Devo in video. Recently and less recently.
Been watching videos certain bands/people from the earliest to the most recent that I can find on YouTube. I’ve become fascinated, not only with certain people, but also (more?) with the differences/changes/all that stuff that one can see through time. Also seeing media and stuff change over time — interviewing styles, show formats, stuff off VHS — analogue distortions an’ that; and language habits — the use of the word “like”.
This past day or so I’ve been watching Devo related things. Here are links and some quotations too, where I could be bothered —
Devo Live at Kent State University in 1973 playing “Private Secretary”, so description sez. There’s something curious about this video. Not sure what.
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This is black and white video of Devo live in 1977 playing “Mongoloid” and “Gut Feeling”.
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Started watching this gig from 1980 (Petaluma, California) which I haven’t yet finished watching (just over 1 hr 15 mins long).
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Mark Mothersbaugh at Subcon 1981/2 ish on Subgenius stuff. And at the end of the interview —
(8 min 38)
“Interviewer What does your mother think about what you’re doing?
Mark : She just wants to know if I’m eating all right
Interviewer : Are you?
Mark : Well, I get fed every day.
Interviewer : So she’s not worried about you?
Mark : No, her brain was stolen by Christ a long time ago so she has no idea what I’m doing…”
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Devo in 1981 interview with Robert Hilburn talking about the “Whip It” video —
(3 min 14)
“Hillburn : Is it almost like a silent triumph… you were trying to stir people up with this thing, the fact that it did stir them up is that… in some kind of perverse way is that almost a kind of pleasure for you?”
Casale : (laughs) I suppose yes, perverse. It certainly wasn’t meant to be received in the way it has been received.”
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DEVO on Late Night With David Letterman, 5/3/1983 (the whole segment inc. “That’s Good” in lower quality here) Mark in this vid. reminds me of Robert (Cure) Smith ‘cept with glasses, also I noticed that he appears to have shaved armpits.
(9 min 10)
“Letterman : What do you guys hope in the future, five years from now, for yourselves?
Casale : Oh you know maybe, like, make a record that sells enough that we could subject ourselves to recombinant DNA experiments or something like that.
L : Well gosh, good luck…”
(5 min16)
“Casale : We do things to ourselves before other people can do them to us, kinda self-demeaning — it’s basically the Devo aesthetic.”
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Jerry Casale’s oral history of DEVO part 1 — description sez “Unseen interview from 1995 for rock ‘n roll history television documentary” not sure how many parts there are to this doc., I’ve not watched them all yet. On becoming politicised, doing performance art, forming Devo.
Part 2 — on not being punk, making the videos, “being smart and appearing stupid”
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Devo playing Gut Feeling/Slap Your Mammy 1996 Irvine Meadows California
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Mark Mothersbaugh in 2005 on getting spectacles and being able to see clearly for the first time, becoming a visual artist, meeting Jerry Casale, starting Devo. Mentions the student shootings in 1970 that Casale talks about (in the oral history link above).
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An Interview with Devo from 2009 (?) —
On Brian Eno (producer of the first Devo album)
(1 min 58)
”Mark : He had a very fatherly approach to the whole thing, he could have been a jerk and he wasn’t. He was very empathetic to five crazy guys from Akron Ohio that really…
Bob Casale: Had their minds set on something.
Mark : Yeah, and he kind of gave us the ability to do it. He empowered us by taking us to Germany and putting us up in a studio when we didn’t have a record deal.
Interviewer : So are you gonna work with him on the new album?
Bob C : He hasn’t called
Mark : You know, he’s a funny guy. I had a conversation with David Byrne about him. David said, ‘you know, I worked with him (Brian) a number of times, but I gotta tell you, if he doesn’t have a specific need to talk to you he hides from you and he doesn’t take my calls, he won’t talk to me.’ So I didn’t feel so bad then.”
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Inside DEVO’s Studio with Mark Mothersbaugh in 2010 Instruments, synths, circuit bent stuff. More vids on this page. Mark sez he uses Logic (software).
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Mark Mothersbaugh interviewed at the 2011 BMI Film & Television Awards
after talking about the composing work he’s been doing with Wes Anderson and other film and TV music talks about what else he’s been up to —
(0 min 40)
“Mark: I don’t know if you know, I have a band and we put an album out last year, so I’ve been touring some and finding out how shocking it is to go out on stage for like 3 or 4 weeks in a row every night compared to when you’re 20; it’s different when you’re 20. Honestly, it kinda sucks. I like the part where you’re on stage, but the rest of the day is such a waste cos you’re being corralled into airplanes and then into cars and then backstage and then you’re waiting to do a show. And then you do a show for 90 mins and the rest of your day is a waste…”
(2 min 40)
“Mark : It’s kinda weird to find yourself to be an elder statesman in pop music…”
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I watched more stuff than this. And there’s even more that I could have watched, but by then I had a headache.
