DEVO - DUTY NOW FOR THE FUTURE @ 45

 

Marking 45 years on the shelves today is the sophomore LP from Akron Ohio mutants, DEVO, with Duty Now For the Future being released on June 1st, 1979. While it was critically disparaged at the time of its release, fans know it's an essential sequel to their debut, documenting, as the first album did, the band's early catalogue of music.

Forming in 1974 as a response to the Kent State massacre of students by police in 1970, DEVO spent their early career amassing a staggering catalogue of original songs before they ever got the chance to step into a professional recording studio to produce a major label LP. Their 1978 debut put a reasonable dent in that backlog, but they still had plenty enough for their second album, with enough to spare to, years later, fill a double CD set of early demos (Hardcore DEVO -Volumes 1 & 2, 1990/91). Only three new songs were brought in to fill out their second outing: "Red Eye", "S.I.B." and "The Day My Baby Gave Me a Surprise".

Their debut album was produced by Brian Eno, but the relationship during that effort was slightly strained and the band were eager to learn from different people, so they wanted to work with a different producer for their next album. In fact, throughout their career, they've never worked with the same producer more than once. For their second LP, they chose Ken Scott, who had previously worked with The Beatles as an engineer and produced David Bowie's Hunky Dory, Ziggy Stardust and Aladdin Sane. While the atmosphere in the studio was professional and pleasant by all accounts, in retrospect, several members of the band didn't feel he understood the sound they were wanting to achieve. For this album, rather than perform in the studio as a band to lay down bed tracks, every instrument was layered individually, playing off a click track. That approach ended up siphoning some of the edge off the band's sound, muting the dynamics which had been so prevalent on their first album. Overall, the production simply doesn't have the same punchy heft that Eno was able to get on their debut, a situation that didn't go unnoticed by critics, who felt the album sounded lacklustre. The flat production is compensated for, however, by the strength of the songs, especially the older, more developed material.

For the album's cover design, a dummy bar-code was integral to the design. Bar-codes were just starting to come into use at the end of the '70s, so there was a kind of novelty futurism inherent in its graphic presence. The central photo of the band was stamped with perforations so that it could be popped out of the cover and used a postcard. This was something the label refused to pay for, so the cost of the processing had to be taken out of the band's advance. The photograph of the band was taken by photographer Allan Tannenbaum for the SoHo Weekly News in New York City. It was used in the album artwork by simply taking it from the front page of the newspaper in the exact same dimensions, unbeknownst to the photographer. When he discovered this, he contacted the record company and was paid for its use. The "Science Boy" logo originated from a science pamphlet the band had found in the late 1970s in Akron. After first using it on a promotional item for Virgin Records, the band were contacted by the original organization that had created the image for their logo, which resulted in them paying to acquire legal rights to it.

Upon release, the album sold well, but was met with some harsh criticism. Dave Marsh, writing in Rolling Stone, condemned the album, feeling that "inspired amateurism works only when the players aspire to something better." Robert Christgau of The Village Voice panned side one as "dire" and "arena-rock", but felt that "The Day My Baby Gave Me a Surprise" and "Secret Agent Man" were "as bright as anything on the debut, and the arrangements offer their share of surprises." Red Starr of Smash Hits described it as "unimpressive", but noted that the "change of style definitely grows on you". They went on to say that, although the album was more accessible, it was "lacking the zany magic of old".

Personally, I've always thought the band's first two albums delivered an effective "one-two punch", with enough variation in the style and approach to allow each to stand as a distinctive representation of different aspects of the band. Yes, I did find the lack of dynamics on the second album less engaging than their debut, but classic tunes, like Clockout, Blockhead, Pink Pussycat and Smart Patrol/Mr. DNA, made the album essential and unforgettable.

DEVO - Q: ARE WE NO MEN? @ 45

 

Released on August 28th, 1978, DEVO's debut LP, Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo!, turns 45 years old today. After incubating their music and philosophy over the course of some 5 years, the world was introduced to the concept of "De-Evolution", the principal that humanity had peaked as a species and was now backsliding into primitivism and ignorance.

Inspired by the Kent State Massacre of 4 students on May 4th, 1970, co-founder Gerald Casale began to formulate the basic principals of DeEvolution into the band, DEVO, back in 1973. Along with co-founder, Mark Mothersbaugh, brothers Bob 1 & Bob 2 and Alan Myers, the band spent three years developing songs, stagecraft and iconography in order to represent their vision of a degraded, displaced and disjointed dystopian future. By 1977, the group were ready to record and their demo was causing the likes of David Bowie, Iggy Pop, Robert Fripp and Brian Eno to be in the running to produced the album. The job ultimately landed with Eno, who flew the band out to Conny Plank's studio near Cologne, Germany.

