puzzlement. It was a theatrical Devo moment, but an awkward one. Was I a fool for hanging on during Siesta Mode? Was I a Cubs fan, who had waited 80 years to that point for a championship? Was Mark thanking us for sitting in half-empty bleachers during a long Chicago summer?
The crowd an odd mish-mosh, surprisingly most under 25. A guy from UC Riverside in front of us made a radiation suit himself out of a raincoat and called Jerry "Gerald V." A "true artist" Devo Fan I've ever seen in his dress and vibe -- was also there. We'd see him in Hollywood on highland driving a Volkswagen Rabbit with the license plate ALL DEVO. When he tapped the brakes, two energy domes on the ledge of the back window lit up (I refuse to call them flower pots, to this day).
Jerry: "It doesn't look like we are going to have fun now, but we are."
Mark loves all things Japan so I think that is where the idea to spice up the in-store with a Karaoke contest came from. He was right that it didn't. Bob 2 flips a DAT of Devo's antiseptic yet cute version of Elvis' "Don't Be Cruel" (which just comes off as dull in person.) My friend, whose mother wrote a romance novel that was made into a movie, bravely takes the first turn. People love it! He might win! We are having fun.
A quintessential nerd grabs the mic dressed in a patchwork of Devo accessories: Energy Dome, JFK Hair (plastic), and plastic toy ray gun. Jerry happily gives the crowd a guided tour of each accouterment. His performance is "robotic" but not charming (human?) a la Mark. He didn't win.
Then things got "very LA." A girl does a pedestrian version of the song and gets a few catcalls. Then a leonine man with a muscular chest who grins and says his name is "Cat" sings. Obviously an actor, who is just there hoping to be noticed, or just wandered in from the street. The kind of mutant you'd see on Venice beach. The young woman, with no Devo gear or attitude, wins the competition.
"Talent wins out in the end," says Jerry.
Autograph Time
"We will sign anything living or dead," says Jerry. As we waited to reach the autograph table, Tower Records plays all their records in order, and when "Whip It" comes on there is an uncomfortable or reverent silence -- not cheers. The mood is restrained. Better yet, tentative. This is getting weird again.
Mikael who enjoyed melting my brain -- turns to me and says: doesn't Bob I looks like Gilligan?' He did. What the hell happened`? Wasn't there an episode of Gilligan's Island with a monkey? Turns out there was:
"The nameless monkey had a habit of imitating Gilligan .. It was also very mischievous; setting off explosions with the plastic to amuse itself and almost blowing itself up in the process."If that's not DEVO I don't know what is.
Gilligan with dastardly simian.
(A month later, Gregorio was wearing his Devo shirt when we spotted Bob I leaving a store in the deep San Fernando valley video game in his hands. We called "Bob!" Several times before he looked up. Spotting the shirt, his eyes got wide and he got out of there ASAP.)
The line inches towards the autograph table. Close up, Devo's outfits look up like stiff canvas. Not easy to move in, certainly can't fall apart and be ripped off, as in previous years, or protection "spittle" or "radiation."
We get to the autograph table.
"Hey Mark, where's Alan?" says Gregorio, fearlessly.
"He's down at the lab."
We should be so lucky. The new drummer is seated to his left: rodentine with blond hair in a ponytail.
I lean over and quietly ask Mark:
"What is Visiting Kids"?
I had read of them in La De Da... I gathered they were Devo's kids.
No response.
"Hey Mark, can you tell me about your art?"
He immediately slaps down a postcard flat on the table.
"Take this and don't show it to anybody."
Suddenly, I had two tickets to his art opening at Luz De Jesus Gallery. I was in! In La De Da Land! I was no nerd. I was the "artist wing" of the Devo fans! The show, called the "Peek A Boo Room," included paintings from the 1987 show at Psychedelic Solution. periodically, then the lights turned off and glow-in-the-dark images would appear on the paintings, transforming the images. Artist Guy was there, too, talking to Mark, across a crowded room. Sadly, there were only two people allowed on my exclusive pass; and I had two flip a coin amongst two friends for the plus one. Not fun. I should have let the other two guys go and stayed home.
