Posts Tagged ‘Gerald Casale’

DEVO: The Brand / DEVO: Unmasked Book

Posted: March 22, 2018 in MUSIC
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DEVO: The Brand / DEVO: Unmasked

 

The art-punk pioneers Devo have today announced that they will be releasing a brand new book set which looks to chronicle the band’s influences, inspirations and in turn the huge amount of influence and inspiration their output has given.

The two book set, featuring ‘The Brand’ and ‘Unmasked’, will use archival art, prints, photography and notes to re-tell the story of the band, put together by co-founders Gerald V. Casale and Mark Mothersbaugh.

A unique 2-in-1, 300+ page, never-ending book with rubberized covers: flip it over when finished and begin again!

With ‘Brand’ we see a closer look at the band’s relationship with the mdeia and in turn their fans, while ‘Unmasked’ takes a in-depth look at the band on a more personal level, as their individual narratives meander through the group. The set is available in the Classic version, which features both books in a mammoth 320-page edition. The book will also be available in the limited run Signature edition, which contains the two separate volumes completed by a hand-crafted, rubberized clamshell box signed by the band, and a vintage Devo artwork co-created by Casale and Mothersbaugh.

DEVO: The Brand is illustrated throughout with classic Devo iconography and photos showing how DEVO Inc. was built.
DEVO: Unmasked, is packed with rare and unseen photos of the band from childhood, through to the present day. First-person commentary is provided throughout by Jerry and Mark.

The Signature edition box set: limited print run of separate books encased in a hand-made rubberized clamshell box, numbered and signed by DEVO, includes a large, exclusive print of a collaborative work of art by Mark and Jerry.

DEVO was, and is, an adjective, an adverb, a noun, a Gestalt–a unified field concept embracing art, music, politics and fashion with an alternate world view we christened ‘Devolution’. For the first time ever, this book compiles the breadth and depth of our attempts to create something unique against all odds, while fighting the good fight as the world slowly proved that Devolution is real.

Gerald Casale

DEVO – ” Girl U Want ” Classic Single

Posted: March 19, 2018 in CLASSIC ALBUMS, MUSIC
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Image result for devo girl u want images

 

Devo! As well as being quirky, retro-futuristic, geeky, new-wave heroes, could also write a mean and truly intelligent pop song. “Girl U Want”  was the first released single from their 1980 album Freedom Of Choice, but these days it’s often overlooked because the follow up 7” was the band-defining classic, Whip It.

The synthesizer/guitar hooks on Girl U Want were widely believed to have been inspired by the jagged riffs on The Knack’s My Sharona, though co-writer Gerald Casale has denied this. Coincidental or not, it’s easy to hear the similarity.

What’s more important than where the tune came from is what it does, which is to convey that overpowering feeling of being young and in love with someone, but too chicken shit to tell them. The song saw Devo delivering an original twist on a well-worn theme and a classic piece of art-pop. And you have to say the lyrics on Girl U Want have held up a whole lot better than My Sharona’s “I always get it up, for the touch of the younger kind”.

In the music video, Devo performs for a group of young women in the style of a performance from The Ed Sullivan Show, with two robotic backup dancers, one male and one female. Further implying the televised nature of the performance, the color in the video is deliberately altered to make the red of the band’s energy dome headgear look almost purple. The band wears the silver naugahyde suits from the cover of Freedom of Choice, and mime the song with Moog Liberation synthesizers.

During the video, the camera focuses on the girls in the audience exaggeratedly enjoying the performance, including one girl who is visually implied to “wet” herself, which transitions to a scene of a General Boy controlling the backup dancers. At one point, Mark Mothersbaugh pulls aside the curtain behind the band to show an overweight man on a vibrating exercise machine, attempting to drink a milkshake to the ecstatic reaction of the audience. As the video ends, girls in the audience are shown holding signs with icons,

Soundgarden issued a cover of Girl U Want as an extra track on the Rusty Cage EP. Theirs is a sleazy, slowed down version. Unlikely as it seems, Robert Palmer also released an interpretation of Girl U Want as a single in 1994. It didn’t do too well. Plenty of other bands have covered it too, but Superchunk’s needle sharp cover for the 1992 compilation Freedom Of Choice is the best by a distance.