In Praise of....<i>Q:Are We Not Men?...</i> by Devo

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Haven't done one of these is a while, but I feel truly remiss in not bestowing this honor on an album as magnificent as this. So, joining the ranks of Destroyer, Nothing's Shocking, It'll End in Tears, Group Sex, The Fat of the Land, The Kings of the Wild Frontier, and Mothership Connection, I give you....Q:Are We Not Men? A:We Are Devo

Inspired by recently picking up their dizzyingly exhaustive new bio of the same name by Jade Dellinger and David Giffels, I was recently struck by how very few albums make me a unabashedly happy as this positively seminal classic. I do remember seeing them on "Saturday Night Live" and thinking they were just another surreal sketch until a few weeks later I wrapped my ears around this record. They seemed a thousand times more subversive than conventionally 'dangerous' bands like the Ramones and the Sex Pistols and Kiss. There was truly NOTHING like them (before or since).

But beyond their singularly bizarre and unique aesthetic, there were actually hugely satisfying tunes on this debut album. Even if you were put off by the yellow suits and the whole schtick, "Uncontrollable Urge", "Praying Hands", "Gut Feeling" and of course "Mongoloid" and "Jocko Homo" (to say nothing of their notorious cover of "Satisfaction") are just simply great, great songs. Eno's production is sharp and suitably alien sounding, retaining their raw edge, but filtering it through a patina of strangely sythetic sounding elements. And unlike some of their later records (wherein they truly succumbed to de-evolution, quality-wise) this album quite literally ROCKS!

As an extra bonus, I remember my older sister getting actively disquieted by their unflinching weirdness (most evident on "Shrivel Up" and "Too Much Paranoias"...to say nothing of the thoroughly inexplicable faux-Chichi Rodriguez-morphing cover art) and what's not to love about that when you're a perpetually disagreeable twelve year old? The fact that this album acted as a palpable irritant to my family (way more so than Kiss etc.) as well as thoroughly rocking made it a virutally priceless addition to my then fledgling record collection.

It's younger brother, Duty Now for the Future is also positively brilliant in the same wonderfully deranged manner, but after than, the band seemingly acquiesced to the demands of the music industry. The albums were still dazzlingly fresh and unfailingly interesting, but they seemed a bit de-fanged and housebroken after Freedom of Choice, the album that firmly tied the one-hit-wonder albatross that was "Whip It" around their collective neck. They would never again sound so alive and frantic as on Q:Are We Not Men?..

If you can't appreciate this album for the thing of unique brilliance that it is, truly someone has sucked the marrow of life out of your joyless bones. Discuss.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Tuesday, 7 October 2003 13:40 (twenty-one years ago)

This was one of possibly four or five albums an adolescent nickalicious owned when first popped up the "hey, what if I were to play guitar?" notion. The spunky revolutionary weirdness this album encapsulates is like an audial mirror image of my hyper-caffeinated soul, and was the soundtrack to one of the 4 auto speeding offenses I've been busted by the po-po for. Totally worthy of all praise ever.

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Tuesday, 7 October 2003 14:00 (twenty-one years ago)

Totally agreed. My memory of this album is my friend bringing over the cassette when we were about 12 years old and I was in charge of running my family's garage sale for a day. The coolest thing was that it scared away all the customers. Upon hearing it, people would literally stop in driveway, turn around and walk away. Devo were like gods to us that day.

― BrianB, Tuesday, 7 October 2003 14:05 (twenty-one years ago)

What always kills me about this record is the fact that it is the last Devo record to have landed in my collection. I think I bought Freedom of Choice after hearing "Whip It" at a local hockey game in 1980, and eventually worked my way over to the likes of Oh No! It's Devo and the truly worthless Shout. It wasn't until 1988 or so that I actually grabbed a copy of Q: Are We Not Men?..., and it completely blew my mind. Could this be the same band that shat out the theme song to "Dr. Detroit"? Amazing.

This is the album that I grab every time I need a good jolt. It's the album that I use as a reference disk (both in a sonic and creative sense) when I need to assess the quality of my own band's work. And it's the record I force all my friends to listen to, especially if they smirk and make some snide "Whip It" comment upon hearing the name of the band.

― damion666, Tuesday, 7 October 2003 14:07 (twenty-one years ago)

Could this be the same band that shat out the theme song to "Dr. Detroit"?

Hard to believe, ain't it.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Tuesday, 7 October 2003 14:36 (twenty-one years ago)

I heard Devo's albums only two years ago, but it was love at first listen. Almost all of their most interesting songs are on Q: Are We Not Men?, which says something since they were interesting for at least three albums. The next couple albums were just as catchy, but they never again matched the sheer weirdness and creativity of this album.