The invite
"An Evening with Devo" (1988)
The Total Devo tour started at the close of my first year in college when I fell in love with un-Devo stuff Garlands by Cocteau Twins, From Her to Eternity from, Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, and the soulful Tasmanian devil of Los Angeles -- Jeffrey Lee Pierce of the Gun Club. Evol by Sonic Youth seemed particularly devolved and full of New York cool. But my first love, Devo, was coming back.
Billed as "An evening with Devo," the musical idea was to gradually mutate from Music from Insomniacs-style music to Gestational Devo, to a statement. They'd ease the audience into their seemingly antiquated thing and then follow with some "loud shots from the big spud gun" ("Explosions" put it). The dramatic arc of the evening was a "solution" to the puzzle of their seeming irrelevance and re-introduction to a changed world.
They come out in hot-looking canvas outfits. To suck more energy out of the proceedings, they are sitting on stools. They launch into Mark's Music for Insomniacs (Muzak) version of Are We Not Men...? which devolves further into reggae. I've waited through the Siesta but I am still waiting. Could I be bored? The song ends.
I'll credit Jerry for the introductory "script" because he delivered it so gleefully and he's the primary talker in interview after interview.
Jerry: "You know, people just don't think Devo...just aren't cool anymore."
Got it.
"...and if you are wondering why we are sitting down, it's because we've survived 25 years in this business."
Hardy har har. Cringe.
But wait. Devo are defeated business people? Did their career and spirit get smooshed by outside forces, like my dad's? Were they not warriors armed with Timothy Leary reprogramming techniques? De-vo was on the de-fensive. In retrospect, being Good Ol' Devo didn't seem to make any more sense as a narrative.
Next Mark launches into his straight-ahead folk ditty called it "Doesn't Matter to Me." The dark and dirty "Going Under" starts with ironic finger snapping and some Muzak-y takes, but then gets down to business. But the loooong and pedestrian drum breaks by the blond guy begin.
Lordy.
Devo Sitting down: Bob I and Bob II
To plan, things got more intense as the evening progressed. During "Pity You," Mark grabbed a guy's shirt and told him he "really had a problem." Awesome. The evening seemed to climax with "Mongoloid," played, sans irony.
But wait, there's more!
They closed with... Sondheim! The "Somewhere Suite" promised in People is indeed a multipart piece song that ends "Somewhere"'s chorus ("There's a place for us, somewhere a place for us..."). They had softened the path to the finale, and I suppose their artistic statement of the moment. Got to hand it to them, they subverted my expectations and the hopes and dreams of an obsessive fan. Was there a place for Devo in a changed world? It wasn't yes or no. It was not yet.' Just out of sync, again.
At any rate, "Mongoloid" kicked ass. I had finally seen Devo and went home happy.
Jocko Homo It Doesn't Matter To Me Going Under Working In A Coalmine Happy Guy That's Good Jerkin' Back 'N' Forth Pity You Girl U Want Whip It Baby Doll Satisfaction Uncontrollable Urge Gut Feeling Gates Of Steel Beautiful World Somewhere With DEVO
Oh, and my friend who sang in the Karaoke contest was pulled on the stage, where he marched robotically with the music to the crowd's delight, and then gently pushed off the stage and told to dive by Jerry.
Months later, Mikael called from Oregon and reported that he saw Devo for a second time on the Total Devo tour. "Same Jokes, same order, same stage dive at the same time."
Nu Kool Things: Sonic Youth's Daydream Nation came out the same year as Total Devo.
Fully Devolved (1990)
As awkward as the 1988 return was, the true De-ath didn't come with Smooth Noodle Maps, after the 80's died in 1990. "Jimmy's in a Wheel Chair" gloats at someone who has become disabled. Lower, aesthetically, was the cover of... the Grateful Dead. OK, I get it. Let's do the most un-Devo thing again -- maybe more un-Devo than even Sondheim. Unfortunately, this felt like a suicide rather than subversion. Being raised by a musical literate, and growing up on a Devo diet, Grateful Dead are bad bad needing to be sprayed with Raid, not Devo'd.
The Artistic Prison (1990-1996) came next.
Then came the Artistic Prison years (1990-1996) as the Mutato site once described it -- when Mark's commercial career took off and Jerry was producing videos.
