I was spending the night with my brother and cousin at my great grandma's house the weekend DEVO appeared on SNL in 1978 and performed Satisfaction and Jocko Homo. I had just started to dip my toe into the waters of "punk" and "new wave" music with the likes of The Ramones, Elvis Costello and The Clash, but DEVO took my brain into a whole other realm of strangeness.
Like The Ramones, DEVO offered up a pretty bullet proof concept. They had every angle covered and every nut and bolt was rock solid tight. I didn't know anything about the band's history or inspirations back then. All I knew was this group was coming out of the gate with their shit tight as fuck and, as odd and goofy as they were, you also got the sense that they meant business.
After seeing the SNL performances, it became an immediate mission for me to get out to the record shop and snap up a copy of their debut album. Once I did and got it home, what spun out of those grooves was a continuation of the flawless execution I'd seen on TV. Every track was spot-on with it's composition and lyrics. This was stuff you wanted to quote from the get-go. It was so compelling that I took to putting DEVO graffiti all over the high school boys washroom. I also was dumb enough to wear a home made DEVO badge, so the janitor called me out on it, but cut me some slack, saying he didn't think anyone would be dumb enough to put up all that graffiti and then walk around with a badge like that. Needless to say, I felt guilty and ceased my felt tipped assaults on the facilities.
Like The Ramones, DEVO offered up a pretty bullet proof concept. They had every angle covered and every nut and bolt was rock solid tight. I didn't know anything about the band's history or inspirations back then. All I knew was this group was coming out of the gate with their shit tight as fuck and, as odd and goofy as they were, you also got the sense that they meant business.
After seeing the SNL performances, it became an immediate mission for me to get out to the record shop and snap up a copy of their debut album. Once I did and got it home, what spun out of those grooves was a continuation of the flawless execution I'd seen on TV. Every track was spot-on with it's composition and lyrics. This was stuff you wanted to quote from the get-go. It was so compelling that I took to putting DEVO graffiti all over the high school boys washroom. I also was dumb enough to wear a home made DEVO badge, so the janitor called me out on it, but cut me some slack, saying he didn't think anyone would be dumb enough to put up all that graffiti and then walk around with a badge like that. Needless to say, I felt guilty and ceased my felt tipped assaults on the facilities.
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