Hopelessly DEVO-ted
Hopelessly DEVO-ted
GUEST POST: Ryan Allen (Extra Arms/Big Life/Speed Circuit)
After Extra Arms released their excellent cover of Devo’s “Gates of Steel,” I asked guitarist/vocalist Ryan Allen to write about the legendary band. In addition to being a great guitar pop songwriter, Ryan is a talented scribe who contributed a fantastic essay to Remember The Lightning: A Guitar Pop Journal, Volume 2 about all of the hardcore punk musicians who have fallen for power pop. With “Hopelessly DEVO-ted,” he delivers again.
Tight, black, sleeveless bodysuits (with built in shorts). A “four-eyed,” nasally-voiced singer cracking a whip. Not one, but TWO synths—one slung over the shoulder like a guitar.
And, of course, those red, domed hats, stacked with one section on top of the other like a wedding cake made of plastic and bizarre ideas.
If you’re of a certain age and following along, I’m of course describing the music video for Devo’s “Whip It”. This was my (and let’s face it, many people’s) introduction to the Akron, Ohio intelligent, anti-punk instigator’s unique brand of herky-jerky pop that was conceived to ruffle as many feathers as possible.
And with their satirical, often humorous takes on society’s inevitable “devolution” (from which their name was inspired) they certainly made as many enemies as friends.
When “Whip It” was released as a single in the summer of 1980, I wasn’t even a year old yet.
But by the time I was old enough to grab the tiny little gray remote control that was often stuck between couch cushions in my parent’s tiny suburban house and flick on MTV, the whip cracking dweebs on my television made an immediate impact. (Side note: It’s wild that MTV would still play an 8-year-old video in regular rotation, but the big-budget, go-for-broke aesthetic of the ‘90s hadn’t kicked in yet.)
You see, back in the ‘80s, larger-than-life, almost comical entertainment was all the rage. Whether it was coming from the technicolor world of Saturday morning cartoons, the male-centric soap opera known as the World Wrestling Federation, or the explosion-and-sex filled music videos of Poison and Def Leppard.
Slotted amongst these maximalist forms of media, Devo seemed to fit right in.
To my young mind, they seemed like keyboard wielding superheroes from another planet, with their phasers set to satirically stun all the clueless stiffs that got in their way. I can’t say I totally got it as an 8-year-old, but I’ll tell you this … “Whip It” was a damn catchy song.
Fast-forward to the mid-90s, when my musical palette had expanded beyond the unattainable world of Sunset Strip glam metal dorks like Warrant, the embarrassing pop rap of Kriss Kross, and the grunt-heavy musings of the Seattle grunge bands, and on to something more underground.
As I began to explore the new-to-me sounds of bands like Sonic Youth and Sebadoh, at some point I began to look backwards to the ‘60s, ‘70s, and ‘80s to figure out where the inspiration for all my new favorite artists came from.
That’s when groups like The Clash, songwriters like Elvis Costello, and a weird band from Akron, Ohio came back into my life. It didn’t hurt that Nirvana covered Devo’s “Turnaround” on Incesticide, either.
I remember asking my parents for a Devo CD (“any Devo CD”) for Christmas one year.
For some reason they landed on Devo’s “Greatest Misses”; a collection of more challenging non-singles, alternate versions and covers that boggled my mind upon reception.
Where was “Whip It”? Why is there a weird, off-time version of the Rolling Stones’ “Satisfaction” on here? What the fuck is a Booji Boy? In full transparency, I kinda hated it.
But two things happened in the early 2000s that changed my relationship to Devo:
I started collecting vinyl records in a more serious way, and Devo albums were always available in record store used bins, typically on the cheap. I picked one up any chance I got.
I started a band that sounded, well, kind of like Devo.
In fact, the late ‘90s and early 2000s were ripe with bands finding influence in Devo’s quirky brand of off-kilter anti-pop, and seemed dead set on incorporating hiccupy vocals, scratchy guitar stabs, and noisy synth squiggles into their music any chance they got.
From the broken-robot punk of Brainiac (and subsequent follow up project Enon) and Six Finger Satellite, to the shouty anthems of Les Savy Fav, the danceable funk punk of LCD Soundsystem, the unhinged spazz of Ex Models—and yes, my old band Thunderbirds Are Now!—we all tipped our domed hats to Akron, Ohio’s finest, and a new generation of Spuds were born.