Production of the album ended up being something of a battle of wills, as the band held steadfastly to conceptions about how the songs should be produced, while resisting potentially beneficial suggestions from Eno. In later years, band members would express regrets over their stubbornness and refusal to collaborate more openly with Brian. But despite the friction, they managed to produce an album of tight, angular and innovative music, which would prove to be deeply influential as upcoming young artists sought something more than the three chord slash of punk.

I know my own reaction to the band and the album was a sense of revelation. I saw them perform on Saturday Night Live and was immediately won over by their quirky, alien idiosyncrasy, which was counterbalanced by an uncanny sense of nostalgia for mid century modern aesthetics. Parts of it reminded me of music from Warner Bros cartoons, while other aspects left me feeling like I'd stepped into a '50s science fiction B-movie. Coupled with their hazard suited, herky-jerky robotic stage antics, you had the perfect formula for fanatical DEVOtion!

While some critics at the time of its release couldn't quite grasp what the band were doing, the album has still managed to secure a solid position as essential listening from that era, in the ensuing years since its release. It's an album I can still listen to at any time and enjoy its strangeness, while marvelling at its ability to resist sounding dated.

PREMIUM PREMIERES - MY TEN ESSENTIAL DEBUT ALBUMS

 

Most musical artists take a bit of time to get up to speed.  It usually takes an album or two before they really hit their stride.  Sometimes, like Kraftwerk, they may travel some strange roads before the epiphany hits and they finally find their “Autobahn”, in their case, their 4th LP.  But some groups come out of the gate with debut albums so iconic and well defined, they spend the rest of their careers trying to surpass them.  Some groups never quite manage that feat and some groups simply stop after their moment of glory and never put out another record.

Top 10 lists are a bit trite and overdone, but I’m doing one more for purely personal amusement.  It started as a meme in social media to list outstanding debuts, but I wanted to focus it a bit more.  This list is very personal in terms of the records all having deep meaning and significance for me and they certainly show my age given they were all released within a few years of each other.  They also adhere to certain other criteria.  Mostly, they represent groups who hit it out of the park with their first album and never surpassed it with any subsequent release, at least as far as my estimation is concerned.  Some may have come damn close, but for all practical purposes, if you have this album and none other, you’ll pretty much get the full picture of what they had to offer.  In many cases, they have major cultural significance in that they were the cornerstone of a particular musical movement.  In other cases, they simply represent the group’s own peak of performance and cohesion.  Whatever the case, for me personally, each title listed here stands alone and introduces the artist without any sense of vagueness or tentativeness.  It comes at you with clear confidence in its merits and meanings.

With that, let’s dive in.  The ordering here is not particularly critical, but I have somewhat sorted them in terms of at least personal significance.  

FM - Black Noise (1977)

In late 1976, Toronto based keyboardist and bassist, Cameron Hawkins, and violinist, mandolin player, Nash the Slash, formed an unlikely duo as FM.  Through whatever connections, happenstance or serendipity within the local arts community, they managed to land a spot on TV Ontario’s Nightmusic program, where they played their debut live public performance, initially broadcast on November 3rd of that year.  I happened to catch it, by chance, and it knocked my 13 year old brain sideways.  I knew little of music or how to make it at that time and was just starting to get curious, but seeing space-hippie Cameron with his stacks of synthesizers on the one side and proto-steampunk Nash, with his electric violin and mandolin on the other, was definitely like something out of some strange hallucination.  It stuck with me and dug it’s hooks in deeper when I happened to catch the show when it was repeated a few months later.

In 1978, I finally spotted the Black Noise album in one of my local record shops and, recognizing the band from the program, snapped it up.  By then, the group had added drummer Martin Deller to the mix, something I was initially suspicious of because I thought this band without a drummer, using one of the earliest drum machines I’d ever heard, was such a novelty and I thought that adding a drummer might make them a bit more conventional.  But the album still showcased their idiosyncrasies.  As a progressive rock album, it had the unique distinction of having NO GUITARS on it.  Nash’s use of violin and mandolin instead guaranteed that FM would always have a stamp of the atypical, even as Nash moved on and others replaced him.  

