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Remembering The 1970s-Era Technology of Devo (msn.com) 43

Posted by EditorDavid from the are-we-not-men dept.
It's the 50th anniversary of Devo, the geek-friendly, dystopia-themed band that combined synthesizers with showmanship, first founded in 1973.

As a new documentary about the group celebrates its Sundance world premiere, the Los Angeles Times explores how the band made innovative use of the technology of its time: With their yellow radiation suits, red "energy dome" hats and manic energy, part playful and part angry, the band Devo combined the futuristic glamour of new wave with atomic-age anxieties and post-'60s disillusionment.... Uniquely, the band developed a fully formed, intricate internal philosophy and mythology built around the idea that humans were "de-evolving" by becoming dumber and less sophisticated. The mascot of the band, known as "Booji Boy," was an infantile urchin in a rubber mask...

Was there an idea to document the band right from the very start? It's incredible that there's footage of the very first show in 1973.

GERALD CASALE: We were that delusional, yes. And we were trying to document ourselves when nobody was interested in doing that. And when it was quite expensive and clumsy to do it. You're dealing with Sony U-matic reel-to-reel recorders and big heavy cameras and a scarcity of equipment and very little interest. I mean, my God, if a Devo of now existed like we did, then clearly, there'd be a million cellphone videos.

MARK MOTHERSBAUGH: [...] Bob was the first of us to direct a video, back when he was in high school. Bob and me, our dad, starting when we were like babies, like 1 year old, he'd bring out an 8-millimeter camera that didn't have sound, and so he shot hundreds and hundreds of these films through the years, just family stuff. So we always kind of liked that. And Jerry was doing films at Kent State with Chuck Statler before Chuck said, "Hey, let's do a film with a couple of the songs in it." So we were always audio-visual. We were always thinking in both worlds...

[DOCUMENTARY DIRECTOR] CHRIS SMITH: One of my favorite details in looking through the old footage is, there's an early show that was recorded in black-and-white, and they have such limited materials to work with, yet they do this thing where the light goes on and off on both sides of the stage. And to me it was so emblematic of where they were going because they were making something that you hadn't seen before that was super creative and visually distinctive and interesting out of something we all had to work with... You could see in that footage, the inventiveness that wasn't a result of means — it was something that was just created out of what they had to work with at that time.

MARK MOTHERSBAUGH: [...] Sonically, a lot of what we did was just related to the fact that Bob Mothersbaugh bought a four-track TEAC. So we had this machine that could record four little skinny channels on a quarter-inch tape. It was an amateur home-tape machine, but it made us think about our parts, because we thought, well, OK, you're only going to get to do the bass on one track, and the guitar on one track and the drums on one track and the synth. You're not going to do all these overdubs. We had to think about it, what was an essential part. So we'd work on the song till you could play it just in one pass. Everything essential. I think it really made the early stuff sound really strong because of that.
You really get a sense of that on their 1978 song "Mongoloid." But the 2023 documentary's director doesn't see his film as an ending bookmark for the band. "They're still touring. They're all still actively creatively pursuing many different things, as I hope that you would expect after seeing the film."

And speaking specifically about the documentary. Mark Mothersbaugh says Booji Boy "describes it as a halfway point to the year of 2073, where we'll celebrate the 100-year anniversary." Booji Boy also says the next 50 years will be more about action. "And it'll be about positive mutation. Mutate, don't stagnate."
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Remembering The 1970s-Era Technology of Devo More

Remembering The 1970s-Era Technology of Devo

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  • Q. Are We Not Men? (Score:3)

    by Registered Coward v2 ( 447531 ) on Monday January 22, 2024 @07:54AM (#64178837)
    We Are Devo!
    • After that, there's...

      Well, probably their second biggest hit was "Dare to be Stupid." Except it's by somebody else.

      • Yea, pretty much a one hit wonder. Too weird for mainstream. That video really cracks me up though, definitely a great son IMHO.
        • There was always Peek-A-Boo [youtu.be]....which is at times a bit unsettling.....ha-ha-ha-ha.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by crgrace ( 220738 )

          Yea, pretty much a one hit wonder.

          Hardly a one-hit wonder. Devo's cover of Satisfaction was a minor hit (and they played it live on Saturday Night Live).

          Working in the Coal Mine was also all over the radio back in 1980.

          Beautiful World was also all over MTV in 82 or 83 (don't exactly remember).

          Whip It for sure was their biggest hit, but not their only hit.

          • I'm glad to stand corrected - I like Devo.

            Google says "Devo had three songs on the Billboard Hot 100 in the 1980s: “Whip It” (No. 14 peak in 1980), “Working in the Coal Mine” (No. 43, 1981) and “Theme From Doctor Detroit” (No. 59, 1983)."

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by GlennC ( 96879 )

        That "somebody else" was Weird Al Yankovic, and it was apparently appreciated by at least one member of Devo:

        In the (VH1) Behind the Music special on Weird Al, Mark Mothersbaugh said that this song was, "more Devo than Devo."

        Source: https://www.songfacts.com/facts/weird-al-yankovic/dare-to-be-stupid [songfacts.com]

        • Weird Al's style parodies are some of my favorites of his works. He really nails the band's sound and manages to use it to write an original song that captures the band's essence. Both Dare To Be Stupid and Genius In France are truly brilliant.

