Trivia / Devo

• Archive Panic: Devo's catalog is extensive and vast, demos are still surfacing from around the time of their first performances. Both volumes of Hardcore Devo and Recombo D.N.A collect some of their outtakes and demos but several bootlegs are still drifting around, providing the only way to listen to exclusive songs such as, "I Don't Know What To Do-Do," "Toil Is Stupid," and "Polyvinyl Chloride," as well as early versions of "Smart Patrol," "Social Fools,""Jocko Homo," and "Uncontrollable Urge".
• Banned in China:
  • The video for "Satisfaction" in the U.K., due to the Booji Boy electrocution scene.
  • MTV refused to show the video for "That's Good" because of the visual innuendo of the french fry/doughnut animation.
• Creator Backlash:
  • They're not proud of the Enigma years, i.e. Total Devo and Smooth Noodle Maps, which are both out of print and not on streaming services. On the DVD commentary for The Complete Truth About Devolution, Jerry and Mark have some pretty choice words about that label. However, they have since finally re-released Total Devo in 2018, this might be turning around.
  • Shout, recorded mostly with a Fairlight synthesizer and released in 1984, was a flop, and Warner Brothers dropped them shortly after release. Drummer Alan Myers quit during the making of the album, feeling that his role in the band had been reduced due to all the drum machines. Devo have been pretty open about their dissatisfaction with Shout, with Jerry Casale once saying it was "painful to talk about." Only on rare occasions did the Title Track and "Here To Go" make concert setlists.
  • Oh No! It's Devo has a song called "I Desire" that immediately drew controversy for incorporating words from a love poem written by attempted Ronald Reagan assassin, John Hinckley Jr., that was meant for Jodie Foster. The band immediately regretted this decision, as according to Mark Mothersbaugh, the FBI started calling them over it. After Hinckley's release from prison in 2022, he asked publicly why he never saw any royalties from "I Desire," leading Jerry Casale to bemoan on social media about how this song still haunts the band.
• Development Hell: The band has occasionally announced multi-media projects in the works which have not come to light due to lack of financing and so on. These include: a Devo biopic based on their early days in Ohio, a Devo musical set in their fictional universe of Spudland, and re-releases of their old video LPs.
  • Something For Everybody had some delays in the making and release, including a brief period where Mark had reportedly stalled the project and Jerry claimed there would be no new album.
  • Jerry expressed hope to release an "official" biography of the band back when the first unofficial biography was published in 2003. It seems that this idea has finally resurfaced, with Jerry stating on Reddit that an official book is on the way soon. He may have been referring to the book Freedom of Choice by Evie Nagy (part of the 33 1/3 series), released in May 2015, which focuses primarily on the Freedom of Choice album but provides some biographical info and interviews. It is the first authorized book published about Devo.
  • A Devo documentary featuring extensive interviews and archival footage has been in the works since 2009, and after many delays and a Kickstarter campaign it was reportedly nearly ready for release. When someone asked Jerry about the status of the documentary on Twitter, he simply said, "A very good question. Perhaps you should ask Mark", hinting at further delays. Jerry finally confirmed in a September 2015 interview that the filmmakers are waiting for Mark to approve the final cut and supposedly an agreement has been very difficult to reach. At this stage it is not known if we will see the film at all.
  • Total Devo was in development for quite some time, being worked on for over two years and delayed for months due to getting dropped by their label and their drummer leaving.
  • Two of the group's songs "Huboon Stomp" and "The Words Get Stuck In My Throat" were performed live regularly in the late 70s but were not studio recorded until 1998 (Chef Aid Soundtrack) and 2000 (Pioneers Who Got Scalped) respectively. They sound surprisingly similar to the originals.
• Divergent Character Evolution: A musical version from the Oh No It's Devo sessions - the instrumental of "Faster And Faster" originally had the lyrics of "Luv Luv" (as heard on leaked demos). Later on in these sessions they wrote the "Faster And Faster" lyrics, and when it came to producing an additional track for the Dr Detroit soundtrack, took an unused instrumental from the Oh No sessions and put the "Luv Luv" lyrics on it. It took them until the late 90s to put out "Faster And Faster", as part of the videogame "Interstate '82" and later the Recombo DNA compilation.
