'Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo!' The debut album from Akron’s Devo is without doubt one of the quirkiest albums to be associated with punk. Based around a theory that rather than continuing to improve as a species, human kind is undergoing a process of De-Evolution, a theory cemented in the minds of several of the musicians who would go on to form Devo by the 1970 Kent State Massacre in which four people were killed and nine wounded by the National Guard whilst engaged in an anti Vietnam war protest. Several of the band members attended Kent State University. The band had been performing a weird mix of costumed theatre and electronica since 1973.
In 1976, Devo came to the attention of David Bowie and Iggy Pop and this started a rush of interest in the band that extended to Brian Eno and Robert Fripp. Bowie’s desire to produce the band’s first album was curtailed by filming commitments, so the task was undertaken by Eno at Conny Plank’s studio in Cologne, with Bowie assisting as and when his schedule permitted. Armed with an appreciation of some of the personalities behind Devo at the time, the direction of the music makes perfect sense… the quirky electronic sounds are reminiscent of Berlin era Bowie and Pop, as well as early Roxy Music and elements of German Kraut Rock are in their too. This was the case despite the fact that some of the 'Are We Not Men?' material went back as far as 1975 in a live setting.
Despite looking or sounding nothing like anything else that was vaguely identifiable as punk, the UK music press paid much attention to these misfits from Ohio. In 1978, appearing on Granada TV’s 'So It Goes’ magazine programme, the band dressed in the familiar yellow boiler suits described Devo as ‘the fluid in the punk enema bag’. However, the press reviews were a mixed bag, a mixed enema bag if you will raging from the indifferent to openly hostile.
Record Mirror (19th August 1978)
Not all critics however were impressed, particularly Julie Burchill.
New Musical Express (26th August 1978)
DEVO
Q: Are We Not Men?
A: We Are Devo!
(Virgin)
VARIOUS:
Star Party!
(K-Tel)
AKRON! AYY! KAYY! ARR! OOH! ENN! TAKE ME HERE FROM WAY BACK WHEN!
Oh, dem golden cheerleaders of eternity – Jane Aire, Rachel Sweet, countless Waitresses and Rubber City Rebels – take me to heaven!
This late, that Stiff compilation has impossible magic. It doesn’t experiment with formulae beyond the city limits but it’s totally new, totally old and ultimately timeless. These kids are like the offspring of all your heroes idealised beyond any recognition, just your dreams of them showing through… rebellious, faithful, bitter, fun loving, drug taking, hating N.Y. and L.A. – or so their songs promise. I’d hate to have them prove me wrong – I’ve lost my cynicism to these Mid Western boys and girls.
Any moral music, any damn era, ‘50s, ‘60s, ‘70s, ‘80s, ‘90s and… anyhow, I’ll tell you, these kids have all the forms. All you do is fill them in and buy the record.
Devo? DEE EEE VEE OHH? Aren’t they a Lost Angels band? Aren’t they the latest in a long-Eno polluted line from Ultravox! through Jubilee to Talking Heads? That Eno, he knows how to leech.
Someone says that Eno had very little to do with the production of this album despite getting credited with it, and actually the production is the best thing about it – there IS no production. If only there was no sound it would be a swell record.
We here at home have a friend who is the truest Devo fan of all time – his remedy to the early ‘70s malaise was Sparks, incidentally – and who takes then seriously. He talks at a person for hours about where do we go from here, gets a person on his side, wheedling on about an “alienation” project that he never does one constructive thing about, disappears and, as a non finale, fails suicide.
For the unlucky few like him, who think and think till they can’t move a muscle, Devo sits in the passenger seat (ejector, naturally) and commands you to drive into a dead end. Luckily there’s not many people this fanatical, and I reckon the remaining Devo fans wear pet bands like they wear badges. I think a) the massive proportion of them live in London b) most of them get their records free, since they’re in the industry c) they are failure types aged between 25 and 35 who like to sit around rapping about “de-humanisation” and d) take masses of cocaine if they’re rich, or are saving up for a G if they’re not rich.
There will never be many of them because Devo move in blatant ways, their misconceptions to free form. Their mouthings about not wanting to keep on cooking “the same old piece of burnt meat” (good definition of rockandroll: Devo as good definitions within a musical limit) are admirable, but they’ve made the mistake of reckoning that a few fumbling efforts at changing the form will change the effect.
Anyhow, their sound is by no means too new. They sound exactly like a band Ron Mael would mate with David Byrne after Russell had committed suicide by electrocution in despair at his fading looks, and Ron has gone all the way through shock treatment to help his grief to go away. The album is a dead affair. Devo have done a lot of work over the window display but the goods are premature and stillborn.
Five of the twelve tracks are out on singles and the rest just retread them. It’s obvious that a mere two tracks on the Stiff compilation (“Jocko Homo” and “Sloppy” might be suitable) would have been pushing Devo’s riff some. An album of such serious pound stretching is deadly boring.
“Gut Feeling”, at five minutes the longest track on the record, starts with one minute of “mongoloid” and two minutes of instrumental Stranglers tribute before giving wat to some really innovatory stuff: “I’ve had just about all I can take/I can’t take no more/I’ve got a gut feeling” sings Mark Mothersbaugh forever. “(Slap Your Mammy”), the shortest track repeats the title for 51 seconds to a “Sloppy” tune.