‘Scuse typos, mis-linked links ‘n whatever.
Spotted at the Renegade Craft Fair in Austin this afternoon.
An abruptly ending tune I made on the Robert Moog Birthday Google doodle yesterday.
(4 min 54 long) Clip from last night’s Huw Stephens Show on Radio 1.
Austin from Swim Deep talks about the Birmingham scene. Mentions Peace, Troumaca, and the National Sea Life Centre (not a band).
Austin : “I think there was just like a whole generation of us just going out and getting wasted, but just like “this is boring, let’s do something else”. And cuz there’s so many of us all together doing it then I think obviously there’s a scene that’s collected; and it is a genuine scene because we are all buddies. It’s pretty cool…”
Sez they’re on tour with Pond; talks about writing a song about Jenny Lee Lindberg from Warpaint.
Podcast with that interview and session tracks is available to download for a month (I think) on this page, tho probably not till later today (it’s 02:10 as I write this.) And show on iPlayer for a week.
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As a disclaimer, I don’t know much about these bands at all, and I’m not really following their exploits. I wonder why I post about this.
A playable Moogesque synth for Google’s doodle today. Robert Moog’s 78th Birthday. I have only just seen this thing, it was an exciting moment.
Words from a David Byrne (and Brian Eno) Interview; they are talking about their collaboration on Everything That Happens Will Happen Today
(at about 4 min 45) on writing lyrics to Eno’s vocalless songs.
Byrne : “I’ll scat sing a melody over Brian’s instrumental tracks and if it seems like it’s a good melody, I’ll then try and come up with words that match the meter and phrasing and the implied feeling or whatever of that melody. And sometimes the only way to do that it to just, I find, is to come up with anything that fits, anything at all.”
(at 3 min 07) on playing a MIDI bit on one of the songs
Eno : “Well I played it, and then fixed it up basically. That’s what I normally do, i play a movement, a feeling and the notes are of course all wrong, so then I just go through the MIDI file getting the notes right. So I’ve got the rhythmic feel I want.”
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I haven’t yet listened to the album yet though.
We’ll write a bit of music and sing over the top. Then we’ll tidy up the music and write some new vocals. Then we’ll write a new piece of music and sing the new vocals over the top. And then when it’s about to be released we won’t like it anymore, and record a different song with the same name so we dont have to change the artwork.
— Helen Love from An Interview with Helen Love
I find myself sometimes, searching the YouTube for interviews with people. I’ve been watching some interviews with David Byrne. Here are words from it.
David Byrne on Letterman
(2 min 54) on the Talking Heads album Speaking in Tongues album
Letterman : “you wrote the lyrics; you originally just started out with sounds and then substituted words”
Byrne : “yeah, I originally sang nonsense and made words to fit that, that worked out alright
…
some people are really good at writing little stories, I don’t find that as easy.”
I remember, vaguely, years ago reading some quote from Kurt Cobain saying writing that Smells Like Teen Spirit was an attempt to “rip off” a Pixies song (Debaser, I had thought, but I can’t find a reference to it)
Some months ago I noted in this video (above), at about 1min 15s, Bernard Butler talks about writing Animal Nitrate and says
“inspiration at the time was totally secretly, Smells Like Teen Spirit”.
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That is all.
Old West Midlands Travel Bus Ticket on Flickr.
An old West Midlands Travel bus ticket my mother found recently inside a book. Who knows what year it’s from. (It’s from back when they were called West Midlands Travel, so probably pre 1996)
8:30 o’clock — I suppose someone was on their way to work/school.I’ve Forgotten How To Write About Stuff
I don’t know what to blog about these days, things don’t seem worth writing about, or I want to write about something that it doesn’t seem possible to write about.
For example, recently I’ve begun to get around this mental(?) block I had where I knew what notes to play on guitar or keyboard but always messed them up. I knew I could play the thing (whatever it was I was trying to play) cuz when my mind began to wander sometimes my hands would just move to the place they were supposed to be, a bit like typing a password. I’ve drifted from my point — I’ve begun to be able to not completely mess up everything I play and I wanted to write about that, then realised I have no idea how to do that.
Also I don’t want to build a little nest for myself and feel trapped by it, or have to leave a string of abandoned homes in the wake. It’s enough to have one physical home without having to represent yourself on the web, mebbe it would be easier if I was making very imaginary things/ places.
I bought some new musical stuff recently, was going to post about that (guitar, soundcard, microphone) and have been watching stuffs on YouTube that I could have blogged about (e.g. A few weeks ago I was listening to Serbian, Croatian and Yugoslavian bands on theYouTube, I found many that I liked). Then I felt like — Every way that I can imagine writing about these wonderful discoveries sounds so boring I’m not going to. Cos the excitement is in the doing but writing about it — bleh.
