The Rock's Backpages Flashback: Devo Record Their Debut Album in Germany
With Devo back in the headlines, and wowing new generations at SXSW, let's revisit the dawn of De-evolution in this excerpt from an early 1978 profile by Sounds' Jon Savage. -- Barney Hoskyns, Editorial Director, Rock's Backpages
Devo are, to say the least, in an interesting position. No record contract, no production contract, no manager--Gerry Casale handles all that--and apparently little finance, yet they're in the middle of recording an album in an excellently equipped German studio with Brian Eno producing and David Bowie expected to appear.
Meanwhile in England Stiff picks up the rights to two older singles, an astute and badly needed prestigious move, and promotes them heavily with ads that heighten mystique. The media guns are trained: word-of-mouth and oblique (admittedly) articles by such as yours truly have already started to spread the word. Information aplenty but still little insight: the mystique remains. This piece also, by devoting three pages to them, indicates an importance placed upon them that, in concrete terms, they could be considered to have done little to earn. Thus far, in the U.K. at any rate, Devo amount to two hard-to-find import 45s--"Satisfaction"/"Mongoloid," the latter now released by Stiff – occasional adulatory press and a hefty cult. As for now, a media phenomenon, a gimmick almost, rather than a band.
Remember Magazine? Sometimes too much (uncritical) press can be counterproductive.
These guys are well ready for it, all the same. Gerry Casale and Mark Mothersbaugh have been working together for about five years, while the group as it is now--Jim Mothersbaugh/guitar, Bob Casale/guitar, and Alan Myers/drums--have been together for about 18 months, Hardly overnight sensations.
But there's a lot of pressure all at once. The pressures of moving out from Akron and Cleveland, Ohio, playing other American cities, emerging into the global spotlight as Bowie takes them under his wing. And apart from the simple acclimatization from the USA--this being their first time outside--they're here working what amounts to 12 hours a day in freezing conditions. While the U.K. media gets the hots, record companies continue to buzz round the band like wasps round a good fat honey-pot. Most of this devolves to one person, Gerry, but the rest must feel it. Hardly the most relaxed situation. Be stiff...
Into which I blithely fly.
But who are these people, what do they eat for breakfast, what's their favorite color, etc.? Devo, learning fast about media manipulation, aren't exactly going to let it all out. This fits in with their chosen image: a corporate unit--Devo--with the individual members and their history unimportant: For instance, no pictures were to be taken of them without their Devo suits. It made sense: The main strength of Devo as a phenomenon so far has been their consistent, brilliant presentation of the group as a total package--music, visuals, image, ideology, language, films, each referring to itself and each other, and solidifying the circular links...
Although I tend to feel like the fly in the ointment rather than the fly on the wall (my paranoia), it's enjoyable enough. Most communication is with Gerry and Mark, the others being friendly but low profile. Gerry is the principal organizational force--he's taken on the chores of a manager--while Mark could be the spark at bottom, being, responsible, if nothing else for the pinhead routines and the synthesizer that's at the root of their sound. It's one of Mark's specialities, projecting insanity. Both are creators of the band's visuals: familiar elements wrenched out of context, or once-used images represented in a different form. They've both been in contact, in various degrees of involvement, with the Image Bank, a Canadian art organization who could be superficially described as working in similar areas. The bands are very American, clever, and a paradoxical (but calculated) mixture of sophistication and naivety.
In all this, the music is easily forgotten and shouldn't be. Conny's Studio is the first time where the band have been let loose in a 24-track studio. The two singles were recorded on a four-track, "Mongoloid" in particular on a Revox in their garage in December 1976. No heating: the weather was so cold that Mark played with his gloves on. It could be why it sounds slow. The 45s are being re-recorded for the album--and even in their unmixed state, the versions are very different, "Mongoloid" for instance featuring a drum snap/slap nowhere to be found on the original, where the drums are buried in the mix. The album will probably contain 12 tracks, including stage favorites "Uncontrollable Urge," "Too Much Paranoia," and may be "Guts' Feeling." Studio time is booked until early March: The group plan to come to Britain to play at least one date, probably the Roundhouse on 11 March. The album is scheduled for release in May or June.
The studio process in itself is simply unglamorous and very hard work. The group had gone through the first flush of getting most of the basic tracks down, and were in the middle period of getting the tiny elements right, adding overdubs, before the final remixing could begin. The picky bits. Remake/remodel, sift and sort, match and mismatch. This involves constant listening and relistening, constant decisions as to the prominence the various elements are to take in the mix, quite apart from the choice of the elements themselves.
It's a fickle business; some tracks seem to lag behind. Eno's role as producer is that of intermediary between man and tape, an interpreter almost; with 24 tacks also, organization is all-important. It's a difficult task, to balance the almost scientific quality of running through a tape for the hundredth time with the (gut) feeling that must remain. So far, the results were impressive...
In the end, Devo appear sure they have the answer. By casting a loose enough net, they can make adjustments to suit any circumstance which will still fall within their scheme of things. There are still considerable areas of doubt: most importantly, we haven't yet seen them live. Reports vary. Although much of what they have to say is impressive, and makes good, clear-headed sense, they aren't entirely blameless of being willfully obscure and clever for the sake of it, of using ten words and an oblique idea when five would do.
Some of what they say when broken down away from their (powerful) presence isn't so omniscient as it seems, and veers on occasions towards arrogance, and sweeping generalizations. It could be the arrogance of pressure paranoia, or everyone bidding for you on a world scale, or it could be merely to provoke, to polarize, or to screen.
It doesn't matter now. The album so far signifies that Devo are well putting their actions where their mouth is, and more. Like the film, the album, as it was, was already shaping up as an attractive, yet disorienting mixture of the familiar and the cliché, mixed around and stripped to sound like nothing you've heard before, yet ... Exactly right in its remoteness. Still the most powerful music to come down the pike since ... Time will tell. They could be the transitional band as records give way to video discs--they're already waiting...
Returning to Britain with its overt decay, rows of crumbling Victorian housing and cramped ribbon development...its overwhelming poverty in comparison, it's only possible to wonder how Devo, with their neat yet convincing paradoxes of order out of chaos, and chaos out of order, will take us, and how we will take them.
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