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Devo and DeLillo

Posted by Dave Segal at 11:57 AM

325px-DevoPromoAreWeNotMenEra.jpg

In his chapter on Pere Ubu and Devo in Rip It Up and Start Again, Simon Reynolds writes: “Rather than a keyboard, Devo treated the synth as a noise generator.” He goes on to quote band member Mark Mothersbaugh: “The more technology you have, the more primitive you can be. You can express guttural sounds, bird noises, brain waves, blood flow.”

This perceptive observation reminds me of a line from Don DeLillo’s 1985 novel White Noise: “The greater the scientific advance, the more primitive the fear.”

You could find worse ways to spend an afternoon than by reading White Noise while listening to Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo!

Comments

1

You gotta love the jumpsuits.

2

Or other combinations:

+Listening to the first three Ultravox albums whilst reading Thomas Disch's "The Genocides."

+Listening to Psychick TV's "Allegory & Self" whilst reading Baudelaire's "On Wine & Hashish"

+Listening to Lou Reed's "Street Hassle" whilst reading William Burroughs' "Queer"

et al

3

...Or watching TV and drinking beer.

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