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Author Archives: Michael Pilmer

Final Devo tour?

Hoping if this indeed is the final Devo tour that you come to Seattle one last time. This place is full of devotees.

Portugal 1979

Dear all
You were in Portugal late 1979. Was it for a concert or just promoting your album? Did you perform any gig in portugal in 1979?
Thank you

Portugal 1979

Dear all
You were in Portugal late 1979. Was it for a concert or just promoting your album? Did you perform any gig in portugal in 1979?
Thank you

Portugal 1979

Dear all
You were in Portugal late 1979. Was it for a concert or just promoting your album? Did you perform any gig in portugal in 1979?
Thank you

Portugal 1979

Dear all
You were in Portugal late 1979. Was it for a concert or just promoting your album? Did you perform any gig in portugal in 1979?
Thank you

biggest fan

im writing for a big fan of yours ..he said he met youat a concert once in 1990 he met you at pleasure island walt disney land …gerneral boy gave money for the glowsticks ..jacko homo you were throwing mickey mouse hats out …and he caught one ..he knows your busy but if you just gave him a call 978-720-8879 he would be so happy …he is not doing to well and it would make him beyond happy thanks

biggest fan

im writing for a big fan of yours ..he said he met youat a concert once in 1990 he met you at pleasure island walt disney land …gerneral boy gave money for the glowsticks ..jacko homo you were throwing mickey mouse hats out …and he caught one ..he knows your busy but if you just gave him a call 978-720-8879 he would be so happy …he is not doing to well and it would make him beyond happy thanks

Wondering if Jerry remembers this incident from the Palladium in New York on the Oh No It’s Devo! tour in 1982. Two obnoxious guys sitting front row center inexplicably spent the concert giving the finger to the band. As the band gathered downstage for the end of Uncontrollable Urge, I watched Jerry spit at and threaten the two while never breaking formation. After the concert he came out looking for them but they had run out before the lights came up. One of my favorite memories.

Wondering if Jerry remembers this incident from the Palladium in New York on the Oh No It’s Devo! tour in 1982. Two obnoxious guys sitting front row center inexplicably spent the concert giving the finger to the band. As the band gathered downstage for the end of Uncontrollable Urge, I watched Jerry spit at and threaten the two while never breaking formation. After the concert he came out looking for them but they had run out before the lights came up. One of my favorite memories.

Wondering if Jerry remembers this incident from the Palladium in New York on the Oh No It’s Devo! tour in 1982. Two obnoxious guys sitting front row center inexplicably spent the concert giving the finger to the band. As the band gathered downstage for the end of Uncontrollable Urge, I watched Jerry spit at and threaten the two while never breaking formation. After the concert he came out looking for them but they had run out before the lights came up. One of my favorite memories.

Wondering if Jerry remembers this incident from the Palladium in New York on the Oh No It’s Devo! tour in 1982. Two obnoxious guys sitting front row center inexplicably spent the concert giving the finger to the band. As the band gathered downstage for the end of Uncontrollable Urge, I watched Jerry spit at and threaten the two while never breaking formation. After the concert he came out looking for them but they had run out before the lights came up. One of my favorite memories.

Interview `978 Soho Weekly news

Hi Devo!
I hope you are all great.
Your contact form does not seem to be orking properly at this time so I am using this Tellus Devo option.
I am a Ph.D. candidate at Penn. I have been searching all over for an interview you gave that was published in the Soho Weekly News (allegedly.) The date is unknown, but I believe it is 1978. The artist Dan Graham quotes it many times, and I need to find it. Would you be so kind as to send me a reference? With a month and a year, it is enough. If you have a PDF and are willing to send it to me, please do. Wish you the very best! Thank you in advance! Rui
What he quotes is:
“We figured we’d mimic the structure of those who get the greatest rewards out of the upside-down business and become a corporation. Why stop at the music? I really believe that’s the mistake groups make. [Most groups] don’t understand the total picture they fit into. They don’t see how they interrelate publicly to the culture and the political situation in their work. They are destroyed because they become exploited by the system. Like,take a group, divide them up, pull one person out as the star and make solo albums …. We decided that what we hated about rock and roll was STARS… We watched Roxy music, a band we liked, slowly became Bryan Ferry and Roxy Music. If you get a band that’s good, you bust it up and sell three times as many records. Take the Beatles for example.

(…) What do you think rock and roll is in America… besides Propaganda for Corporate Capitalist Life? Most rock musicians, they’re no more than clerks and auto-mechanics, you know… if they are lucky they’ll settle in an Alice Cooper kind of existence… Since Pop Music is definitely a vulgar art from connected with consumerism, the position of any artist is, in pop entertainment, really self-contempt. Hate what you like, like what you hate. It’s a totally schizophrenic position, but that in itself is a position that most people both inside the system and outside don’t understand. Therefore, if they don’t understand that very idea, they don’t even know what they are dealing with. Devo understands its self-contradiction and uses it as the basis for its creativity…. The system is totally geared toward profit, obviously. The artist is usually a willing victim because he’s a middle-class shit himself.”

