I found this page on the net that has an interview with Mark
Mothersbaugh. Check out what he says to the guy when he asks him about
the Church of the SubGenius. It's almost near the end of the page.
http://members.aol.com/jerec7/devo.html
JereC7: Speaking of technology, do you guys ever check out the Devo Web sites that your fans have created?
Mark: Yeah, sure. I look at 'em all.
JereC7: A lot of them seem very faithful to what the band was about.
Mark: Yeah. That's what's encouraging. It seems like people get it. We used to be very misinterpreted twenty years ago. If you said something about de-evolution back in the '70s, those were fighting words. People would go, "You guys are cynical assholes!" Now, you talk about de-evolution and people go, "Yeah, it's true, isn't it?" (laughs). If anything has happened, it's that Devo's theories have been proven correct.
JereC7: The media bombards us with it every day. It's evidence of that downward spiral you mentioned earlier.
Mark: You've just got to learn to not be uptight about it. Learn how to celebrate it.
JereC7: Is that where the Church of the Sub-Genius comes in? [Writer's note: the Church of the Sub-Genius is an internet-based "religion." It's a parody of religious cults and crooked televangelists. The "god" of the Church of the Sub-Genius is a man named Bob Dobbs].
Mark: I really like the Church of the Sub-Genius because we're kind of kindred spirits. Except that Bob Dobbs is a mischievous god. First, he tricked Devo into becoming followers. Then he talked us into leaving Warner Brothers, which was really a dumb idea. Then Bob thought we should sign with Enigma. He thought Enigma was a really cool label. So we signed with Enigma. But Bob was lying. Bob was playing a dirty trick on Devo.
JereC7: (waits in amused silence)
Mark: He's a slippery godhead. But that's kinda the beauty of it.
JereC7: What's your personal involvement in the Church of the Sub-Genius?
Mark: Well, I turned over everything I own -- both psychically, sexually, spiritually, and anthropomorphically -- to Bob Dobbs. It's like he took everything I gave him, and he slowly turned around, after heaping together everything that I'd given him -- and the rest of Devo, too -- he heaped them in a stack, turned around in the opposite direction, looking over his shoulder, and he dropped his pants, bent over, lit a match, and blew a big flame and melted all of our red hats, melted all of our equipment, melted all of our homes, melted our cars, our wives, our girlfriends, our children...he melted everything. Then he just let out a little laugh, lifted his pants back up, and said, "See ya later."
JereC7: I have absolutely no idea what to say.
Mark: (laughs) Well, that's basically our relationship to Bob Dobbs.
JereC7: To change the subject...
Mark: (laughs hysterically)
JereC7: ...I read the interview that Devo did with William Burroughs back in the '80s...
Mark: William Burroughs fondled Booji Boy's ass during the photo shoot for that interview [Writer's note: Booji Boy is a character Mark sometimes played onstage].
JereC7: Even during that interview, back in 1980, you guys were talking about a "church of De-evolution." Is that where the Church of the Sub-Genius evolved from?
Mark: You have to understand that we came from Akron, Ohio, which was one of the early spawning grounds for TV evangelism. I was always horrified by organized religion. TV evangelism took it to a whole new level. Before there was home network shopping, there was TV evangelism selling spirituality. That was pretty frightening yet hilarious at the same time. So we were transfixed by it. It made me both nauseous and erect. It was exciting yet idiotic. We had to do our own version of that. We were trying to exorcise those demons and to balance out the karma of the planet in our own small way. That's what we were trying to do.
Original file name: Mark M. on "Bob"
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