• Executive Meddling: Happened with both versions of the "Post Post-Modern Man" video: First Jerry directed a video revolving around the concept of the band driving around Interstate 10 in Southern California and getting lost, which the label rejected, insisting they add a Playboy Playmate Of The Month (Deborah Diggs). So, the band added her to the original video by filming a subplot where she was waiting for the band to come home... Then MTV rejected the video for airplay, because it used a dance mix of the song instead of the album version, which featured more guitar and was thus considered easier to market to an Alternative Rock audience. By then Devo were too busy promoting Smooth Noodle Maps to make or appear in a video themselves, so Rocky Shenck made a video parodying the Home Shopping Network, where, aside from brief cameos, Devo only appeared via footage from their other videos.
• Fan Community Nickname: Spuds (alternatively, Spudboys and Spudgirls), Devo-tees, and occasionally Beautiful Mutants.
• He Also Did:
  • Mark Mothersbaugh and Gerald Casale played on and co-produced David Byrne's "Wicked Little Doll". Mothersbaugh provides synthesizers and samples, while Casale plays bass and sings backing vocals.
  • It's hard to name a well known band that Josh Freese hasn't drummed for in his career.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes: The band have generally done a good job of releasing stuff on CD (if often on out of print releases), but two notable aversions are their Doctor Detroit soundtrack contributions Theme From Doctor Detroit and Luv Luv. The band does not have access to them because they are owned by the label they did the soundtrack for, and said soundtrack has never been released on CD. However, the 12" Dance Mix of Theme From Doctor Detroit is on the Pioneers Who Got Scalped CD, because it wasn't licensed for the soundtrack.
  • Another notable aversion is the demos of Blockhead and Clockout, still exclusive to their self-released Mechanical Man 7", even after several demo collections were released. Whilst these versions of the songs don't sound too different from the Duty Now versions, it's little things like this which drive completists crazy.
  • The "Dr. Detroit" video, wherein the band members perform a lot of highly experimental blue-screen tomfoolery was not included in The Complete Truth About De-Evolution collection until the 2014 MVD release, not even on the VHS version. All DVD versions of The Complete Truth leaves off "Are You Experienced?", with a bitter footnote on the back explaining that the Hendrix estate denied them permission.
  • Devo released two home videos in the 80s, The Men Who Make the Music and We're All Devo, the latter of which has not appeared in print since. The Men Who Make the Music finally got a DVD release in 2015, combined with footage of the band's 1996 reunion concert at Sundance.
  • The albums Total Devo and Smooth Noodle Maps have been out of print since the mid-90's, following a re-release on the Restless Record label, which bought the rights to the Engima Records releases. Both were re-released on the Futurismo label, but Futurismo has since gone under as well. A similar fate has befallen the 1989 live album, Now It Can Be Told. The Rykodisc-released Devo Live: the Mongoloid Years is also out of print, though the 1977 performance at Max's Kansas City received a limited vinyl reissue on Jackpot Records, with additional audio of David Bowie introducing the band.
  • The E-Z Listening Disc released on Rykodisc in the mid-80s went out of print, though had a deluxe vinyl and CD reissue on Futurismo in 2016, including a new version of "Human Rocket". This is now out of print with the demise of Futurismo in 2020. The "E-Z Listening" version of "Beautiful World" did appear on a still-in-print reissue of New Traditionalists.
  • Booji Boy's book My Struggle is somewhat hard to find in hard copy.
• The Merch: They have been called the "thinking man's KISS" partly for this reason. Much of their live gear was made available through Club Devo, and their vinyl albums often came with a catalogue on the inner sleeve.
• Missing Episode: The only professional footage of the New Traditionalists tour was destroyed in an insurance claim. However, a few seconds of pro-shot footage have surfaced in the documentary Devolution: A Devo Theory. The 3-Devo concert special met a similar fate, but has survived in low-grade bootleg form.
  • Parts of the original footage of "Worried Man" from Human Highway have been lost, as the edit in the movie had lots of cutaways and not all of the song was included. When the scene was edited together as a single music video for The Complete Truth About De-Evolution they had to incorporate a scene of Rod Rooter and Donut from We're All Devo so that they could cut back to Rod's annoyed reactions where there's no footage to show.
• No Export for You:
  • This happens a lot. If you are a Devo fan living outside of the US, you will find yourself having to import things a lot. US fans will also have to import UK CDs if they want some of the early B Sides only released by Virgin (The Q&A sessions version of Social Fools for example); the reason is that the band's US catalog is with Warner and their UK one is with Virgin.