  • Some things never change (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Neuromancer introduced me to Devo.

  • They started out with the Teac and a Minimoog, acquired a Yamaha CS-80 not long after, then a first-run Fairlight. Go tell 1978 Joy Division, with their Bontempi organ bought on the drip from Woolworths, that Devo were "means starved". Why not go with the take which doesn't completely rewrite history: that Devo were that one band a person could forgive for having a ton of expensive gear for the simple reason that they, Mothersbaugh M in particular, very clearly knew how to use it.
    • What an odd comment... By 1978 Devo had been a group for six years and had released a record on Warner Bros. Yeah, they had moved beyond buying gear at Woolworths
      • Any oddness in my comment is completely eclipsed by the proposition that a band who broke out a Minimoog at their first student gig, at a time when some long-established supergroup breaking one out at the Royal Albert Hall was still considered to be pushing it a bit, could be considered in any way "means starved".
        • Okay... While I'm still unsure what any of this has to do with Joy Division or Royal Albert Hall supergroups, but I would imagine a $1,500 synthesizer would indeed diminish the means of most kids living in Arkon Ohio at the time.

          Maybe that's why they had to buy their stage clothes at K*Mart? I guess Joy Division got their clothes at Woolworths?

    • What's interesting about this era, is that while I thought that electronic music was a big deal and everyone knew about them and used synthesizers, but in reality so much of this was really brand new to pop music. I was just that age where I thought it was common place. Wendy Carlos, Kraftwork, Georgio Moroder, Keith Emerson, Sparks, Devo, Gary Numan, etc, and so much in the 70s were really experimenting until it blew up and was everywhere in the 80s.

  • K.I.S.S. music production (Score:3)

    by Tablizer ( 95088 ) on Monday January 22, 2024 @09:10AM (#64179005) Journal

    machine that could record four little skinny channels on a quarter-inch tape...it made us think about...what was an essential part...You're not going to do all these overdubs...So we'd work on the song till you could play it just in one pass. Everything essential. I think it really made the early stuff sound really strong because of that.

    There is so much music now that is over-produced, with gazillion layers of overdubs and effects. Some older stuff is refreshing because they did have to keep it simple and clean, and focus on making what's available sound tops. You couldn't cover up the weak parts with gimmicks, making you avoid weak parts altogether. Don't get me wrong, there is a place and time for lots of layers and fancy effects, but just because you can doesn't mean you should. "A well cooked meal doesn't need many spices."

    • There's this misnomer that raw and unadorned recordings are 'better' or more 'pure'. When in actually, raw and unadorned recordings tend to be very flat and/or muddy. There's hundreds of raw and unadorned jazz lps that become a background hum after six minutes due their complete lack of dynamic, if you need an example

      The trick is, making a recording that's seemingly raw and unadorned to the listener. This is usually achieved via the application of a gazillion layers of overdubs and effects

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Tablizer ( 95088 )

        > The trick is, making a recording that's seemingly raw and unadorned to the listener. This is usually achieved via the application of a gazillion layers of overdubs and effects

        I partly agree, but if one is not skilled at that, then often it's better to leave most of it alone. Too many producers are not skilled at it.

        > When in actually, raw and unadorned recordings tend to be very flat and/or muddy.

        "Muddy" often gives personality to tunes. The trick may be to mix it up: have muddy parts alternate with

      • Recording tricks are over-rated. What mixology would improve  a live JGarcia ripping out  TERRAPIN STATION ? 

    • I totally agree. There is such a 'wall' of sound in a lot of modern recordings.

      Back in their day, the Beatles were known for cutting-edge recording techniques. Look up the background on how that final piano chord was made in A Day in the Life;

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

  • U-Matic was one of the early cassette-based systems, and probably the first spanning the prosumer and industrial market up to low-end broadcast television. VCRs were as cheap as cars and therefore in the range of what a dedicated hobbyist could pay for.

  • Is that it's Spud-Tastic!

  • Devo "Uncontrollable Urge" is being used on the Apple Vision Pro headsets. [youtube.com] Of course, they hack it but that's 100% Devolution.

  • Mark's work on The Rugrats is my favorite

  • In typical fashion on slashdot, the comment thread didn't take long to devolve, to some degree.

  • 50 years?! Oh, my poor swelling, itching brain...

  • freedom from choice is what you want (Score:3)

    by SethJohnson ( 112166 ) on Monday January 22, 2024 @04:18PM (#64180303) Homepage Journal
    My favorite Devo song has always been Freedom of Choice. It complements the Alvin Toffler book, Future Shock, quite well. One of the premises of the book is that mass production has overwhelmed consumers with choices. He illustrates this by describing the number of permutations of Ford Mustang that could be custom-ordered due to the combinations of exterior & interior color, trim packages, etc. while people don't actually care to expend the mental energy to navigate those selections. Instead, they would prefer to buy the car with these choices made for them.

    Freedom of choice is what you got, Freedom from choice is what you want.

    Devo even emphasized the inane choices confronting consumers with the physical single for the song. The record did not have an "A" or "B" side labelled. Instead, the owner of the record would need to decide for themselves which song was on side A or B and fill out a checkbox denoting their choice on the cover and record label.

    Really looking forward to seeing this documentary.

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