This one intrigued me when I looked ahead. It’s not a band I’d heard of, and the title suggested it could be anything (but would probably not be entirely serious). As it turns out, I have not only heard at least one Devo track (Gut Feeling) since it was used on the soundtrack to The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (Wes Anderson film), but also heard other works by frontman Mark Mothersbaugh, notably the theme tune for Disenchantment and the music from Rugrats.
Mothersbaugh is joined by his brother Robert (known as Bob 1 in the band) and by Gerald Casale and *his* brother Robert (Bob 2). The Casales tend towards the rear of the band (Gerald on bass, Bob 2 on rhythm guitar) while the Mothersbaugh’s towards the front on lead guitar and keyboards. All have vocal credits.
Musically we’re in New Wave territory, bearing elements of Talking Heads but also involving the dadaist humour of Zappa and a general sense of larking about – the herky jerky cover of the Rolling Stone’s Satisfaction, for example. They have a touch of the B-52s surf-guitar on Praying Hands, and the songs are usually silly lyrics over repetitive new-wave beats. The title comes from a track called Jocko Homo where it forms a robotically-chanted refrain to fade out, for example.
For all that, the music is pretty good; like a lot of Zappa’s work they’re not just joke tracks for the sake of joking around; the band likes to play with music as well as words and although it’s maybe not to everybody’s taste it’s still good. I was thinking that if New Wave was the colour purple, across bands like this, Magazine, Talkings Heads, The Adverts etc. you’ve got shades of purple from pale lilac to deep maroon – all clearly part of the same family, but also as different from each other as it’s still possible to be. I also got elements of They Might Be Giants, that same combination of playing around and being serious at the same time.
The album features Eno as a producer (he's a busy boy this year), and there’s a similarity in some ways to the first Roxy Music album, the vocals in the same kind of tight-throat form that Bryan Ferry did at that time. David Bowie and Konrad “Conny” Plank also get production credits, which explains why there’s that Berlin Trilogy tightness to the tracks. Excessive wackiness can pall fairly quickly, but this is fun once in a while.
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