  • CD releases of the band's Warner Bros.-era albums are a tricky case. While their debut album and Freedom of Choice both received CD releases in the US, everything else only saw CD releases under Warner's thumb in Japan in 1991, likely owing to the poor critical and commercial performance of Shout in 1984, just a year after the CD format made its international debut, and its consequent negative impact on Devo's domestic popularity (as for why these discs only saw release in Japan, the band was still big there). Duty Now for the Future, New Traditionalists, Oh No, It's Devo!, and Shout would all receive domestic CD releases later down the road, first on Infinite Zero in 1995 and then on Collectables Records ten years later, and Warner would finally give Duty Now for the Future and New Traditionalists US CD releases in 2010, but anyone looking for WB-branded CD copies of Oh No, It's Devo! and Shout are going to have to turn to Japanese import copies.
  • In an inversion, the UK reissue label Futurismo released deluxe reissues on vinyl and CD of Total Devo, Smooth Noodle Maps, E-Z Listening Muzak, along with an expanded version of the demo collection Recombo DNA and a live recording from 1977. American fans had to pay import prices for these re-releases.
• One-Hit Wonder: An interesting case. Whereas they indeed only had one Top 40 hit in the US ("Whip It" from Freedom of Choice), American retrospectives on one hit wonders always seem to go out of their way to mention Devo's other music, influence on other musicians, and devoted fanbase.
  • Devo's cover of "Working In A Coal Mine" just missed the Billboard Top 40, peaking at #43.
• The Pete Best: Bob Lewis - who played guitar in the first few years of the band, co-wrote some material, and (according to him) later acted as their manager until they signed with Warner Bros. - was supposedly edged out of the band shortly before the release of Q/A. Demanding credits for his contributions, he successfully sued Warner Brothers Records and the band for an undisclosed sum. Perhaps due to their legal history, he is rarely mentioned in Devo media, although in a few more recent interviews they may have acknowledged his involvement, if not by name, in the early development of the Devo concept.
  • To a lesser extent there's Jim Mothersbaugh (brother of Mark and Bob 1), who built and played the "electronic bongos" for Devo before Alan joined as drummer. Jim then left the band to pursue a career in electronics, working with Roland in the 80s.
    • Though Jim did tour with the band in 1980 as an equipment technician, making sure their broken synthesizers stayed properly broken.
• Promoted Fanboy: Josh Freese started his drumming career by playing along to Devo records.
  • Michael Pilmer may also count, as he was promoted from obsessive fanboy to being the band's official archivist and webmaster. Just check out his massive collection of spudwazz! He even has images of the deranged fanmail that inspired the lyrics to "Big Mess"!
• Referenced by...:
  • In JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders, a Native American assassin hired by DIO wielding the Devil card is named Devo the Cursed. His name was changed in the international releases to avoid copyright, this time to Soul Sacrifice.
  • Three different commercials for Rugrats, one for Rugrats videos, one for a second run of Rugrats videos, and one for Rugrats merchandise, are set to the tune of Devo's "Whip It". Tellingly, the composer for Rugrats is Mark Mothersbaugh, Devo's lead vocalist, and the tune for all three commercials was composed and sung by Mothersbaugh.
  • In Chapter 2 of Deltarune, the miniboss Tasque Manager's "Check" description reads "Whip it good!", quoting a line from "Whip It".
• Screwed by the Lawyers: DVD re-releases of the music video compilation The Complete Truth About De-Evolution cut out the videos for "Doctor Detroit" and Devo's cover of "Are You Experienced?", the former due to possible legal complications with Universal Studios (who produced the film the song was written for) and the latter due to objections from the Jimi Hendrix estate. The 2014 MVD release of The Complete Truth About De-Evolution includes "Doctor Detroit," but not "Are You Experienced?"
• Throw It In!:
  • The crowd rushing the stage at the end of the "Come Back Jonee" video was unscripted.
  • Booji Boy's name was an accidental misspelling of "Boogie Boy" (they were using Letraset to make captions for a film, and when they needed to spell "boogie" they ran out of "g") that they just decided to go with.
• Technology Marches On: These days, thanks to the Internet, Cowboy Kim probably would actually have a radio show... or maybe more accurately a podcast.
• Trolling Creator: Many of their antics are designed to piss off the audience.
  • The infamous Song Study campaign is this. The band omitted the songs "Watch Us Work It", "Let's Get To It" and "Signal Ready" that were voted on by the public in favour of "No Place Like Home", "March On" and "Cameo". Whilst the former two of these were still decently popular with fans, "Cameo" was the least voted song out of the available choices and the band included it specifically to spite the fans.