Nash’s departure, however, also ensured that the debut album would possess a certain nuance and charm that no other player would be able to fully duplicate.  His replacement for the next two albums, Ben Mink, was clearly a talented musician, someone who would more than prove his talents with his work with K.D. Lang in later years, but there was no replacing Hash’s style and personality, something he took with him when he became an iconic solo performer.  The albums that came after Black Noise are not without their charms, but the depth and breadth of this debut remains unassailable to this day. Even when Nash returned to the fold for a couple of albums in the mid 1980s, the material veered too much into commercial mainstream territory to threaten the primacy of Black Noise.  

It may be an album that only Canadians properly appreciate.  Phasers On Stun still gets regular rotation on Canadian oldies radio.  Personally, however, it holds a special place in my musical heart.  Nash was a major inspiration for me both with FM and as a solo performer and Black Noise and it’s presaging TV special are the root of that influence.   

Young Marble Giants - Colossal Youth (1980)

Moxham brothers, Stuart and Phillip, along with vocalist Alison Statton, came together long enough to put out one album in 1980.  On the surface, it’s a modest little collection of modest little songs by a trio of modest musicians from Wales.  It’s quiet and introspective and doesn’t make a lot of fuss about itself, but it somehow still manages to loom on the horizon like a great monolith.  Colossal Youth by Young Marble Giants has held up remarkably well over the years, retaining every ounce of it’s persuasiveness while refusing to give in to the ravages of time and trends.  Driven by a chintzy little drum machine and supported by Phil’s sonorous bass, Stuart delicately crafts deftly minimalist guitar and organ riffs around which Alison flits about like a precious little bird with her vocals.  The economy of the music here is positively neurotic in its precision.  There’s not a single sound or note more than absolutely necessary to contain the essence of each piece.

Cowboys International - The Original Sin (1979)

In 1979, Ken Lockie put together an album of modern alternative rock that fused first-rate song writing with arrangements that leaned heavily into the emerging synth-wave being pioneered by the likes of Ultravox and Gary Numan.  While most people were pushing things into the colder Kraftwerk styled aesthetic of dystopian mechanization, Lockie took his sound into a more romantic, emotive direction, presaging the “New Romantic” movement which would peak with bands like Duran Duran.  Lockie’s outfit, which featured the likes of Clash drummer, Terry Chimes, and guest appearances by PiL guitarist, Keith Levene, crafted a seamless collection of memorable songs which rode the edge of the new music coming from the UK.  The PiL connection would actually have deeper roots beyond this album with Ken having a hand in the Radio Four track on Metal Box and him nearly becoming a fifth member of the band during the ill fated Commercial Zone sessions a few year later.  All this only indicates how much Lockie was on the forefront of what was truly progressive pop music, both in terms of style and content.  Yet Cowboys International would only issue this one album before fading into the discount bins.  A travesty considering the exceptional quality of this album.  

Specials (1979)

If you were to only have one ska album in your collection, it might as well be this one because it’s simply so concise and thorough that it captures every important aspect of the genre, at least as far as it manifested in its revived form at the end of the 1970s.  Following in the wake of punk, it took the anger and social outrage of that scene and channeled it into a racially diverse commentary on cultural fusion.  The “2 Tone” ideology of black and white working together in balance and unity was a forward thinking approach that seems so sadly distant in the “Brexit” era of UK bigotry.

Though there were many vital artists who also came out of this scene, the Specials remain the most memorable and this album captures all the best of their essence across 14 compact and infectious songs.  With Jerry Dammers as the principal songwriter and Terry Hall taking most of the lead vocals, the group nailed it on every essential social issue they tackled and did so with both humor and a kind of morose mockery that gave them their edge.  This careful balance didn’t last long, however, as Hall, along with Neville Staple and Lynval Golding split off to form Fun Boy Three, who themselves created a debut album that deserves honorable mention here.  Though they wouldn’t create another album of this strength, they would at least drop a mammoth statement of a single with Ghost Town in 1981.  On its own, it could be one of the greatest singles of all time.    

Killing Joke (1980)

Following in the wake of groups like Public Image Ltd, Joy Division & Gang of Four, Killing Joke’s eponymous debut formed the bridge between the rawness of punk and the terror of industrial music.  For better or worse, Killing Joke were the ones who laid the foundations for the kind of industrial rock which would become mainstream with bands like Nine Inch Nails.  For me, Killing Joke’s debut is the quintessence of what that kind of music can be when it’s done right.  The use of synthesizer with the grinding guitars and chugging drums is a prototype for dozens of bands who followed in their footsteps.  But where most of the bands who came after relied on little more than grind and swagger, Killing Joke excelled with solid song writing or, at the very least, infectious hooks to secure each track a notable spot on the album.  

