Ken Scott - Devo - Duty Now For The Future

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by Buzzcat, Jun 26, 2007.

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  1. soundQman

    soundQman Senior Member

    Location:
    Arlington, VA, USA
    Well, it does feel a little strange when I reflect on it. I'm not brazen in person, but on the internet...:laugh:
     
  2. soundQman

    soundQman Senior Member

    Location:
    Arlington, VA, USA
    Different strokes for different folks, I guess. I've noticed that when bands have different recorded versions of songs, the one you like best often depends on which you heard first. I heard the album first and sought out the indy singles on Bomp later. Its interesting to get your perspective. I think the album versions were very much in keeping with Devo's stated goals, regardless of comments they made in retrospect. They wanted to reinvent rock and roll around synths and keyboards. Their goal was to make the nastiest little rock record they could using a different language or musical vocabulary than the traditional guitar-based approach. So I thought the album versions were in keeping with that direction. I also think that Jocko Homo and Satisfaction had a kind of frenetic, clanking, machine-like energy that the singles lacked, including the drum sound. The singles were a bit plodding and clumsy by comparison, to my ears, though your points about the more organic and forward sound of the vocals and drums are well taken. These are trade-offs, but I prefer the choices for sonic style made on the album tracks.
     
  3. jkauff

    jkauff Senior Member

    Location:
    Akron, OH
    Those synths weren't cheap at all. They were cutting-edge Prophet-5 units--but they were indeed unpredictable and idiosyncratic. Jim Mothersbaugh did a fantastic job keeping them up and running--he knew so much about maintaining them that the Prophet folks (Sequential Circuits) hired him!
     
  4. soundQman

    soundQman Senior Member

    Location:
    Arlington, VA, USA
    OK, I guess I meant the tones they used sounded cheap and primitive (but interesting and good for the music). I never knew what the equipment cost was, though.
     
  5. In the early photos and videos I've seen the synths were little Roland units and the like, such as http://www.synthmuseum.com/roland/rolsh901.html

    The likes of the Prophet-5 did not hit till the late 70's. Q&A hit the market the same year the Prophet-5 hit. I could be wrong, but I highly doubt the Spuds had a P-5 very-very early on. Unless they were really fortunate and ordered a unit before Mr. Moog saw the P-5 at a show and persuaded Sequential Circuits to double the MSRP, the price would have been 5000USD. Maybe I'm all wrong, but I doubt Devo had the funds to get one of these until money started rolling in from Q&A. Now by the time I saw them live on 1/1/80 they were decked out!
     
  6. jkauff

    jkauff Senior Member

    Location:
    Akron, OH
    True, but Devo was not signed to Warner until the late 70s. They were using Prophets in the later sessions at Mark Price's Bushflow Studios in Akron before they hooked up with Brian Eno. I don't remember for sure, but I think the band bought their Prophets with their Virgin advance in 1977.
     
  7. tspit74

    tspit74 Senior Member

    Location:
    Woodridge, IL, USA
    The Prophet 5 didn't appear until '79. When it did, it revolutionized the synth industry.
     
  8. soundQman

    soundQman Senior Member

    Location:
    Arlington, VA, USA
    Are We Not Men? was done in 1977 so they apparently couldn't have used it on that album. Which makes sense. I seem to remember now that they talked about the new synths and how it was changing their sound in interviews later on, after the big splash with their first record.
     
  9. The Keymaster

    The Keymaster Forum Resident

    Location:
    So Cal, USA
    I can't say that applies to me. I heard the album versions first of the Q&A songs, but in some cases prefer the basement demos (and live versions).

    I think this is an important point that gets overlooked by critics who seem to pan their later, more synth-based albums outright. They specifically stated that they wanted to de-emphasize guitars as early as 1978.

    Is that part about a "nasty little rock record" a paraphrasing of something they had said? I haven't found that much biographical material on them through the years.
     
  10. The Keymaster

    The Keymaster Forum Resident

    Location:
    So Cal, USA
    This is my thinking as well. Eno tried to make the debut album "arty" with his treatments, instead of letting the songs speak for themselves. But in those days, when you went to Eno to produce your album (or collaborate on songs, in the case of Bowie), that's what you were going to get. To me, "Duty Now" is a more accurate snapshot of how the band really sounded.

    Similarly, I've always found it interesting that many claim Eno captured Taking Heads' live sound on "More Songs About Buildings And Food," when to me it's the Tony Bongiovi-produced "Talking Heads 77" that sounds much more live and fresh. Listening to the live takes of the "77" songs on "The Name Of This Band Is Talking Heads" proves my point. There is almost no difference.
     
    mikmcmee likes this.
  11. This philosophy was by no means unique to them in the pre-new wave era.
     
  12. The Keymaster

    The Keymaster Forum Resident

    Location:
    So Cal, USA
    Maybe, maybe not, but it still makes no sense when critics deride Devo for it. Some folks make it seem as if the band's sound got "watered down" with the increased use of synthesizers, but my point is that was Devo's explicit goal from the getgo.
     
