Tag Archives: Devo

Devo – The Day My Baby Gave Me a Surprize (1979)

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by 1970s • Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

A seminal New Wave synthpop album, Duty Now for the Future was eventually heralded as one of the first pop/rock or AOR releases of a major record label to rely heavily on synthesizers, which went on to be widely used in the subsequent New Wave genre of the 1980s. As an offshoot of punk rock, New Wave music had consisted primarily of guitar-based songs derived from traditional rock and roll and blues scales and riffs, as represented by Devo’s punk contemporaries The Sex Pistols, The Ramones and The Clash. Legendary Punk Rock icon Henry Rollins is among the many musicians that praise the album’s innovations. Rollins’ short-lived Infinite Zero reissue label (an offshoot of American Recordings) was responsible for the first U.S. CD release of Duty Now for the Future in 1994. The album had been continually overlooked by original label Warner Brothers. The 1995 US CD issue on Infinite Zero Archive/American Recordings (the first American version on CD) came with two bonus tracks: the “Secret Agent Man” single b-side “Soo Bawlz” (written by Mark Mothersbaugh) and the Brian Eno-produced “Penetration in the Centrefold,” (written by G.V. Casale and M. Mothersbaugh), originally the B-side of the UK release of “The Day My Baby Gave Me a Surprize.”







[via Henrik Møll on Bongorama]

Beak – Deserters (2012)

by 2010s • Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

A mysterious, groggy post-punk fidget from Portishead’s Geoff Barrow and his two studio-rat pals (from Team Brick and Fuzz Against Junk), Beak> is a band that insists on antiquated limitations (all recording in one room, no overdubs, using tape) even though one-third of the band could be headlining Roseland at any minute. The result isn’t some Wasting Light go analog gimmick party, it’s weird, timeless gloom-funk where ancient-sounding electronics phase in Silver Apples wooze-glory, krautrock grooves melt into This Heat avant-punk minimalism, where Devo performs through a mouth full of cottonballs and a stomach full of Codiene. [Source] “Deserters” an ultra-scarce BEAK> MP3 which is unavailable unless you’re one of the 200 persons who buys the limited edition cassette at one of their four tour stops. [Source]




Klaus Nomi – Total Eclipse (1982)

by 1980s, Glam Rock, New Wave • Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Urgh! A Music War is a British film released in 1982 featuring performances by punk rock, New Wave, and post-punk acts, filmed in 1980. Among the artists featured in the movie are Magazine, The Go-Go’s, The Fleshtones, Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, XTC, Devo, The Cramps, Oingo Boingo, Dead Kennedys, Gary Numan, Wall of Voodoo, Pere Ubu, Steel Pulse, Surf Punks, 999, UB40, Echo & the Bunnymen, The Police and Klaus Nomi. These were many of the most popular groups on the New Wave scene; in keeping with the spirit of the scene, the film also features several less famous acts, and one completely obscure group, Invisible Sex, in what appears to be their single public outing.