After a Friday night of UTTER HELL and about 3 hours of FITFUL sleep indeed, I forced myself over to the DEVOtional at Starwood Center... didn't want to go... all I wanted was for my precious machines to be fixed... but I was expected to "speak".
The minute I got there and saw the first straggling geeks in Power Dome Hats, my bad mood vanished and my joy returned.
I spent the rest of the day in a DEVOLVED HEAVEN. Honestly. It was SUCH a relief to go over to SOMEBODY ELSE'S CULT for awhile! For, my friends, I am an unabashed, shameless DEVO FANBOY GEEK. I was one before Mothersbaugh was saved in "Bob" and became a pal, and I'm still one. AND FOR GOOD REASON! Their stuff is TIMELESS. (Made more so by the fact that they were so widely "borrowed from" by mainstream bands and art designers over the years since). And... their message is TRUE.
I ranted on that fact later on, and what makes one a DEVOtee or a SubGenius... much like what I sermonized on at 4XD and Starwood. About our DISGUST with the DUMBASSERY around us, most especially OUR OWN (Thus the admission that we ARE all DEVO or we are indeed *SUB*genius.)... about being just smart enough to know how dumb you are, which puts you one jump ahead of many a spud on the street... about how, when Mick Jagger sang, "I can't get no girly action," it didn't ring true, but when you saw those spaznerds on Saturday Night Live in those yellow radiation suits jerking back and forth, and THEY said "I can't get no girly action, and I tried, and I tried, and I tr-tr-tr-tr-trtried," YOU BELIEVED IT.
About how "Ohio" I realized DEVO is, having lived here as a transplanted Texan long enough to have pinned down the particular smart-ass, unflappable, skeptical wise-guy accent and attitude common to Northern Ohioans.
But that was late in the evening. During the day we got to see TWO RECENT DEVO CONCERTS projected on video on a huge screen, with great sound. One was shot by a Mutato Muzika employee just a week ago when the Devoes played at a very VERY fancy private party for the opening of some big animation company, "kerchoo Productions" I think it was... oh, they looked 50, and red faced from singing and dancing, Mark huffed and puffed a bit, but THEY STILL HAVE IT!!! These prosperous-looking middle aged gents, PUNKED OUT!!! (Also they wisely stick to their older numbers, the real lively stuff from their heyday.)
And we saw a professionally shot and edited DEVO performance from the Sundance film festival.
Now get this.
It was a great show, performed in striped JAILBIRD SUITS... must have been their thing that year... at the end, for the encore, "Beautiful World," Booji Boy emerged. Wearing DIAPERS under a raincoat. At the climax of the song, HE REACHED DOWN INTO HIS DIAPERS AND, EXTRACTING HANDFULS OF POO-POO, FLUNG IT AT THE AUDIENCE. For like a MINUTE he was flinging "shit". (Hard to tell on the video, it was probably Tootsie Rolls or something like that.) I almost cried, I was so "moved." It reminded me of how GWAR ends concerts with Oderus singing "Sick of You" while urinating on the audience as if through a yellow-water fire hose.
But.. BEFORE the song... the forever-infantile Booji Boy made one of his quavery-voiced, uber-sincere heartfelt inspirational speeches. To paraphrase...
"Spuds... someday, we will go to a better place... a wonderful place called DEVO ISLAND. And... and we want to take ALL of you WITH us to DEVO Island! But... before we go... we want to do one thing... WE WANT TO *KILL* ALL THE NORMALS!!"
(immediate launch into "Beautiful World.")
AHHHHH!!!!!
Anyway... besides the movies, and the interview out-takes, and the incredible tables and cases of memorabilia, stuff that puts the so-called "Rock and Roll Hall of Fame" to SHAME... we also got to dance to THREE live bands, ending with a wonderful KARAOKE set that many joined in on (not me). I was SHOCKED to see that my old friend Rev. Toth Wilder has a BEAUTIFUL VOICE!
The main concert was by DUTY NOW FOR THE FUTURE, Earth's Best DEVO Research and Emulation Band. They sure know their DEVO. Their usual lead singer couldn't make it, so the Mothersbaugh position was filled by Rev. Scott Orsi, the SubGenius who was the host of this particular DEVOtional. Michael Pilmer, who set up the first one last year, has an AWFUL voice, incidentally. (But god DAMN he had some good 'frappy.)
AND, I and volunteer swaggartist Rev. Thea (now Rev. GirlUWant) sold a Membership! Welcome aboard the good ship Dobbs, REVEREND SPAZZTECH LUXX!! (Temple of the High-Velocity G-String).
AND WE DANCED THE NIGHT AWAY!!
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