  13. Did ya' ever see them live in the 80's or 70's?
     
  14. The Keymaster

    The Keymaster Forum Resident

    Location:
    So Cal, USA
    I have plenty of recordings of those shows, both audial and visual. You will never convince me that the thin, futzed with recordings on Q&A are closer to the organic Devo sound than the recordings on "Duty Now." A lot of Q&A sounds like it was recorded down a well compared to "Duty Now."

    The irony is that I bet "Duty Now" has more overdubs than Q&A.
     
  15. I saw Devo 4 times in the 80's. The best show for me was the Duty Now tour. And you are correct the thin aspect of the recording on Q&A was not representative of their concert sound. But Devo was very good at translating the sound and feel of each album to the audience. Heck, even the last tune on Q&A was turned into a whole Christian-like band called Dove the Band of Love and used as an opening band that opened for the real opening band (some horrid start-up band called "X"). They would change clothes and the whole bit for each phase their De-evolution. Even the Booji Boy show was like a whole other act!
     
  16. If not, then how do you think the new wave synth sound got created? it took a huge push to move aside the guitar oriented rock of the 70's. A radio station here in Los Angeles went under in part because the "new" synth sounds coming about.
     
  17. The Keymaster

    The Keymaster Forum Resident

    Location:
    So Cal, USA
    I'm glad we agree on that.

    I've also seen footage of Dove playing a funny, watered down version of "Praying Hands" as well as "It Takes A Worried Man." They were also in the film "Pray TV."

    I hope you're kidding about X being horrid, though.
     
  18. The Keymaster

    The Keymaster Forum Resident

    Location:
    So Cal, USA
    I feel like I'm repeating myself ad nauseum here. Yes, of course there were other bands with similar goals, but my original point (in post #110) was specifically about Devo and its critics who derided them for the increased use of synthesizers, in response to soundQman's point about Devo wanting to reinvent rock.
     
  19. Pope V

    Pope V Lurker

    Location:
    Missouri

    I can't find anything major with "Race of Doom" either.

    BUT - on the DNFTF portion, I've got these dropouts:

    Timing X - about :40
    Wiggly World - about 1:27
    Blockhead - about 1:14, 2:14, and 2:42
    Strange Pursuit - about :50, 1:26, and 2:04

    I've got old cassettes less chewed than this thing.
     
  20. The Keymaster

    The Keymaster Forum Resident

    Location:
    So Cal, USA
    Ah, I knew I wasn't going crazy. :)

    Like I said, I gave the disc away five or six years ago, so I don't have a solid list of the anomalies. I'm positive mine had a tape glitch on "Race Of Doom," though. I think it's after the first "I wanna be your time bomb" line and is more audible on headphones.

    So no, it's not major, but it's not present on the IZ remaster either.
     
  21. jsayers

    jsayers Just Drifting....

    Location:
    Horse Shoe, NC
    I still don't get the difference between the OOP Infinite Zero cd, besides the 2 b-sides added> and the in print Collectables cd. Mine sounds great, and I don't care for the b-sides, so do I REALLY need to seek out the IZ cd?

    It appears the band had nothing to do with either version - same masters?

    On a side-note, I picked up the "Greatest Misses" cd tonight that has four "Booji Boy" versions of Devo songs. I hadn't heard these in ages - I liked them! I reckon that's the only way these four early Devo tracks are in print right now....
     
  22. surfingelectrode

    surfingelectrode Active Member

    Location:
    Lutz, FL
    My DEVO CD collection is a big mishmash of different releases from different companies.

    I've got the current Warner Q/A and Freedom of Choice, the Collectables New Traditionalists, the Infinite Zero Oh, No! It's DEVO, and the Enigma Total DEVO and Smoothnoodlemaps.

    I think that the Infinite Zero release is better than the only Collectables release that I can compare it to (different album, I know) in pretty much every way possible, from sound, presentation with actual liner notes, and to having bonus tracks, although putting remixes of Here To Go on Oh, No! is pretty odd. I'd compare them to the Ryko Bowie releases, except for the fact that the Rykos aren't so damn hard to find.

    Well, DEVO was pretty much a post-punk band from the start, not a glossy eighties new-wave band like they de-evolved into.

    I'm not sure if single versions are the same as the ones of the Be Stiff EP, which I prefer to the tracks from Q/A, not only for the rawer sound, but for the extra 'O-hi-o' verse in Jocko Homo.
     
  23. Ok, taken in a vacuum, true. It just sounds so sterile though.
     
  24. The Keymaster

    The Keymaster Forum Resident

    Location:
    So Cal, USA
    Devo thought punk rock was obsolete and their intent was to de-emphasize guitars. If they had had the tools, resources and money to make a synthpop album like "New Traditionalists" in 1978, maybe they would have.

    I sometimes wonder if they had their career plan mapped out from the very beginning.

    As far as "glossy" goes...I have a friend who can't stand synthesizers but likes Devo because of how aggressive their albums are. I'm not sure I'd refer to any of their albums as "glossy."
     
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