Summer Concert Preview: Devo – What Can We Expect Now That It Has Been Told?

by Jeff Boule in Uncategorized

As part of our Summer Concert Preview/Review, we will be looking at a concert disc by the Spudboys from 1988. They were ten years in and disillusioned from all the abuse from critics, non-fans, their label at the time, Warner Brothers, and so on. Yet that disillusionment NEVER affected the music!

Now It Can be Told: Devo At The Palace 12/9/88 shows Devo as an even tighter, more polished group than the early robomechanical playing of the beginning Devo. This show is expansive in coverage of their catalog of the era. From acoustic versions of “Jocko Homo” (yeah, acoustic, Mark Mothersbaugh even making comments about why Devo were sitting to play a show, his comments in between songs are hysterical!) to almost note-for-note reproductions of the material from their release just before this show was recorded, Total Devo. The representation of material even makes for a good overall sampler for those uninitiated into the ways Devo. Total Devo featured sample permutations of vocals, and they were able to replicate these samples live and in perfect sync with the parts. There is a song never on any Devo album until this, and a preview of a soon-to-be Devo release. Right there, you get your money’s worth. Add on some killer versions and take-offs, pithy repartee, and that is the overview. As they said on Monty Python, “Let’s get to the…MEAT!”

The show starts off with a solo acoustic guitar and the highly responsive crowd let’s you know when the rest of Devo comes out. “ Jocko Homo” arranged for solo guitar, but into the second verse, the whole band, well, kicks in. Devo country. If they start singing about dogs, guns, pickup trucks, betrayal, beer…

Next we have the exclusive to this disc song, “It Doesn’t Matter To Me” with it’s Hippy Altruistic Guitar Pop sound. Yes, guitar sound. Devo have long been known for playing mighty many keyboards, but they all play guitar as well. And well at that! This is a very tight song that keeps motoring until the end. It is at this point I will mount the soapbox and preach the good word of Robert Mothersbaugh, primary guitarist for Devo. Much under-rated, highly inventive as well as skilled, I mean to be able to keep up with the midi and keyboards, you gotta pull your weight, and Bob Mothersbaugh does and then some.

Then after some more pith, a pseudo-jazz arrangement from my favorite Devo album New Traditionalists, “Going Under”. But that pseudo-jazz is tight, “Bouncy C!” David Kendrick on drums is able to bring the dynamic up and down during the verse with precision, from tom beats to tight high-hat work, as the song progresses, these dynamic peaks get more intense.

Then the Allan Toussaint cover “Working In A Coal Mine”. I have seen this song performed live many times with a backing track and I think they are still using a backing track here. But the initial speed of the backing track seems a little anemic. If you follow the bass line you can really tell. At the end you hear Mothersbaugh yell, “Speed it up.” I ask myself the same thing Devo do several times during this song: “How long can this go on?” Until it falls flat on its face!

It is at this point that Mothersbaugh commands the troops; it is time to get serious. This could be good.

The backing track continues into a remarkable, mostly live version of “Happy Guy” from Total Devo. I say mostly live as the backing track isn’t as prevalent as “Working In A Coal Mine”. Starting out with a nod to the “Devo Corporate Anthem”, this song comes together as quickly as the last one fell apart. This is one of those tracks where underrated guitarist Mothersbaugh shines! Difficult harmonies done to perfection during this performance.

I hear this track and think of the monumental waste it is that Mark and the boys have to work on things like Rugrats, so on to make a living. This band should be able to sustain itself. But them again, so should record labels.

Now the audience isn’t so rowdy as they have never heard this song before. It is from their (at the time) forthcoming album Oh No, It’s Devo. Catchy, bouncy, thumping, optimistic, “That’s Good” captivates and catapults the listener. I remember the live performance of this having Mark pretend to fire a rifle at images on the video screen behind him.

Another New Traditionalist representative, “Jerkin’ Back ‘N’ Forth” keeps the bass line thumping and showcases Mark’s understanding of the pitch wheel, modulation, wheel, etc. Gerald Casale does the vocals from behind a bass synth that keeps the song moving at a jaunty pace. Right up to it’s CHA-CHA-CHA ending.