The B-52’s (1979)

Though their biggest hit would come a few years later with Love Shack, overall, the 1979 debut from The B-52’s simply can’t be surpassed in terms of it’s encapsulation of vintage kitsch culture.  Retro fetishism can be pretty much traced back to land squarely on the doorstep of these Athens, GA natives and every track on their first album oozes with lava lamp science fiction dance party deliciousness.  

Right from the first twang of Ricky’s Peter Gunn inspired riff for Planet Clair, the controls are set for the heart of the stunning as things just get more fabulous with each Shu-ga-loo, Hippie Shake and Camel Walk.  The showcase hit, Rock Lobster, offers up an absurdist horror movie teen freakout the likes of which hasn’t been heard since The Horror of Party Beach offered up its radioactive sea monster stuffed with hotdogs.

Suicide (1977)

If you want to deal with it semantically, Suicide were the first “punk” band.  They were the first to use the term to describe their music. The term appears on a flyer for a 1972 gig by the group, predating any other group’s use of the term by a good 3-4 years.  Their debut LP in 1977 still stands as one of the starkest, most intense statements of electronic music ever put to vinyl.  Taking the core DNA strands of rock-a-billy shuddering and shaking, They shot them through a time tunnel into a dystopian future and demanded the world look upon the horror they had seen.  No other band could conjure as antagonistic an audience response while daring anyone to have the nerve to try and stop them, and some did.  That sense of menace and street toughness permeates every note on their debut.  It’s attitude with a capital “FUCK YOU”.  Side one shivers and bleats along like a tweaking speed freak until the epic and harrowing Frankie Teardrop gobbles up most of the second side of the album, offering one of the most terrifying vocal performances to ever appear on a rock record.  

It’s simply impossible to top that, though their second LP was a damn good try by upping the ante on songwriting and production, but the rawness of the debut and the perfection of its songs guarantee that it remained the group’s definitive statement throughout their career.  Even Alan Vega’s impressive solo career was never quite able to reach this plateau of perfection, though some titles come damn close.  

DEVO - Are We Not Men?  We Are DEVO! (1978)

DEVO not only made amazing music, they created their own sociological theory.  Inspired by the May 4, 1970 events at Kent State University, where 4 students were killed by National Guard troops, Gerry Casale and Mark Mothersbaugh conceived the idea that human civilization had reached its zenith and was now inexorably heading in reverse, like a tide withdrawing from the shore, as entropy took hold and began to dissemble all that had been created in the preceding millennia.  Indeed, since their emergence with their 1978 debut album, the events of contemporary human history have done little to disprove their thesis.  

DEVO put out a number of impressive albums over the years, and their first three offer up a pretty convincing trifecta of creative inspiration to sustain their legacy, but their first album still remains the quintessential DEVO fix for anyone looking to understand their potato.  Every facet of their philosophy is present in finely crafted, mechanically deboned perfection.  Like The B-52’s, DEVO traded in a lot of nostalgia in order to establish their premise, but framed it in language hoisted directly from the world of advertising, chosen for it’s persuasiveness and proven appeal.  At times sounding like a Roadrunner cartoon theme crossed with a carwash, DEVO dismantled the myth of corporate supremacy and capitalistic exceptionalism, exposing it’s vacuous failure to secure the welfare of humanity and, instead, enslave its people with meaningless “McJobs”, shoving poles in holes, to satisfy the oligarchic masters.  Shrouded in absurdist humour, the thrust of their critical blade was no less dulled when it sliced open the carcass of post-industrial culture.  

The Cars (1978)

While punk rock was causing a musical revolution, The Cars were paving the way for its inroads into popular culture.  The Cars debut album was the essential bridge that straddled with world of accessible top 40 rock with the veins of experimentalism and revitalization which were bubbling up from the underground.  They were the gateway drug for many a young music fan, myself included.  It was thanks to them that I started to consider seriously listening to bands like the Ramones, DEVO, Suicide and many others.  

Their debut album came off the assembly line like a shining new muscle car, loaded with features and gleaming with chrome.  It was meticulously crafted on every level, from the songwriting, to the performances to the production.  Like Ric Ocasek’s perfectly coifed ducktail, every hair was exactly in place.  It embraced the simplicity of the modern aesthetic while maintaining professional production values from the bottom of the tires to the tip of the antenna.  There’s no waste anywhere on the record, not a weak song or superfluous note.  Like the B-52’s, the Cars would also go on to have bigger hits in terms of singles, but this debut album always remained their most consistent and authentic release.