After the lo-fi slacker rock of the ‘90s seemed to subside with the break up of bands like Pavement, it was pretty clear that decade’s mopey teens could now drink legally and wanted to spend their 20s drinking, drugging, dancing and partying; a Devo-inspired rock band seemed like the perfect bridge between what was now seemingly in the rearview and what looked like the future.
Duty now, indeed.
Since that time, Devo has always stuck with me as an endlessly inspirational band.
Whether it be trying to incorporate some of their broken, unorthodox sounds into my otherwise straightforward power pop songs with Extra Arms, or grappling with the sad reality that the premonitions they made about society all the way back when they started in 1973 seem to have come to fruition (which still makes for great lyrical fodder).
And if you look hard enough, you can find the influence of the band everywhere, from leader Mark Mothersbaugh’s soundtrack work in television and film (The Life Aquatic soundtrack being among the best of his work) to his appearances on children’s shows like Yo Gabba Gabba.
Rivers Cuomo from Weezer still essentially cops his bespectacled look, and any time you see a band wearing some kind of matching uniform, from Slipknot to Coldplay, know that they wouldn’t have the courage to do it if Devo didn’t first.
There’s even an entire musical genre called Egg Punk that is essentially a bunch of bands recording to four tracks that basically want to sound like Hardcore-era Devo. It’s wild shit, but kinda awesome.
Which brings us to 2024, where Devo seem to be in the midst of playing their final run of shows.
I’ve never actually seen Devo live, and it’s highly unlikely that I ever will. But seeing as I could never go back in time and catch them at their most raw and subversive, I’m ok with it. Instead, I’ll continue to find happiness and inspiration by mining their truly unique catalog of music until my own final run concludes as well.
Before I “de”-part (get it?), I’ll leave you with this anecdote: A few months ago, I was driving my TikTok-rap loving 12-year-old son to his basketball game. I decided to put on Q: Are We Not Men?... for us to listen to during the trip. Slowly but surely his ears started to perk up.
He stopped paying attention to what was on his phone:
Son: “Dad, what is this?”
Dad: “It’s Devo. Pretty cool right?”
Son: “Yeah. I’ve NEVER heard anything like this before.”
Dad: “Nope, and you never will.”
The moral? Devo still fucking rules.
Indie Music Books For Guitar Pop Fans
Quality Music Writing you can hold in your hands…
Our new semi-annual journal features today's best music writers on guitar pop, and talented modern artists on the music that inspire them.
VOLUME 1—Spring/Summer 2023
James Goodson (of Dazy) on Being Power Pop-Adjacent
Annie Zaleski on the Beths
Mo Troper on Chris Bell's "I Am The Cosmos"
Rob Nesbitt (of the Suitesixteen) on the Exploding Hearts
S.W. Lauden on the Whiffs (Our debut cover models!)
Mary E. Donnelly on Sloan
John M. Borack on Juniper
Paul Myers on Tinted Windows
Mike Randle on Popsicko's Off to a Bad Start
David Laing on Power Pop's Country Roots
PLUS: Custom Cover Art By Brian Walsby
VOLUME 2—Fall/Winter 2023
Ryan Allen on The Ties That Bind Hardcore Punk & Power Pop
Tyler Asay on the Philadelphia Power Pop Scene
Eric Beetner on Kate Clover's Bleed Your Heart Out
John Borack on the Muffs' Legacy
Walter Chaw on the Pretty Flowers
Nadja Dee on Fountains of Wayne
Marko DeSantis on Uni Boys
S.W. Lauden on The Replacements' Lasting Influence
Allen Lulu on Kurt Baker: The Spain Years
Aidil Rusli on Southeast Asian Guitar Pop
PLUS: Custom Cover Art By Brian Walsby
Much love for Devo. I recall seeing them on SNL in 1979 doing a cover of "Satisfaction" and scratching my head. I didn't get it, but then, I was a kid, and I didn't understand a whole lot. Now? I get it.
Love the cover! Reminds me of the live version of Gates of Steel on the DEVO Live LP, which is a total banger. My love of DEVO started to wane in 1983, when my mom came home from her Jazzercise class one night and told me that the instructor had played Whip It. I was only 11, but had the sense that it wasn’t really cool that DEVO was on the same exercise rotation as Olivia Newton John. (Early 80s trivia - DEVO appeared on an episode of Square Pegs, a short-lived show that featured a young Sara Jessica Parker.)