― Vinnie (vprabhu), Tuesday, 7 October 2003 15:24 (twenty-one years ago)

I forgot about the brilliance of this album until I saw a local band perform it under the guise of "REVO". They did a great job of it, but more importantly, the next day I pulled the marbled album out and was awe-struck again.

― peepee (peepee), Tuesday, 7 October 2003 15:48 (twenty-one years ago)

hearing "mongoloid" around the age of 9 or 10 was definitely a formative musical experience for me (as was seeing "rock and roll high school" on cable, but devo have always kicked my ass harder than the ramones).

― your null fame (yournullfame), Tuesday, 7 October 2003 16:56 (twenty-one years ago)

This thread sparked a conversation with a friend of mine who is only familiar with Q: Are We Not Men... and "Whip It." I found myself trying to convince him to check out other Devo albums, but every other record (maybe Duty Now is an exception) prompted me to include some form of caveat. [For the record, I consider myself a Devo apologist right up through New Traditionalists. I admit this with as little shame as possible given the existence of songs like "Shout" and "Time Out for Fun."]

They never came close to this level of consistency or originality in the 80s. And that only adds to this record's mystery.

― damion666 (damion666), Tuesday, 7 October 2003 17:04 (twenty-one years ago)

I think I gave up on Devo circa the utterly indefensile Shout. There were moments on both Oh No!.. and New Traditionalists that were genuinely inspired (though nowhere near as brilliant as the afore-mentioned debut or Duty Now... Shout, however, was just tragic. I've never owned nor heard Total Devo, but I did see them on that tour. They were always a great live act (and retained their bite that was long since lost on their studio albums). Smooth Noodle Maps isn't really even worth mentioning either.

The live Now it Can be Told from the Total Devo is actually pretty good. All the archival stuff (the Hardcore Devovolumes, Recombo DNA, etc.) on Rhino and Rykodisc are also pretty great, if much rougher around the edges.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Tuesday, 7 October 2003 17:28 (twenty-one years ago)

That should've read...."The live Now it Can be Told from the Total Devo tour is actually pretty good."

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Tuesday, 7 October 2003 17:29 (twenty-one years ago)

The friend that damion666 is referring to is me, and I told him I didn't want to tarnish my relationship with Devo considering how much I love the debut, and how incredibly consistent it is. I feel that my ignorance is a blessing in this case. For one, I'm sure the cheezy synths will just grate. And I hate those stupid hats. Just let me love Q: Are We Not Men?....

― scott m (mcd), Tuesday, 7 October 2003 17:41 (twenty-one years ago)

I'm not the kind of friend that can allow you to go through life without hearing "Blockhead."

― damion666 (damion666), Tuesday, 7 October 2003 17:51 (twenty-one years ago)

i find my love for freedom of choice EQUIVALENT as Q: Are We Not Men? Duty Now was the most difficult of the Devo records to appreciate as a youngster and i held (still hold?) it unfairly against it even today.

i also really really remembering liking the song "Dr. Detroit" when it was in video rotation.

― gygax! (gygax!), Tuesday, 7 October 2003 18:10 (twenty-one years ago)

i find my love for freedom of choice EQUIVALENT as Q: Are We Not Men?

I can see where you're coming from. Fact is, it's hard for me to directly associate the debut with the rest of their output. Even as I read your post, I thought, "Well, yeah, I would put Freedom of Choice high on my list, too." But I almost don't even think of those as being products of the same band, probably because there must've been a two-year period of total Devo silence between the time I stopped listening to Freedom of Choice religiously and the day I found Q:... in my brother's record collection.

And as much as I love to bash "Dr. Detroit," it's been playing in my head all afternoon. I must've devoted some serious time to it at some point in my youth.

― damion666 (damion666), Tuesday, 7 October 2003 18:29 (twenty-one years ago)

I confess to digging out "Dr.Detroit" (which was appended to their latest anthology) today. It's not horrible per se, but it's a great leap south from Q:Are We Not Men?

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Tuesday, 7 October 2003 18:35 (twenty-one years ago)

Has "Turnaround", the "Whip It" B-side, ever properly surfaced on a compilation of sorts?

― donut bitch (donut), Tuesday, 7 October 2003 18:37 (twenty-one years ago)

The live Now it Can be Told from the Total Devo is actually pretty good.

I'm with you on this one. A high school friend and I once drove from Philomath, Oregon (don't ask) to Spokane, Washington -- call it an 8-hour drive. It was my friend's car, and he only owned two cassettes, Now it Can be Told and Beelzebubba by the Dead Milkmen. We rarely had to flip a coin.

― damion666 (damion666), Tuesday, 7 October 2003 18:42 (twenty-one years ago)

I don't think so, actually. Lots of the other elusive stuff like "Nu-tra Speak," "Find Out" and "Mecha Mania Boy" has been, but I haven't spotted "Turnaround" (infamously covered by Nirvana at one point).

