A couple of weeks ago the local “alternative” radio station, WKQX aka Q101, announced it would devote the entire weekend to playing the “greatest alternative music from the last 50 years”. So all the way back to 1970, I guess! Now, I do sometimes listen to this station for one or two songs, but only if the first song I heard was Red Hot Chili Peppers or Smashing Pumpkins. If the band is 21 Pilots, AJR, or Weezer, et. al. …next channel please! I decided that weekend to listen to Q101 when in my car, not knowing what I’d hear from the early to mid 70s as the only songs I have heard from that decade on Q101 were Bon Scott AC/DC tunes. Not kidding. No Sabbath, Zeppelin, Stones, etc. although those bands would be classified as AOR. 70s alternative…Dead Kennedys, Plasmatics, Ramones, Iggy Pop, or Grateful Dead? I don’t know. I do know Q101 has never played those bands. Then I thought about Devo, D-E-V-O.
As a senior in high school in 1980, DEVO had already appeared on Saturday Night Live at least twice, which mesmerized me. Remember their “energy dome” three-tiered flower pot hats, jerky movements, and new sound? I loved DEVO and tried convincing my soccer teammates on a road trip to Duluth they had to listen to my cassette that included gems such as “Jocko Homo”, “Secret Agent Man”, “Girl U Want”, and their cover of the Stones’ “Satisfaction”, among many other tunes. Needless to say, I did not hear DEVO during the “greatest” weekend. I think DEVO was definitely emblematic, if any other band, of being “alternative” in the era of 70s AOR style radio.
I did not know until earlier this month when I read an article in the Chicago Tribune that DEVO formed as a band at Kent State University, shortly after National Guardsmen murdered peacefully protesting college students in 1970. DEVO hit their apex circa 1980 with the smash hit, “Whip It”. The unquestioned leader of the band, Mark Mothersbaugh, went on to score in film and TV shows such Rugrats and one of my personal favorites of all time, Pee Wee’s Playhouse. Mr. Mothersbaugh was raised in the same, small denomination as I, i.e., the Evangelical Covenant Church (covchurch.org), which founded North Park College, my alma mater. I digress. The same Trib article chronicled Mr. Mothersbaugh’s harrowing battle with the COVID virus. He spent 18 days “on his back”, hooked to a ventilator in ICU. He admitted to hallucinating, thinking he “wrote a whole new DEVO album” and the band “performed it through the streets of Hollywood.” Mr. Mothersbaugh is 70 now, survived COVID, and has committed to a new project, “Postcards for Democracy“, which he describes as “a demonstration to support the 225-year-old U.S. Postal Service and the right to vote.” The aim is to help fund USPS. We’re all DEVO.
CNN – Can they whip it? Devo offers ‘energy dome’ face shields to fight the pandemic
