Resquiescat in Pace Bob Casale
Reports are circulating that Bob Casale, one of the co-founders of Devo, has died at 61 apparently of heart failure. I am sad that one of the most inspiring and revolutionary voices of pop music is gone.
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/devo-guitarist-bob-casale-dead-at-61-20140218
It's probably not 100% true to say that had I not discovered Devo I would not have finished high school, but it's very close. I had heard "Mongoloid" when it first came out, and Duty Now for the Future hit at a time when I was becoming acutely aware of how absurd the world truly was. All around me were adults who kept on pretending it was still the 1950s or at least some TV-idealized version of that decade. To have a band making music that broke molds and stereotypes and that at the same time embraced the fundamental weirdness of life while pointing plastic-molded fingers at hypocrisy made me feel like I was not alone. It made me feel, oddly enough, like there was hope.
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/devo-guitarist-bob-casale-dead-at-61-20140218
It's probably not 100% true to say that had I not discovered Devo I would not have finished high school, but it's very close. I had heard "Mongoloid" when it first came out, and Duty Now for the Future hit at a time when I was becoming acutely aware of how absurd the world truly was. All around me were adults who kept on pretending it was still the 1950s or at least some TV-idealized version of that decade. To have a band making music that broke molds and stereotypes and that at the same time embraced the fundamental weirdness of life while pointing plastic-molded fingers at hypocrisy made me feel like I was not alone. It made me feel, oddly enough, like there was hope.