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I might try posting again, some things that I don’t think are worth posting and see how ridiculous I feel.
I’ve put a couple more songs on Bandcamp today — You Belong, Mouse
Both songs have the “Be My Baby” drumbeat in them (I first noticed this lovely rhythm in The Jesus and Mary Chain’s “Just Like Honey”).
The “You Belong, Mouse” title is cuz part of the song goes (something like) “you belong miles from anywhere” (“miles” could be “mouse”) I just gave the song a name today, it was previously called “suede” using the name the file after the first band that you can think of method. It has bass and guitar, and instead of mouse clicking I actually played the midi keyboard to input notes. I’m getting into this playing of instruments lark. I realised after I’d begun that it sounds a bit like the Slowdive song When The Sun Hits.
“Boulevard” comes from me trying to play bass along to Phil Spector type songs. It sounds like a slowed down Monster Mash. It’s all recorded (except the MIDI percussion) bass, guitar, voice which I’m not used to doing so it’s sounds strange and messy. I recorded some of the bass by holding the mic behind its body, there’s a bit where you can hear my mother asking “are you nearly finished?”, which I left in, it’s looped so shows up a few times. Title cos I was thinking of Sunset Boulevard for some reason (a film I haven’t seen.)
Also am uploading them to my audioboo.
the “Why I haven’t been posting recently” post
A few years ago I thought, for a change, I’d venture into the world outside and get involved in stuff that was happening, meet people and do stuff; blog, make things. I thought I enjoyed some of the things I was doing, but now I have no idea what I enjoyed/whether I enjoyed anything/what enjoyment is. I’ve tried to re-evaluate everything that is evaluateable but I’m no clearer about anything.
I don’t know what to do with my time/self, I’m back to the idea that even were I healthier, any sort of life I’d want to live is impossible, things that I’d stumbled upon that seemed promising now seem so small and pale and thin; a trick masquerading as a treat; waking hours feel like they’re spent killing time until I go to sleep. What am I going to blog from here?
I’ve been in hiding/extended hibernation for a few months, I haven’t been anywhere, haven’t spoken to anyone (besides my mother and the occasional apartment maintenance person). I haven’t had the energy to do much, besides making/listening to music/watching web stuff. I’ve been more consistently unwell lately that I’ve been for a couple of years. The thought of having to meet anyone or go anywhere makes me anxious, the idea of blogging or tweeting or sending an email makes me nervous, all this is familiar territory.
I spose I haven’t posted about this cos 1) in hiding, 2) it seems somewhat melodramatic and goes no where — all of this is a dead end.
Anyway, that’s the “Why I haven’t been posting lately” post.
I have been making more songs; here are 4 I put on Bandcamp as a sort of EP, as they feel related.
I like these songs so much. They’re kinda scrappy, I’ve realised I like lo-fi sounds and that the lo-fi ness is not only cos of my lack of skillz. There were times that things became too shiny sounding which I did not like, and undid.
I’ve had the songs hanging around for a while, growing slowly like little plants. They have many vocal layers, sometimes I think the sound of my voice is the main thing going for my making of music. I’ve managed to come up with some album art too. I’m still using the same set up, just my voice and Logic MIDI instruments and am not even using the computer keyboard to input MIDI notes, I’m just using mouse clicks. I’m rubbish at playing instruments, some mental block situation I’ve not figured out yet.
“Falling In Line” is the first track, it has bell sounds (I like resonant metallic sounds) and the lyrics consist of “falling in line again” and oohs and aahs with punchy overamplified drum sounds underneath. It sounds somewhat like the way I’ve been feeling over the Winter period. I called it “falling in line” cos at the time I thought it sounded as though I was singing “falling in love again”, which — just no.
“Remains” is the oldest song, a little bit shoegazy, I had stuff like this Demontré - Lorenheim in my head at the time and was listening to things that had that large hazy sound going on. It has an actual instrument on it (bass guitar) tho it’s not very obvious. The title is cos it was taken from part of anther song I had been messing with — the remainder of another thing.
“Lush (Ordinary Day)” is prob. the catchiest one, lots of layers of voice. Me trying to sing the chorus as tho I were Amy Winehouse kept causing microphone clipping cos I’m still using the Blue snowflake mic . The title is from my time of naming files by the first band that came into my head.
“Sherbet” is the short one at the end, also the most recently made; feels a bit similar to the opening song. Yes it is supposed to sound as tho I’m half asleep here. The title is cos I was trying to make a song that was kind of bubblegummy/lethargic and I had been reading about sherbet on Wikipedia. I’m not sure that the song is bubblegummy tho.
Bandcamp asks you to put in lyrics, but I still haven’t decided what they are or whether to make up words as an approximation of the sounds/put in all the variations of things I was singing/don’t put down any lyrics.
The songs are also on audioboo, here http://audioboo.fm/KCanard
I feel there have been many typos.
