Resquiescat in Pace Bob Casale

[drwex]

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.

Comments

[edichka2.livejournal.com]

DEVO changed me one night. I was in eighth grade. I stayed up late and watched SNL, which showed this: http://www.zappinternet.com/video/wegJvuGjuT/Devo-Jocko-Homo/ ). I was stunned. I had never imagined anything so aggressively weird. At that point in JHS I was starting to head toward social conformity, but this video convinced me that there was no such option for me.
- E

[drwex]

Excellent!

[edichka2.livejournal.com]

I saw DEVO in SF (or Oakland? I can't remember) in 1983, just before going off to college. Toward the end of the show I found a pair of cheap sunglasses -- extremely dark green plastic wraparounds -- on the floor with no one around to claim 'em. I danced in them for the rest of the show, enjoying my near-blindness.

Next day, DEVO was doing a record signing at a local record store (do those still exist?). I couldn't afford an album, but I brought the glasses, and Mark Mothersbaugh graciously signed "MARK DEVO" across the lenses in orange grease pencil.

I later sprayed shellac on 'em to preserve the signature, but it faded anyway. With the shellac coating almost no light could get through, thus enhancing my dance experiences through the my college years.

I wish I could still find those glasses....
- E

[drwex]

It's still a great story.