Tossing and turning, I was thinking about Devo. Their anger and power and defiance, expressed by an impenetrable unified team, the sounds (some of which were used at the same time by Kitaro, go figure) and the intensity, the complete coordination of the message - music with cold and hot instruments, costumes, lights, videos, choreography. The all-around radness, top to bottom. They came into my house on a corporate label and top 40 radio and scared the crap out of me, in the best possible way.
I recently read a few post-'95 interviews with Mark Mothersbaugh and Gerry Casale, pre-reunion album and tour. They talk about the "subversion" in their work filming and writing music for advertising and children's entertainment. Their first crossover gig into mainstream national media--Mothersbaugh scoring Pee Wee's Playhouse--was exactly that. But, as that turned into a career, it seems they somehow found a way to disconnect from the reality that Rugrats (family friendly fart jokes on cable) ain't Pee Wee (queer children's television on CBS in the Reagan era).
I don't begrudge anyone a career, especially doing something relatively close to what you love to do. But PLEASE, do not embarrass your (then 45 year old, yet remarkably thirtysomething...Elliot!) self, and beshite the work you did as a 30 year old artist with the rocket fuel drive and laser focus of an Olympic athlete, by claiming the title 'Subversive' as you create advertisements for "Hawaiian Punch, Toyota... I dunno, just about everybody. 7-Up, Hershey's, Nestle's. Nike. Fila." From your home in the Hollywood hills.
The 1997 interview continues,
"We do everything from regional to international spots. We were just asked to collaborate on some projects for McDonald's which would include doing in-store merchandising for them, creating albums worth of music which would impart the message of Ronald McDonald and Barbie. Little do they know, our clients, that it would be through the filter of Devo. Our subliminal messages would be fully intact, and attached on like antioxidants working their way into the system."
Uh, yeah.
Here's the lyrics to a rap song I wrote trying to beg baby boomers (artist class, middle class and up) --the generation who had access to the best education, health care and economic prosperity in the history of the planet --to think about others as they move into retirement:
Boom Boom Baby
You know you're driving me crazy
You might live to be a hundred and five
So I'm pleading all you gentlemen and ladies...
Don't everybody love the taste of gasoline?
Inhale the vapors of the revolution that's green
Skeletons in your closet from pre-paleocene
We need to turn that wheel once more you know what I mean
That revolving has to evolve beyond the us that's Pri
Your IRA's and PDA's are like a disease--
A cancer
But a public display of affection just might be the answer
Like Emma Goldman says on the fridge in that squat,
"Only turn me on if I can be a dancer," or something like that.
I see that web like Chief Seattle said
Spun between three mahogany trees where the blind by the blind are led
To the slaughter: calves, golden or silicon
Breaking taboos and timezones, midnight marauders
{{One Nation, Under a Groove}}
Or a god, or figurehead--mastiff of global capital
Intractable, cold rap snackable
Delish--this is the secret of Roan Inish:
You get enough people to invest in your wish
But unlike Sayle-or Johnny, are you taking the piss? a celebrity kiss?
Pish posh in the mish mosh
Not real certain so you wish-wash
Now you haven't even factored in the time to make hay
While the sun's still shining, temperature risin'
Dido and Lilo phonin' Delilah
Phenome, genome project
"I'm gonna clone myself!"
The ultimate escapade in your Escalade
Now now, I wasn't gonna use the 'n' word
N - N - N - Narcissist!
{{Oh no he didn't!}} Yeah, of course he did
And wasn't it your generation that oversaw the superlatively massive buildup of the military industrial complex?
But you want me to feel Grateful that you liberated sex?
Well, this is Generation X
We rise up, and we say
Boom Boom Baby
You know you're driving me crazy
You might live to be a hundred and five
So I'm pleading all you gentlemen and ladies
Boom Boom Baby
Don't let nostalgia get you hazy
This is the winter of the summer of love
We're tired of hearing 'bout Dylan and Wavy Gravy...
Cuti:
Lo que vas a escuchar quizá sea duro
pero enfrentalo, che, acá estoy, soy el futuro
Hago ruido, música, planto un jardín, limpio mi casa
Cosecho para mi y para vos frutos maduros
Y de paso te cuento lo que pasa
Una mañana de los sesenta Dylan te voló la peluca
Demasiado LSD, caño, Alan Watts, hongos
Y quedaste de la nuca
Cambiaste de sexo, de Dios, de color, y de bandera--
Lo dijo Charly, no yo, no sos el que fuiste
Ni jamás serás lo que eras
Te quedó grande la escalera
Del enorme altar soñado
Y tus pasos no pudieron construir sobre lo hablado
Hipócrita, puto demócrata
Burguesa, burócrata
Te llevaste la esperanza de ser sinceros
Creer en algo y hacer revolución
Ahora cambiás solo de estación
A comprar una nueva televisión
Conocés mejor la palabra inversión
Vos a mi me provocás gran revulsión
Y pretendo cantarte esta canción
Bryce:
You're not pros at making prosperity a parity
Share a little of what you got
Pat yourself on the back and call it charity
That tightness in your solar plexus, that's a start
Who do you think's paying for your Lexus?
Let's have a heart to heart:
You think you've worked hard all your life
And you deserve what you've got
What about that farmer up in India?
You think that he's not? Not a hard worker?
Oh right, he's a shirker, sell him GMO seeds, emasculate a Gurkha
Then complain that his wife wears a burqa
"You've got everything you need, you're a boomer, you don't look baaaaack"
And you won't even listen to rap
Cause it's all about guns 'n hoes
No -- it's puns and prose
There but for the grace of funds he goes
This canon of the would-be incarcerated
Your style of life's been implicated
We 'bout to go toe to toe
With the rest of the world,
And the world says...
Boom Boom Baby
We won't go back to the eighties
You might live to be a hundred and five
So we're pleading all you gentlemen and ladies
Your retirement makes us nervous
Consider volunteer service
Instead of playing golf and getting Rolfed
Find some people not in your neighborhood to work with
Put all that power that you're wielding
Into community building
Plant gardens, teach an adult to read
Get yourself out of that center that you're shielding...