Sex Pistols - Never Mind the Bollocks (1977)

I believe that rock & roll music essentially has 3 epochs and they are hinged upon the appearances of its “holy trinity”: Elvis Presley, The Beatles and The Sex Pistols.  When you look back across the history of the genre, it’s those tentpoles which most define the major shifts in its nature and potential.  Elvis introduced it to the mainstream, The Beatles turned it into a fine art and the Sex Pistols weaponized it.  I say that because the Pistols were really the last rock band to have any significant cultural influence.  Sure, there have been trends and popular movements, but they were the last band to seem dangerous and to make the establishment quake in their boots.  Anyone who’s come along since then has been no more than a nuisance to the powers that be.  The Pistols were actually debated in Parliament and the government sought to crush them to stop them from spreading their message of revolt.  That just doesn’t happen anymore.  

Their one and only proper studio album now stands as a memorial to a precious couple of years when outrage seemed to have some influence in the world.  It’s a damn good set of songs, well written both musically and lyrically.  It says something about its time and the society that tried to silence it.  The fact it’s been commodified since then still doesn’t take away from the fact that it drew a line in the sand and we still look back at that time as a moment of epiphany and realization.  It changed the way people thought and that change keeps resonating around the world to this day.  

As trite as kids thrashing out a few chords and bellowing their angst can be, you can still see when a culture is coming of age by the point at which its youth twig to this methodology.  You can observe “punk” scenes happen in places like the middle east or Asia or Russia and see that there’s still a spirit of freedom struggling to find its voice.  It may often fail to create a distinction from Ramones style blockiness, but it does show a desire to expose the energy pent up during that time when a generation demands to be heard.

A lot of people want to push the flashpoint for punk to New York with the Ramones or Detroit with the Stooges and, while the structural elements may have been coming together in those places, they were only so much fuel without a spark.  Those bands and those scenes were only known to a tiny clique of hipsters until the Sex Pistols came along and put a match to all that kindling.  It wasn’t until Johnny Rotten snarled that he was an “antichrist” that the world perked up and took notice of that generation and it’s rage.  Others may have come sooner, but no one else struck the spark that would ignite the world. 

DEVO - FREEDOM OF CHOICE @ 40!

May 16th marks the 40th anniversary of the release of DEVO's third and most successful LP, Freedom of Choice, released this day in 1980.

For me, this album represents DEVO achieving the perfection of their final form. Everything they'd been building towards and carefully crafting came into exact alignment on this album, from the song writing to the balance of instrumentation between guitars and synths to the image to the politics. In a way, it's almost too perfect because I never found any subsequent album as compelling. It's those first three albums which encompass the totality of the DEVO journey for me and, after this, it was pretty much just "more of the same".

Prior to this album, DEVO were a curiosity for most people, oddballs on the fringe in funny suits doing wacky robot moves. They'd been around for a good many years before this, forging their vision in underground clubs and managing to gain some attention with their first two albums within the burgeoning "New Wave" scene. I was an early adopter of the DEVO vision as soon as I saw them on SNL that first time performing Satisfaction and Jock Homo in 1978. The future was clear and it was obvious we were all slipping backwards down the evolutionary slope. As anyone can see by the current state of our planet, DEVO were more than musicians or artists, they were profits.

Freedom of Choice, in its very title, lays out the conundrum of human civilization as we struggle with the our sense of self and the desire to give up responsibility. "Freedom from choice is what you want" and all you have to do is look around to see humanity abdicating its responsibilities as the absolute worst of us flood into that vacuum of power and assume control over a system they never build and have no idea how to operate. The US is currently in the hands of a president who is the quintessential manifestation of the theory of "De-evolution". Booji Boy is all grown up and he's got his finger on the button. No one could more perfectly represent the corruption of our civilization and no one more precisely predicted this than Mark Mothersbaugh and Jerry Casale.

Freedom of Choice managed to take DEVO out of the shadows of obscurity and thrust them into the mainstream zeitgeist, particularly with the iconic single, Whip It. The song and its refrain to "whip it good" have become permanently ingrained in the collective consciousness of western pop culture. The domed red plastic hats have equally become fixtures when it comes to identifying the band. If you're looking for the pure stuff, there's no other record that's more DEVO than this.

INFLUENTIAL ALBUM - DEVO, Q: ARE WE NOT MEN? A: WE ARE DEVO!

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.