February 24th, 2015
Gerald Casale talks "Hardcore DEVO Live!" with MusicFilmWeb
The theory of de-evolution took musical shape in the basements of Akron, Ohio, where a bunch of ex-Kent State University art students – galvanized by the infamous 1970 killing of campus anti-war protesters by National Guardsmen – spent the mid ’70s honing their satiric notion of human regression into something like, but also very unlike, a rock band. Devo would come to call the songs they made then “Hardcore Devo,” and with a few exceptions like “Jocko Homo” and “Gut Feeling,” those experiments and oddities stayed in basement until the early ’90s, when the band released a pair of demo compilations. Occasionally – very occasionally – one or two might be trotted out live.
That changed, ever so briefly, last year. To mark their 40th anniversary, Devo went on a mini-tour performing 20-some of those old songs on a mock-basement stage in a show that served as a sort of visual and sonic narrative of the band’s, well, evolution, before their emergence as conceptual cult favorites and unlikely MTV darlings. These 10 gigs also served as a tribute to Devo guitarist Bob Casale, aka Bob 2, who passed away at age 61 while the tour was still in the planning stages.
For the many unlucky spuds, Devotees, and beautiful mutants who missed those shows, there’s Hardcore Devo Live! a concert film of this milestone set that comes out for home consumption today via MVD Entertainment Group and is available for stream and download as of right now at our VOD site, MusicFilmWeb.tv (and at the end of this article).
Directed by Keirda Bahruth, who previously made the excellent music documentary Bob and the Monster, Hardcore Devo Live! kinetically captures the band reclaiming their musical past with unbridled brio, intercut with interviews with original members Gerald Casale, Mark Mothersbaugh, and “Bob 1? Mothersbaugh. (If you’re in the Chicagoland area we suggest you wait until April and a special screening at the Chicago International Movies & Music Festival, presented by director Bahruth, about which we’ll have more details next month.)
Devo may have come a long way from their angry, alienated Ohio youth – bassist, singer, and co-conceptualist Gerald Casale, for example, lives in Santa Monica, and when he’s not being Devo he runs a winery that will release its second batch of pinot noirs and rosés this spring. But he’s also more convinced than ever that, in a crumbling national structures, globalized corporatism, and ISIS, de-evolution is real. “I don’t talk to anybody that thinks it’s even an art school joke anymore,” Casale told MFW when we Skyped with him about this and other matters ahead of the Hardcore Devo Live! release.
Read the full interview at MusicFilmWeb
That changed, ever so briefly, last year. To mark their 40th anniversary, Devo went on a mini-tour performing 20-some of those old songs on a mock-basement stage in a show that served as a sort of visual and sonic narrative of the band’s, well, evolution, before their emergence as conceptual cult favorites and unlikely MTV darlings. These 10 gigs also served as a tribute to Devo guitarist Bob Casale, aka Bob 2, who passed away at age 61 while the tour was still in the planning stages.
For the many unlucky spuds, Devotees, and beautiful mutants who missed those shows, there’s Hardcore Devo Live! a concert film of this milestone set that comes out for home consumption today via MVD Entertainment Group and is available for stream and download as of right now at our VOD site, MusicFilmWeb.tv (and at the end of this article).
Directed by Keirda Bahruth, who previously made the excellent music documentary Bob and the Monster, Hardcore Devo Live! kinetically captures the band reclaiming their musical past with unbridled brio, intercut with interviews with original members Gerald Casale, Mark Mothersbaugh, and “Bob 1? Mothersbaugh. (If you’re in the Chicagoland area we suggest you wait until April and a special screening at the Chicago International Movies & Music Festival, presented by director Bahruth, about which we’ll have more details next month.)
Devo may have come a long way from their angry, alienated Ohio youth – bassist, singer, and co-conceptualist Gerald Casale, for example, lives in Santa Monica, and when he’s not being Devo he runs a winery that will release its second batch of pinot noirs and rosés this spring. But he’s also more convinced than ever that, in a crumbling national structures, globalized corporatism, and ISIS, de-evolution is real. “I don’t talk to anybody that thinks it’s even an art school joke anymore,” Casale told MFW when we Skyped with him about this and other matters ahead of the Hardcore Devo Live! release.
Read the full interview at MusicFilmWeb