The synthesizer farts, bleats, burps and belches throughout all of “Too Much Paranoias” just like Devo have heard Pere Ubu do in their weakest moments (Devo’s latest single “Be Stiff”, by the way, is a cheeky rip-off of Pere’s “Laughing”- infringement of copyright, any of youbu?). It’s real “Revolution Number Nine” stuff over and around a constant plodding Poor Spuds HM Led Zeppelin riff raff.
“Shrivel Up” finds Mark sounding like Napoleon XIV, had he been Pink Floyd’s lead singer; I certainly wish he’d come and taken Devo away. The only thing Devo appeal to is a person’s sense of humour, and then only ever so slightly. They would be much funnier if they continued to sing like crackpots, but dressed and acted straight; the most amusing madmen own faces that contrast madly with their personas. If Devo wore regular suits, they’d join the legions of Jimmy Carter, The Osmonds and Farrah, all of whom come on like sane, safe Americans but are obviously beserk, as one look at their teeth and eyes will tell you. Devo try to look fresh from the fruit farm, and thereby kill their mild charm.
They induce half a chortle (it’s better than none) if you’ve got nothing better to sneer at on “Jocko Homo”, they are idealistically above suspicion and in reality could hurt someone’s feelings badly on “Mongoloid” (you always have to consider these things, see, no matter how much of an artist you are) and provoke nothing but irritation over all the fuss and bother that non-Power Press hacks (tell ‘em Tony) have created around the combo throughout the rest of the record. I reckon it’s only “I Saw My Baby Getting Sloppy” that’s worth taking seriously, coming close as it does to Sparks’ inscrutable darts at the feeble heart.
Devo aren’t young, or good looking or girls or shocking in their fresh knowledge like, say Jane Aire and Rachel Sweet are. Devo are old, ugly and boring. Their record won’t sell. Their gigs won’t do well. They will never be a household name, not even in New York City. The funny clothes and “zany” philosophy are the spoonfuls of sugar that have stalled their instant dismissal. They are about as thrilling and innovatory as The Pirates playing “Johnny B Goode’s Good”, as The Pirates are wont to do.
People have to live in the cities, where they have to get up, go to work, go home, go to bed all their lives, with never a moments rest, right? This is a fact, like night and day, that nothing could ever change. That being so, you just have to squeeze pleasure out of your surroundings for yourself and not keep pointing and exclaiming the obvious. Do you need Devo telling you how stark and horrid everything is, even if it is one big private jape?
People know that things can get nasty and most of them are trying to change the situation in their own miniscule way. The last thing the world needs is another band saying look, look, look how futile it all is – because people give an inch and they’ll wallow a mile deep in the mire.
There’s more chance for people to have a lush, useful life these days than there ever was, and if people act positive the ‘80s will be even better. Devo are scared of the ‘80s and how they won’t figure in our lives, so they’re raising a scare. Negativity brings no money, no fun and no improvement; I know it’s tempting as an adolescent to run around acting doomed, but so many grown men are playing at it lately… it’s like a skin problem you should have grown out of by the time you’re 18. I have to sound like a hearty, healthy hockey stick, but that’s too bad.
If you need a negative sopor when you go home from work (not even a positive sopor like Abba or Marley), try Devo. They’re a great band for sitting on your ass and going nowhere to.
If you want to go home and have a good time with a soundtrack, get the Akron album and savour that nauseous, anticipatory tension that great rockandroll always forces upon you – it’s not awful music that makes you sick and drives you to drink, it’s the great stuff. You’ll love “When I Was Young”, “Truckstop Queen” and “Comb” and the BIGGEST difference between this stuff and Devo is that you may well get, uh, inspired by this stuff. There’s not much music like that coming up at the moment. K-Tel’s “Star Party!” lies somewhere between the two; it won’t make you useless, but it won’t exactly spur you to kill giants either. Still, it’s very good value with minimal butchery, not like a lot of other K-Tel compilations.
Mock magic moments are Goldie’s “Making Up Again”, Dee D. Jackson’s “Automatic Lover” and best of all, Smiths’ “Because The Night”. Add Blondie, Dury, Quatro and 14 others’ recent chart chants and you’re laughing.
And if you’re not, I’m sure you’ll have a wail of a time picking the ponderous heads off your problems to “Are We Not Men?”.
Julie Burchill
Burchill contended in her scathing review that the negativity that the band seemingly exuded could mean only one thing... 'Their record won’t sell. Their gigs won’t do well. They will never be a household name, not even in New York City.' and '...and if people act positive the ‘80s will be even better. Devo are scared of the ‘80s and how they won’t figure in our lives, so they’re raising a scare.'
With the benefit of hindsight Julie was a little wide of the mark. Devo are remembered with great affection 53 years on... their records and gigs did sell (and continue to do so)... and if anyone left a negative shit stain on the '80s it was Ronald Reagan on Devo's side of the pond and Margaret Thatcher on ours... Devo had very little to do with it.
Record Mirror (26th August 1978)
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