Then the first of two hits from Freedom Of Choice, “Girl U Want”. This was most remarkable for it’s video, Devo as a TV Pop band for a bunch of young women, eager to peel their potatoes. It is, for no other reason, a competent cover, but just as this and the next hit must be a bane in their existence. Besides being the big hits for Warner Brothers, they are audibly sick of playing these two songs.

What second song could be as horrible? “Whip It”. While the crowd cheers, Devo whip out an also competent version of the song once set to a Cool Whip commercial. Nothing special here, in fact it sounds like they sped it up to get it over with.

Been there, done that.

Then another Total Devo song “Baby Doll” mesmerizes from the get-go. Droning synths and twanging feedback guitars build into a midi backed power rocker a la new wave. The vocal samples speckle the song with abstracts in front of a powerful, guitar-driven attack. The sample of the word ‘doll’ as a melody, killer neat!

Then Bob Mothersbaugh kicks in with mega-guitar only to yield to the midi power. Kendrick builds the drums up in tasty fashion. This must have been a spectacle to behold. I only hope the show I am attending this summer, will be HALF as good, and I will have gotten my money’s worth.

Next up is their famous quirky cover of The Rolling Stones “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction”. Never a big fan of the band or the song, I do, however, really like both Devo studio and live version(s). The original is found on their landmark debut album Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo (anything produced by Brian Eno is noteworthy, not all of it is good, just noteworthy). The robotic approach and simplistic mechanical drums and the robot-frying-a-circuit-board-guitar solos are a hoot! Bunch of corn farmers tinkering with British rock band’s songs, you gotta love it!

Mothersbaugh’s quick vibrato in the vocal is so inappropriate for this song it is perfect. His whole approach to this vocal was as unique as could be. Live he is even more “mutated” from the original. Gerry Casale’s robot rigid backing vocal at the end tops it all off and brings this to a “switch it off” end.

The crowd eats it up.

This is quickly made-up-for by a rousing speedy version of “Uncontrollable Urge” also from the debut album. This was the first song on the album, so live it has to pop and the tempo alone makes you move. Their precise playing in that robotic unison style is remarkable. I know I am doing a ton of robotic comparisons, but the early days, a lot of their gimmick was playing as if they were animatronic.

Mothersbaugh’s vocals aren’t as rigid on this but the band’s playing is still as tight as you can imagine. Another one of those guitar rockers, with Mothersbaugh adding odd synth sounds and solos throughout. The double hit break is continuously tight with Mothersbaugh handing his mic back and forth to Casale for alternating vocal lines while Casale plays bass without missing a note. Oh, and did I mention they goosestep to the beat together while doing this? Sadly, two more repeats of the multiple “yeah yeah” chorus and it’s over.

Sigh.

But they counter with “Gut Feeling” also from the first album, these last few songs are a virtual trip down memory lane. A lone electric guitar starts out, and is joined by beefy rhythm palm-mute chords, the rhythm section builds in time for Mothersbaugh to start out on keyboards and move to vocals once the verse starts. A really nice Electric Piano-style sound starts the song, then mutates into a synth then giving way to the vocals. Overall, Mothersbaugh’s voice is in good shape for this recording, shouting his way out of the trip down memory lane with whoops and hollers into the end of the set list with “Gates Of Steel” from Freedom Of Choice. Freedom Of Choice was the pinnacle of their commercial career. They followed up with the critically acclaimed and video friendly New Traditionalists. They were no longer taken lightly as a “novelty” band, and Warner Brothers records had the good sense to drop them.

Oh, that’s right, you can’t hear the sarcasm in my voice.

From that point forward, Mothersbaugh maintained a career as soundtrack scorer, forming a company with his Devo cohorts, and they have done music for just about every kiddie show, and Mothersbaugh’s name is highly visible in large and small screen productions.

