Are We Not Men?

Mention Devo to the average joe these days, and if he remembers them at all, he'll recall the hats. And maybe "Whip It." But Devo wasn't really a one song novelty act. Truth be told, they were a performance art group with a fully formed philosophy, based on the basic premise that man had accidentally evolved from brain-eating apes.

Oh, and that we were actually de-volving (de-vo), as evidenced by our pop-culture consumerism, loss of individual identity, and blind surrender to authority. The inspiration for this idea came from Oscar Kiss Maerth's book, The Beginning Was The End, a pseudoscientific anthropological thesis. (Maerth suggested that apes ate their rivals' brains to enhance sexual pleasure.)

Devo's cynical outlook was also colored by the fact that, while a student at Kent State University, Devo member Jerry Casale witnessed first-hand the National Guard's student massacre on May 4, 1970. Two of the four killed, Allison Krause and Jeffrey Miller, were his friends.

Says Devo bassist Gerald V. Casale:

From the beginning, on purpose, Devo was a multimedia idea. There was no name for 'Performance Art' at the time. That term didn't exist, although I think that's what we were doing when I look back at it. It's exactly that, Devo represented an attitude, a point of view, a philosophy. It was like combining film-making and theatrics and cutting-edge kind of synthesizers and rock beats all rolled into one big performance with a lifestyle message behind it, which was basically to beware of illegitimate authority and think for yourself. Hardly a revolutionary idea, but it turns out to be more revolutionary as people's freedoms are slowly eaten away.

Continues Devo lead singer Mark Mothersbaugh:

We saw Devo as something bigger than a rock band. We thought that was he most boring thing you could do. We wanted to be a clearing house for concepts and ideas. That's where art de-VO came from. That's why we made films: Even though we had no money, we made the film The Truth About De-Evolution. We designed our own costumes, designed our own artwork and graphics. We designed every album cover that we ever had control of. The downside of doing everything ourselves and directing our own films and producing our own films and going out and getting the props and coming up with the concept and the ideas was that we didn't really collaborate a lot.

I was exposed to Devo's oeuvre during my formative high school years, and their impact was substantial. Devo underlined the absurdity of society's rules and values during a time in my adolescent life when I was already beginning to question authority, and the band's philosophy was a private joke that I could share with a few of my friends.

Devo's best work spans 1978 to 1982.

• Q:Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo!, July 1978
  
• Duty Now for the Future, July 1979
  
• Freedom of Choice, July 1980
  
• New Traditionalists, August 1981
  
• Oh, No! It's Devo, October 1982

Everything else is crap.

The Original Devolutionary Oath

1. Be like your ancestors or be different. It doesn't matter.
2. The fittest shall survive yet the unfit may live.
3. Grow big or stay little.
4. Lay a million eggs or give birth to one. So shall your species survive.
5. Unused organs shall disappear or persist.
6. Win a mate by combat or not.
7. Fight with your neighbors or unite them.
8. Wear gaudy colors or avoid display. It's all the same.
9. Develop legs, wings, tail or not -- they will help or not.
10. We must repeat!

(Reprinted with kind permission from iamascientist.com.)