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Tuesday, 7 October 2003 18:43 (twenty-one years ago)

I think "Space Junk" deserves its own thread. It's arguably the best song on the album which makes it arguably the best song ever. The main riff is seriously pretty: melodic and taut and simple. The one-note vocal melody is almost stupid, but you don't notice that, you notice how it meshes with the rest of the song, completely unobtrusive but an essential part of the whole, like a grain of sand on an Ohio lake beach. Then the middle part kicks in, the weird part, the part that makes you completely confounded, coalescing with the pretty part, but separate and new. Tex-aaaasssss, Kan-saaasss. Then the Americana guitar, the early rock n roll roots, to remind us where we came from, and how in the world we got to be so odd, and how in the world, indeed, Are We Not Men?

― scott m (mcd), Tuesday, 7 October 2003 19:18 (twenty-one years ago)

That was beautiful, Scott.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Tuesday, 7 October 2003 19:22 (twenty-one years ago)

I remember the first time I really heard Devo (outside of "Whip it"). I was 15 years old and was in the car with a friend who had baught Greatest Misses. I was pretty hooked. I went out my next payday in search of Devo. Looking at the two or three albums they had at whatever crappy chain store I was at, I had no idea which one was "good", I just knew I didn't want a compilation. Then I saw that Eno produced Q:Are We Not Men?... which made my mind up for me. (yeah I know I had a weird musical education process).

It really changed the way I looked at music. It geeky and intelligent but very raw and challenged my music sensabilities. I was left thinking "Damn I love this, but why?". It wasn't "Waaah, everyone makes fun of me" geeky like the indie kids with glasses at the time. It was more like a science project gone horribly right.

I could sit here and go track by track and say what each did for me, but that would be pages of selfabsorbed writing. It's one of the only albums I own on CD and vinyl. It's the album that reminds me music doesn't have to be pretentious to be intelligent, and that music doesn't have to be stupid to be honest. Oh yeah, and it reminds me to let myself enjoy what I enjoy despite what anybody thinks or says.

It also reminds me of the two times I got to make my entire High School think "What?" simultaneously: When I played "Uncontrollable Urge" and Kraftwerk's "Numbers" as the lead in song to the morning announcements.

― Mike Salmo (salmo), Tuesday, 7 October 2003 23:45 (twenty-one years ago)

Alex, tell me more about the book. I keep meaning to pick it up.

― Annouschka Magnatech (Jody Beth Rosen), Tuesday, 7 October 2003 23:58 (twenty-one years ago)

Alex, tell me more about the book. I keep meaning to pick it up.

Well, honestly, I'm only about forty pages into it (out of 208), and I have to say....it's a bit overwhelming in the minutae department. I mean, it's interesting to a degree, but they really could've edited pretty heavily.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Wednesday, 8 October 2003 01:25 (twenty-one years ago)

When I was first learning how to play guitar I kept trying out the half-dozen chords I knew in varying orders and at one point I was all: "Holy cats, I just played 'Gut Feeling'!" And I never learned any new chords because I realized I didn't need them. The end.

― Hammy (hammy), Wednesday, 8 October 2003 20:38 (twenty-one years ago)

"Turnaround" is on the 'Oh No'/'Freedom of Choice' reissue

― dave q, Thursday, 9 October 2003 09:42 (twenty-one years ago)

Ah, there ya go. Thanks, Dave.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Thursday, 9 October 2003 12:51 (twenty-one years ago)

The really really really annoying thing about this album is that, for years, the CD edition of it was packaged with "Devo Live" instead of with "Duty Now For the Future" and I really am not interested in listening to a Devo live album.

― Dadaismus (Dada), Thursday, 9 October 2003 13:27 (twenty-one years ago)

Rhino re-released Dev-O Live fairly recently, appended with a King Biscuit Flower Hour collection of live tracks (like "Swelling Itching Brain"). I agree, though, I wouldn't have paired Q:Are We Not Men? with Dev-O Live.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Thursday, 9 October 2003 15:36 (twenty-one years ago)

'I really am not interested in listening to a Devo live album'

'Mongoloid Years' is better than ('Metallic KO')x('23 Minutes Over Brussels'), almost as good as ('Alive!')x('Elvis Having Fun on Stage')

― dave q, Friday, 10 October 2003 09:15 (twenty-one years ago)

Alex -

Does the book go into much detail about the early Akron scene? Or is it totally Devo?

― dave225 (Dave225), Friday, 10 October 2003 12:38 (twenty-one years ago)

So far, I'm still trudging through Jerry Casale's years as a disgruntled hippie at Kent State and the people he ate lunch with (yes, it's that detailed). Not up to the Akron scene yet.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Friday, 10 October 2003 15:54 (twenty-one years ago)

What did Harvey Gold like on his tuna sandwiches?