  • The album Devo Live: The Mongoloid Years deserves special mention. Back in the early days, Devo liked to bill themselves as a cover band for Foghat and Three Dog Night, but once on stage, they would play their own (pre-record deal) material, complete with intentionally obnoxious sounds, lyrics, and singing. The last few tracks on The Mongoloid Years are devoted to one of Devo's first shows in 1974, where they opened for Sun Ra as a joke at WMMS in Cleveland. They get a rambling intro from a stoned DJ (Murray Saul), then break into this atonal mess of music that goes on for ages until, after most of the hippies in the crowd had left in disgust, the promoter unplugs their equipment and tells them to get out. John Gorman has offered a rather different take from Devo on the whole incident, claiming that the reason they were booed offstage was because Sun Ra never got to perform, not because the audience didn't "get" them.
  • On the same album (but different gig), Jerry and Mark mock an audience member for some reason during "Praying Hands", yelling "Hey! Okay, don't be a spud! Don't be a spud! Spud! Spud!", etc.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Island Records offered the band a recording contract, as did David Bowie, who sought to release the band through his publishing firm, Bewlay Brothers. However, the band ultimately signed with Warner (Bros.) Records in North America and Virgin Records in the UK, with Bowie doing uncredited engineering work on their debut album.
  • Devo were almost snuffed out in their prime. Warner Brothers were fully prepared to drop Devo after being disappointed by the public reception to Duty Now For the Future, even despite their five-album deal, unless their next record had a hit on it. The label even sent an A&R man to tell them as such right before their show at the Palladium in New York City (and as Gerald Casale notes, the band played with "more intensity than ever" that night). In true Devo fashion, they had no intention of playing along and just made the record they wanted to make anyway, which was Freedom Of Choice. The first single, "Girl U Want," wasn't catching on, but as luck would have it, a Florida DJ latched onto "Whip It" and gave it plenty of airplay. Its resulting popularity spread around the country until the band had a fluke hit on their hands. And the rest is history.
  • In January 1978, Virgin Records founder Richard Branson tried to suggest Devo install Sex Pistols singer John Lydon as their lead singer. Lydon had just quit the Pistols at the end of their American tour, and Branson had arranged his flight back home on the condition he meet him and Devo in Jamaica first. The members of Devo briefly considered answering in the affirmative, more out of amusement than anything, but ultimately decided against it. Lydon, too, was against the idea because he didn't want to impose himself on an already established band. For what it's worth, this suggestion may not have been so far out, especially since Lydon formed avant-garde Post-Punk legends Public Image Ltd. shortly afterwards.
  Jerry Casale: [It] was an absolutely stupid idea. We were a unit. Five punk scientists with a plan. We didn't need a guy who didn't realize anarchy and rebellion were obsolete except as cartoon consumer hooks.[1]
  • The Men Who Make the Music was a contender for the first video LP ever but fell behind the race apparently due to delays by the label, who objected to its anti-music industry content.
  • The album Shout was to have a video LP and a full-blown tour similar to Oh, No! It's Devo, but neither went beyond the planning stages after Devo was dropped by Warner Bros.
  • At one point during the demo stage of Something For Everybody there was a song called "Whip It Again." Apparently the band had disagreements over whether they wanted to release it until Jerry rewrote the lyrics entirely and it became "Sumthin'."
  • Q: Are We Not Men... originally had some additional keyboard parts by Brian Eno and backing vocals by David Bowie— due to paranoia about Executive Meddling, the band left these contributions out of the final mix, but Mark Mothersbaugh has the original 24 track master tapes including these unused parts. In general, the band have said Eno had a lot of ideas for synth parts and studio effects that they didn't use, because at the time they were adamant about making the songs sound similar to their original self-produced demos. Time will tell if these unused parts ever make their way onto a remix of the album.
  • Their neurotic cover of "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" was originally supposed to have been a neurotic cover of "Paint It Black". They switched to "Satisfaction" because the lyrics fit the new music better.
  • The band recorded a song called "Empire" with David Byrne on vocals, featuring a mock-militaristic sound and lyrics satirizing American imperialism. The song ended up scrapped, leading Byrne to re-record it in a more stripped-back style for his 2004 album Grown Backwards; the original version would eventually be included on the 2022 charity compilation Good Music to Ensure Safe Abortion Access to All.

---