Devo formed in Akron, Ohio in 1973, taking their name from the concept of "de-evolution" and the band's related idea that instead of continuing to evolve, mankind had begun to regress, as evidenced by the dysfunction and herd mentality of American society. In the late 1960s, this idea was developed as a joke by Kent State University art students Gerald Casale and Bob Lewis, who created a number of satirical art pieces in a devolution vein, while at the same time Casale was also performing with the local band 15-60-75 (The Numbers Band). They met Mark Mothersbaugh around 1970, who was a talented keyboardist playing with the band Flossy Bobbitt, to whom he brought a more humorous feel, introducing them to material like the pamphlet "Jocko Homo Heavenbound", which includes an illustration of a winged devil labelled "D-EVOLUTION" and would later inspire the song 'Jocko Homo'. The "joke" about de-evolution became serious following the Kent State shootings of May 4, 1970, and this event would be cited multiple times as the impetus for forming the band Devo. The first form of the group was the Sextet Devo, which performed at the 1973 Kent State Performing Arts festival, and included Casale, Lewis and Mothersbaugh, as well as Gerald's brother Bob Casale on guitar, and friends Rod Reisman on drums and Fred Weber on vocals. This performance was filmed and a part was included on the home video The Complete Truth About De-Evolution, but this lineup performed only once, and when Devo returned to perform in the Student Governance Center in 1974 they had trimmed down to the Casale brothers, Bob Lewis, Mark Mothersbaugh, and his brother Jim Mothersbaugh on drums.
The band continued to perform, generally as a quartet, but with a fluid lineup including Mark's brothers Bob Mothersbaugh on guitar and Jim Mothersbaugh providing percussion using a set of home-made electronic drums. As well as gigging they also recorded a lot of material on a four-track machine in the Mothersbaugh's basement, and a number of these home recordings have surfaced on the two excellent 'Hardcore' compilations. These albums are collections of demos recorded by the band between 1974 and 1977, some of which were early versions of their best known tracks that would later be re-recorded and used on subsequent records, such as 'Jocko Homo', 'Mongoloid', and 'Satisfaction', but the majority of the tracks were never re-used and remained unreleased until the 'Hardcore' compilations appeared. The albums were released in 1985 and quickly went out of print for over 20 years, until they were re-issued in 2013, and two further volumes have surfaced more recently, but these are all now extremely hard to track down. I was interested in the 'evolution' of the band (pun intended) and so split the recordings into the individual years that they were taped, and this gives us three excellent albums of around 40 minutes each from 1974, 1975 and 1976, so with some contemporary cover art added, here is the first of them by a band that can truly be classed as unique.
Track listing
01 Can You Take It
02 A Plan For U
03 The Rope Song
04 Be Stiff
05 All Of Us
06 Buttered Beauties
07 I Need A Chick
08 Jocko Homo
09 I'm A Potato
10 Ono
11 I Been Refused
12 Man From The Past
