louisville.metromix.com/music/article/devo-whip-it-forecastle/2054173/contentAs long as humanity continues on its downward slide, Devo will be there to sing about itJoseph Lord
Courier-Journal
July 7, 2010
A lot has happened in the 20 years between Devo's last two records, 1990's “Smooth Noodle Maps” and its recent comeback album “Something For Everyone” — wars, terrorism, global warming, economic collapse and the reinvention of the music industry.
In 1990, album sales were still driven by MTV, radio and record stores. Major labels ruled, and using the Internet to distribute music was science fiction. Mobile music meant playing cassettes on your Walkman.
“It's not the same animal as it was when we did it the first time around, and I'm not saying it's worse. It's exciting because it's totally different,” said Devo co-founder Mark Mothersbaugh. “To me, that's what got me excited about doing it again. You mean, that record company that drove us crazy back in the day is gone? I like that.”
As Devo built toward the release of “Something For Everyone” with an extensive online marketing campaign that included everything from focus groups to streaming video of cats, Mothersbaugh found that he didn't miss the good old days. But Devo always was a band that seemed built for the future.
Even before the band started, charter members Gerald Casale and Bob Lewis were into the concept of devolution, or de-evolution, and were convinced in the late 1960s that society had stopped evolving and was instead regressing. As students at Kent State University, they saw devolution firsthand when students were killed during a protest against the war in Southeast Asia. The infamous 1970 Kent State shootings were the launching point for Devo, the original lineup of which included Casale, Lewis and Mothersbaugh.
“The thing is, one of the things we learned when we were students is that rebellion is obsolete,” Mothersbaugh said. “We saw kids shot and killed for protesting the war in Vietnam, and we learned that in a democracy you can only be so free. You can't be totally free, you can only be kinda free. We decided way back then that rebellion is obsolete. Subversion is the only way to effect change in our culture and we looked around to see who was best at that and it turned out that the entertainment industry and Madison Avenue were better than anyone else.”
After years of underground notoriety, Devo hit the mainstream with 1978's “Q:Are We Not Men? A:We Are Devo!” The album was a visionary combination of punk, New Wave and electronic dance music. Put on the song “Uncontrollable Urge” right now and just try to stand still.
Devo's most subversive moment may have come in 1980, when “Whip It” became a massive hit, landing Devo on “American Bandstand” and “Don Kirshner's Rock Concert.” For a band built on satire and irony, it found itself immersed in the very culture it questioned, and the herd mentality that the band savaged was pushing the song to No.14 on the Billboard chart.
The band's commercial fortunes steadily fell post-“Whip It,” but Devo has maintained a presence through soundtracks and the Internet, which has introduced the band to a generation that was in diapers when the band stopped making records in 1990.
“We have a young audience that found us on YouTube and now know a lot more about us than people who were listening to us back in the day, I think,” Mothersbaugh said. “I think Devo has definitely found a reason to stay alive because of technology.”
As for devolution, just look around. Would an evolved society support “Jersey Shore” or “Dancing With the Stars”? It seems that Devo was onto something.
“In one way, you're like, ‘See, I told ya!'” Mothersbaugh said. “And then on the other side, you're like, ‘Oh, that means things are really in bad shape.' You watch that video of the oil spewing out and you go, ‘That is de-evolution in progress.'”
Has Devo actually opened people's eyes?
“I'm sure it has, but on the other hand I'm in a music group,” said Mothersbaugh, who along with the rest of the band will perform Saturday at the Forecastle Festival on the Louisville Waterfront. “How serious do most people take you? Not much. Most people are going to say, ‘Oh, they're the guys in the weird red hats who do ‘Whip It.'”