― dave225 (Dave225), Friday, 10 October 2003 15:59 (twenty-one years ago)

spuds

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Friday, 10 October 2003 16:02 (twenty-one years ago)

I think I like "Duty Now For the Future" better.

― jel -- (jel), Friday, 10 October 2003 16:13 (twenty-one years ago)

I don't even need to say anything about the album, or the band. I can't possibly describe their impact or genius in any way that does them justice. But I did have another almost related idea.

Seeing that I'm not bringing in a paycheck yet since my recent honorable discharge from the USAF, I was thinking that if I did a quasi-Forest Gump thing and got lots of media attention by walking from the balto-dc area over to Mutato Muzika in California non-stop just to ask Mothersbaugh for a job there, he'd pretty much have to hire me, huh?

― Helltime Producto (Pavlik), Friday, 10 October 2003 16:58 (twenty-one years ago)

Hell yeah, and you could stay at various ILXors' houses on your way.

― nickn (nickn), Saturday, 11 October 2003 05:37 (twenty-one years ago)

So, I finished Dellinger & Giffels' book. Despite my earlier misgivings, I do recommend it. There are a few factual little errors (for example, the Beatles tune that Devo instrumentally skewer at the end of The Truth About De-Evolution isn't "Believe" but rather "Because", the melody they nicked from the Chi-Pigs wasn't "Gates of Steel" but rather "Cold War"), but it's as in-depth a story on the spudboys as you're likely to find. Beware, however. Like Gene Simmons' books, there are some unpleasant truths that surface that fly in the face of the myth. Specifically, Jerry Casale comes across like an embittered, domineering, avaricious jerk through much of the proceedings, backstabbing a few crucial individuals along the way. Mark, by contrast, sometimes comes across as a slave to Jerry's iron will. Turns out, by the way, that Alan Myers left the band for rather predictable reasons: as the band got further and further into synthesizers and sequencers, there was less and less for him -- an accomplished musician, it turns out -- to do, much less get excited/challenged by.

The latter albums after Freedom of Choice aren't given as much time/detail, but that's to be expected, I suppose. Still....worth reading, if you're a Devotee.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Sunday, 19 October 2003 13:05 (twenty-one years ago)

Alex you really need to check out Thomas Wiktor's 'In Cold Sweat'. Gene Simmons talks about 'music' almost exclusively and at great length, Jerry Casale talks about James Brown!

― dave q, Sunday, 19 October 2003 15:27 (twenty-one years ago)

Read it. Liked it, but chapter after chapter devoted to bass playing got a bit dry.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Sunday, 19 October 2003 23:41 (twenty-one years ago)

http://www.clubdevo.com/images/devoflyer.jpg

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Monday, 20 October 2003 15:31 (twenty-one years ago)

eight years pass...

When I'm flyin' round the world
And I'm doin' this and I'm tryin' that
And I'm tryin' to make some girl
Who tells me...baaaaabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybabybaby

― The Jupiter 8 (Turrican), Friday, 29 June 2012 15:33 (twelve years ago)

this truly is in like the top 5 or so of greatest albums ever released

― frogbs, Friday, 29 June 2012 15:42 (twelve years ago)

If you can't appreciate this album for the thing of unique brilliance that it is, truly someone has sucked the marrow of life out of your joyless bones.

WORD

― skip, Friday, 29 June 2012 15:44 (twelve years ago)

also I don't think ppl should be afraid to pick up anything up to New Traditionalists. NT is definitely where things started to go downhill but track-for-track that album is great. "Race of Doom" is definitely their most underappreciated tune in terms of pure catchiness

― frogbs, Friday, 29 June 2012 16:05 (twelve years ago)

.. it's not underappreciated in this house.

love it.

― mark e, Friday, 29 June 2012 16:10 (twelve years ago)

This is a great album but Duty Now For The Future is my favourite. I'd say the first five albums are all worth owning.

― Kitchen Person, Friday, 29 June 2012 18:44 (twelve years ago)

i'm with you up through new traditionalists, but i think there's some slippage visible on oh no! it's devo. are we not men? will always be my favorite.

― contenderizer, Friday, 29 June 2012 18:50 (twelve years ago)

Almost everything they did up to around 1982 is good to great. The anthology and Recombo DNA sets have a lot of great early stuff on it. Also there's like the Oh, No era B-side "Find Out" which was pretty good. I don't know how they got so godawful afterwards - not even just with their albums, but with everything. Like they went from "not really trying anymore, but still pretty fun" with Oh No to actively shitty with Shout (which had a few tracks I liked) to downright unbearable.

― frogbs, Friday, 29 June 2012 18:53 (twelve years ago)

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In Praise of....Q:Are We Not Men?... by Devo