Devo on Soho Weekly News. 1978? Interview

Hi Devo!
I hope you are all great.
Your contact form does not seem to be orking properly at this time so I am using this Tellus Devo option.
I am a Ph.D. candidate at Penn. I have been searching all over for an interview you gave that was published in the Soho Weekly News (allegedly.) The date is unknown, but I believe it is 1978. The artist Dan Graham quotes it many times, and I need to find it. Would you be so kind as to send me a reference? With a month and a year, it is enough. If you have a PDF and are willing to send it to me, please do. Wish you the very best! Thank you in advance! Rui
What he quotes is:
“We figured we’d mimic the structure of those who get the greatest rewards out of the upside-down business and become a corporation. Why stop at the music? I really believe that’s the mistake groups make. [Most groups] don’t understand the total picture they fit into. They don’t see how they interrelate publicly to the culture and the political situation in their work. They are destroyed because they become exploited by the system. Like,take a group, divide them up, pull one person out as the star and make solo albums …. We decided that what we hated about rock and roll was STARS… We watched Roxy music, a band we liked, slowly became Bryan Ferry and Roxy Music. If you get a band that’s good, you bust it up and sell three times as many records. Take the Beatles for example.

(…) What do you think rock and roll is in America… besides Propaganda for Corporate Capitalist Life? Most rock musicians, they’re no more than clerks and auto-mechanics, you know… if they are lucky they’ll settle in an Alice Cooper kind of existence… Since Pop Music is definitely a vulgar art from connected with consumerism, the position of any artist is, in pop entertainment, really self-contempt. Hate what you like, like what you hate. It’s a totally schizophrenic position, but that in itself is a position that most people both inside the system and outside don’t understand. Therefore, if they don’t understand that very idea, they don’t even know what they are dealing with. Devo understands its self-contradiction and uses it as the basis for its creativity…. The system is totally geared toward profit, obviously. The artist is usually a willing victim because he’s a middle-class shit himself.”

Devo on Soho Weekly News. 1978? Interview

Hi Devo!
I hope you are all great.
Your contact form does not seem to be orking properly at this time so I am using this Tellus Devo option.
I am a Ph.D. candidate at Penn. I have been searching all over for an interview you gave that was published in the Soho Weekly News (allegedly.) The date is unknown, but I believe it is 1978. The artist Dan Graham quotes it many times, and I need to find it. Would you be so kind as to send me a reference? With a month and a year, it is enough. If you have a PDF and are willing to send it to me, please do. Wish you the very best! Thank you in advance! Rui
What he quotes is:
“We figured we’d mimic the structure of those who get the greatest rewards out of the upside-down business and become a corporation. Why stop at the music? I really believe that’s the mistake groups make. [Most groups] don’t understand the total picture they fit into. They don’t see how they interrelate publicly to the culture and the political situation in their work. They are destroyed because they become exploited by the system. Like,take a group, divide them up, pull one person out as the star and make solo albums …. We decided that what we hated about rock and roll was STARS… We watched Roxy music, a band we liked, slowly became Bryan Ferry and Roxy Music. If you get a band that’s good, you bust it up and sell three times as many records. Take the Beatles for example.

(…) What do you think rock and roll is in America… besides Propaganda for Corporate Capitalist Life? Most rock musicians, they’re no more than clerks and auto-mechanics, you know… if they are lucky they’ll settle in an Alice Cooper kind of existence… Since Pop Music is definitely a vulgar art from connected with consumerism, the position of any artist is, in pop entertainment, really self-contempt. Hate what you like, like what you hate. It’s a totally schizophrenic position, but that in itself is a position that most people both inside the system and outside don’t understand. Therefore, if they don’t understand that very idea, they don’t even know what they are dealing with. Devo understands its self-contradiction and uses it as the basis for its creativity…. The system is totally geared toward profit, obviously. The artist is usually a willing victim because he’s a middle-class shit himself.”

Do you like parrots?

Hi there. I am a fan of DEVO but also recently got really into parrots. I have a simple question for the band: do any of you also like parrots? Parrots seem like they have a very DEVO-compatible vibe, at least as I reckon it. Please accept as tribute a picture of my budgie (Americans might recognize him as a “parakeet”), Malchik.

Thank you

– Sofia in Toronto

Why DEVO hasn’t played this city in over 40 years

DEVO hasn’t played a gig in St. Louis since it’s very early days. There is even a song titled, “The last time I saw St. Louis”, floating around on you tube.
I am curious as to the origins of the song and and why DEVO has not played a gig in St. Louis in so long.