Let’s face it; we are talking about some serious smart, innovative, imaginative, and out-of-the-box thinkers here. If you can honestly say Mark Mothersbaugh, Gerald Casale, Bob Mothersbaugh, Robert Casale, Alan Meyers, David Kendrick, Josh Freese, and any drummers I may be overlooking, that this collective has not had a major impact on American music and screen soundtracks, I beg to differ. If any of you do wish to pursue this argument, I’m sure you can leave a comment, but if you do, please have the integrity to understand a rebuttal can be submitted.

“Gates Of Steel” is competently represented, but I think they feel the same way I do about the whole Freedom album. Do it cause it’s a fan favorite, it made us all the money to keep doing our weirdo, subversive, even controversial music. Actually, this version is kind of sloppy towards the end. It feels as though they are rushing through it. What, did they all have to go to the bathroom at once?

A bit more of pith, some editing, and the next thing you know, Mothersbaugh is back on the mic asking incredulously if the audience wants more of this “stuff”!

A resounding yes is proffered forth from the crowd, and another semi-rarity is offered up. They devolve the Broadway song, “Somewhere (There’s A Place For Us)” from West Side Story by Leonard Bernstein (music) and Stephen Sondheim (lyrics), throw in “Shout” from the album of the same name from 1984, and at one point, a sequencer line yields time for them to bring out The Femmes Devo, two female background singers they have to sing “Ya’s” during the bridge of “Disco Dancer” from the Total Devo album. So they had Enigma Records foot the bill for two additional bodies to tour for one song.

But the “Suite” as they are labeling this collection of connected compositions flows nicely within itself. It starts with an instrumental segment from “Somewhere” and sequences its way into “Shout”, and a regal version of it at that. Blaring synth trumpets and chromatic breakdowns propelled by a tight-as-a-drum rhythm section behind them, after “Shout” breaks down to a military style break with Mothersbaugh proclaiming that a member of the band or crowd is ready to die.

Cheery!

It rejoins into the vocal portion of “Somewhere” and after we stop in on the Great White Way, five bombasts lead into a fresh break and the hits break way to “Disco Dancer” also from Total Devo. A note for note replication of the “hit” from this tour, this has the tinny rhythm guitar, open and close high hat, pulsing synth bass, cliché percussion, all behind the story of a Rumplestiltskinesque disco dancer who has napped a couple of decades away.

Cocaine burnout is a bitch!!!

But again, Devo are the masters at subtle dynamic. The last song of the show builds slowly, subtly, and ends with the prerequisite bang. Literally! The show runs a solid hour. But you always want more. Again, if this disc is representative of what’s to be expected from their performance in July, it’s going to be a long month and a half. Fortunately, I have this disc in my iPod to keep listening to and gear up for the show. If you are a Devo fan and you DON’T have this, get in and bug the brains out of the folks at PREX and have them find you a copy.

My position on the copying of discs is if you know the person is a devout fan and will BUY THE DISC WHEN THEY CAN, OR WHEN IT COMES OUT (if you have an advance copy, let’s say) AND THAT THEY AGREE THAT WHEN THEY BUY THE DISC, THE COPY CAN ONLY BE HANDED OFF TO SOMEONE IN ECONOMIC STRAIGHTS WHO IS A DEVOUT FAN AND CANNOT AFFORD TO BUY THE DISC. Maybe they have kids, don’t have the budget for CDs, I have extended the offer to people such as this as they are not going to be ABLE to buy it. If you have the means, support your favorite artists as well as PREX and all the other independent music stores in your area of the country. These are precious commodities in these times of the “big eat the small” economy. WE NEED SOURCES OF VARIETY OR ALL WE WILL BE ABLE TO BUY IS WHAT THE “TIN EARED GRAPH PAPER BRAINED ACCOUNTANTS” (thanks to Jello Biafra for that accurate description of your average record label employee now) TELL US WE CAN BUY. Not all of the artists will be able to fund their own distribution.

We will be returning to the Summer Concert Series in a few weeks, we’ll cover some other releases in the mean time. If any of you are interested in attending the Devo show in July, here is the information:

The Paul Green School of Rock Music Presents Devo
Saturday, June 28, 2008
Festival Pier
Columbus Boulevard & Springgarden Street
Philadelphia, 19123

If it’s not sold out, you may want to check it out! See you next week.