Resurrection & Redemption (1996-Now)
Who cares what Rolling Stone thinks? History has been kind and now "the truth about devolution can be told," as General Boy said in the 1976 film. My first search of the Internet (Windows 3.1 with Netscape) was "Devo." In 1998, Devo.com was owned by a French design company. It was hard to tell what it was because they were unable to write in English. Mutato Muzika, Mark's TV/commercial music venture, was also on the first page of Alta Vista search-engine results. The mutato.com homepage was a prologue to the Resurrection and Redemption years: a letter in which Mark seeks to recover the limbs of its dismembered body.
GreetingsBeautiful Mutants!
If you're reading this, you're one of the faithful few who were patient enough to check back after our Web Page Hiatus due to summer activity, including writing music for the movies Supercop and Meet Wally-Sparks, finally getting our CD-Rom [sic] Adventures of the Smart Patrol out, and actually performing again during the west coast leg of the Lollapalooza Tour.
Maybe it doesn't sound like much, but we still all have day jobs.
Bob #1 is scoring on a couple television shows right now, I'm doing one, Bob and I are collaborating on a feature, and Bob #2 is producing and engineering for us. Jerry is doing videos for other bands like Sound Bargain, etc.
SHOUT and NEW TRADITIONALISTS are being made available with extra added tracks through the kind assistance of Infinite Zero.
We found some of the original DEVO suits (yellow plastic models) while preparing for Lollapalooza and they are now available through the Mutato Store.
We are still looking for an original DEVO Energy Dome. Not the one we manufactured for the original fan club, but the one that we wore on the cover of Freedom Of Choice. They seem to have all disappeared from the face of the planet. We have a few of the official fan club model's [sic] with DEVO embossed in the top, but we are having trouble finding the slightly larger version that preceeded [sic] it, with no embossing. If you caught a DEVO Energy Dome tossesd [sic] into the audience during any of the 80's tours (Freedom of Choice, New Traditionalists, Oh No! It's DEVO), then you know what hat [sic] I'm talking about. DEVO would like to BORROW or BUY your Energy Dome, if it is this original model. We just need one in perfect condition so we can repair our vacuum mold. After use, we're willing to return the Energy Dome and include a lifetime supply of DEVO stuff, some extreme [sic] rare things, whatever it would take! (Almost).
Once we have access to this hat, there would be no other excuses for DEVO not to do the mother of all tours and all we need is your help.
MARK MOTHERSBAUGH
Three ways to access Mutato.com on the Web, 1998
(Source: Internet Archive's Way Back machine)
Spuds my age grew up and acknowledge Devo in various ways: Henry Rollins and Paul Thomas Anderson. I imagine some fans-turned-industry folks hired Mark for music gigs or brought them to Microsoft (yikes) to perform. And the Nirvana cover had happened, during the Artistic Prison years.
Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth, given the floor to say anything during a 1991 interview, said that Devo was the "most subversive" punk band of them all. Take that, Rolling Stone.
Placing Devo in a hallowed category even above those who "seemed more punk" or not fellow New Yorkers like Richard Hell or Suicide seemed pretty generous. Devo was cool after all. Tongue in cheek I say, If Thurston says Devo was a big deal, then they are a big deal.
And my dad's records got re-issued during that time, to my satisfaction.
Something for Everybody
Something for Everybody (2013) delivers as a comeback record Total Devo should have been. Devo retained an ad agency called Mother (memorable!) who I imagine were the ones that arranged the cat listening party for the record. The songs were selected by fans and, to my ear, some sound simply outsourced. Something for Everybody is neither beginning nor end and sounded like "now."
In one song Devo flatly sang: "What we do is what we do / it's all the same there's nothing new."
--Soren Kierkegaard
Why the intensity about Devo's comeback? My dad's commercial-scoring career ended when those who hired him from commercials aged out of the profession and scoring commercials with synths was cheaper than with strings. I must have hoped that if dad's career could not be resurrected, could Devo's career also rise again?
There are no musical Siestas or artistic blank spots anymore. On YouTube and so on, all music from all time periods exist in a Block Universe where all times and events exist simultaneously. The bright light of the Internet is on, but the deep need for a musical "answer" that would scratch an itch in popular culture like Devo or answers like Hip Hop, No Wave, or Be-Bop seems lessened.
Epilogue
...Time is a weird thing. Researching the article I discovered that Du-pars closed in 2017 after 70 years, and that Total Devo has been reissued (with bonus tracks) on its 30 year anniversary.