Friday, February 6, 2009

Friday Flashback

This one's coming to you a bit late. Something just said DEVO to me earlier today. Another band whose music was often written off due to a gimmicky approach, DEVO was truly unique in both sound and style.

The song I really wanted to post does not allow embedding, but here's the url:

Jocko Homo by DEVO

Check it out. Somewhat disturbing and altogether enthralling.

Here's another classic DEVO song, Uncontrollable Urge live from the movie Urgh! A Music War:



Have a great weekend!

~Sham, Quixotic Referee

8 comments:

Chad Thorson said...

Good stuff! I always liked the song, Mongoloid!

Sham aka Dave said...

Yep. Mongoloid is definitely one of my favorite DEVO songs. There's a decent Mongoloid Youtube video, but I felt Uncontrollable Urge served the purpose of showing that DEVO could rock out a little better.

Kevin Mac said...

I saw Urgh! in Hollywood when it came out in my punk rock days as a teen. Me and a few buddies got shit-faced on Mickey's Bigmouth and went in pretty rowdy. It was such a rowdy crowd altogether it felt like a live show.

Devo still holds up. Got a complete collection on my Ipods. Great hooks and beats, and the cheesy robotic retro-future feeling still might fit the future.

My fave is their version of "Working in the Coalmine," I think one of only a couple of cover songs they did. It was unavailable for years, I believe, until they finally released the Heavy Metal movie Soundtrack. Bitchin'.

"Duty Now For The Future!!!"

Anonymous said...

Devo was the first band I ever saw in concert, back in 1981 when I was a wee 13 years old. I still have all my Devo LPs and to this day, I have not met another Devo fan face-to-face. Shame, because they really were a terribly underated band. I guess people just didn't get it.

Kevin Mac said...

I saw a lot of live acts of the time (Oingo Boingo, Adam Ant, Sparks, The Clash, Black Flag, Cindy Lauper, The Go Gos, etc etc) I would have loved to have seen Devo. Who knows, perhaps they will tour again.

I don't think they got underrated though. They were especially huge around the time that Whip It came out. Bring up Devo to any random person who is around 40-50 years old, and you will find there are a lot of Devo fans still lurking inside people.

David Larkins said...

DEVO! Yes! Probably one of my top three bands of all time.

Seeing the video for "Whip It" when I was 14 changed my life.

I particularly like their earlier stuff. Have you heard either of their "Hardcore" CD collections?

Anonymous said...

I bought "Urgh ,a music war" ages ago on VHS and played it to death. Lots of great music on that, thanks for posting the DEVO song

Sham aka Dave said...

I had Q: Are We Not Men, A: We Are DEVO on 8-track and played the thing to death. Later I picked up the vinyl. I think I still have that, I'll have to check. Pretty much everything on that debut is ingrained in my memory.

I don't think DEVO ever received the acclaim they deserved. Mothersbaugh is a genius.