Devo Live: The Mongoloid Years [Live]

Editorial Reviews
From the Label
The world at large wasn't ready yet, but this is the live show that the as-yet unsigned Devo played in the early days -- the Devo show that hundreds, maybe thousands, witnessed and shook their heads at while the real geniuses slamdanced. Hear the historic first-ever performance of "Jocko Homo." Personally compiled by DEVO members Bob Casale, Gerry Casale, and Mark Mothersbaugh, this album captures 17 DEVO numbers just as they sounded before a major label promoted the hell out of them.

DEVO LIVE serves up three chunks of DEVO performance history. The CD's first nine songs were recorded in 1977 at the legendary birthplace of punk and new wave, Max's Kansas City in New York, and included scorching performances of "Mongoloid" and "Satisfaction." Little did they know at the time, it was this gig that launched these "sexy nerds with a sonic plan" into the major label stratosphere.

Recorded in December 1976, tracks 10-13 feature DEVO opening for the Dead Boys at Akron's dingy basement bar, The Crypt. Since the Dead Boys hated DEVO, it's not surprising that this now infamous gig ended in an on-stage fight ("Two minutes of classic unadulterated punk chaos," to quote the liner notes) between the two bands, thus forever linking DEVO to the U.S. punk music scene.

The last four tracks capture an even earlier gig, recorded on Halloween 1975 at a private concert for the Cleveland radio station WHK, for which they were hired as a joke to open for Sun Ra. Announced by none other than Murray the K., the set features the band's first ever performances of "Jocko Homo" and "I Need a Chick". Despite, or maybe perhaps because of this, DEVO managed to clear the entire auditorium. (Due to the wonders of digital technology, one can actually hear the shocked disbelief of an unsuspecting audience not quite ready for the earth-shattering question: "Are we not men?") Left stranded in the rubble, Sun Ra turned out an incredible performance to a near empty house.

Tracks:

Satisfaction (I Can't Get No)
Too Much Paranoias
Praying Hands
Uncontrollable Urge
Mongoloid
Smart Patrol/Mr. DNA
Gut Feeling Slap Your Mammy
Sloppy
Come Back Jonee
Clockout
Soo Bawls
Space Junk
Blockhead
Subhuman Woman
Bamboo Bimbo
Beulah
Jocko Homo/I Need A Chick

Customer Reviews:

IS HE NOT A MAN?!?!?!?!.......2005-01-04

If your looking for something like whip-it, don't look here. This album will either excite or enrage you. The best part is the concert from 1975, it's like a beautiful train wreck. Hearing the band do an angry version of "Jocko Homo" was the best part and having the audience of stoned hippies almost turn on them was another golden moment.

De-Evolution In Audio.......2001-12-13

Oh, those spudboys. They know how to piss off an audience. It's pefect for this to be in reverse chronological order, as we see the beginnings of chaos in Devo's famous 1977 performance at Max's Kansas City that sent 'em into the big time. Then we time warp to a show where Devo nearly gets into a fist fight after only a few songs. Poor spuds couldn't figure out what they were listening to!

The last part of the album, however, is the beautiful part. 1974, Devo's first gig. As the audience cowers, Devo verbally rapes them with constant shouts of "Are we not men?" Diving into the wonderfully vulgar "I Need A Chick" they are only stopped when the power is cut. Turning up your volume high-as-it-will-go and you'll hear Mark, Gerry and some of the local spuds almost kill each other.

Oh, yes, indeed. Devo Live: The Mongoloid years is well deserving of 5 stars, even with its tape hiss and 4 track sound. It's a testament to De-evolution.

DUTY NOW FOR THE FUTURE!

Are we not men?!! Yes, you are!!.......2001-11-17

Ok, I'll say this right away: I hate live music. It's fuzzy, distant, has annoying crowd noise, and just doesn't hook you in like the squeaky-clean studio version. However, the above two sentances are thrown out the window for this album. This ROCKS in every way.
This was Devo at their earliest, wildest, and most carefree. Long before the "I'm so agitated, I'd cry if you died!" Enigma years and long before "Whip It" forever shot them into the mainstream, the DEVO boys wore panty hose on their heads, pounded out noise on their guitars and synths, pissed off annoyed crowds, and LOVED it.
The CD gets better as it goes along, as each of the three gigs is more hostile than the next. Listen to Mark taunt the audience in the middle of "Praying Hands". It's a riot.
The last half of the album (their first ever live gig, 1975 AD) is worth the price alone. Not giving a flying futz about anything, they assault a whole audience of stoned hippies with noise blasts, intentionally-horrible singing, and the grand finale: a seemingly never-ending version of their anthem "Jocko Homo". Listen closely as the audience just can't answer the simple question: Are we not men? Just as things get out of control (a man gets on stage and threatens to beat the french fries out of the band),they end with the gleeful playground song "I Need A Chick".
Now, listen closer as ever before as a man snaps at Devo to get off the stage. Gerald Casale, always the hothead, snaps right back at him and they almost get into a fistfight, as a female accomplice of Gerry's tries to keep the situation under control. Even a roadie jumps in the fracas, delivering an insanely funny line, which cannot be repeated here.
No doubt, this is THE live album to have and it's nothing like the very happy laid-back "Now It Can Be Told: Devo Live At The Palace", recorded over 10 years later. Browse around the world wide wiggly web, and if you see this masterpiece, grab it up!! And remember, this is a man's CD....no Booji Boys!

Sexy Nerds with a Sonic Plan.......2001-06-17

Witness Devo confront the hostile audiences of Cleveland in 1975. Listen as they torture the "stoned urban hippies" with mutated alien synthesizer blasts of Subhuman Woman and the seemingly never-ending chants of "Are We Not Men?" "We are Devo!" of Jocko Homo. Near the end, some really disgruntled audience members threaten to beat the living skadoodles out of Jerry Casale and the other guys. The guys retaliate and what results is a hilarious showdown between the New Traditionalists and the ninnies & twits.

Okay, the whole album isn't that confrontational throughout, but fully enjoyable. The songs have much more energy than the studio versions and include some witty modifications. Praying hands has Mark Mothersbaugh asking the audience what they are doing with their hands! The CD liner booklet includes the experiences the guys had at each venue written in the usually witty style of Jerry Casale.

Hopefully the unedited version of Jocko Homo featured here will be released someday.

The sound of fear........1999-08-02

Imagine if you will, sitting in your comfortable suburban home with a soda, when suddenly a giant spaceship lands in your front room and four men wearing panty hose over their heads jump out and commence to beat the sh** out of you with rusty synthesizers and lobotomized guitars. They then proceed to take turns getting it on with your girlfriend and raiding your fridge. Now imagine the musical equivalent of this scene and you will have the last twenty five minutes of the Mongoloid years, one of the most amazing albums of all time. Keeping with the de evolution concept, this album begins with a fairly tame, although high energy set at Max's Kansas City circa 1977 and devolves through a rougher 1975 set, finally arriving at deevolution ground zero, the post industrial, radioactive sludge that is Devo's first gig, Akron, 1974. From the moment the band takes the stage, it's obvious that they have come to ruin lives. Within fifteen minutes the audience is howling for their blood, and the set ends prematurely when the promoters shut off the power. Mass tension ensues, and in the far background you can hear promises of violence. And all this perpetrated by four inauspicious looking little nerds. Annoying? Yes. Offensive? Yes. Incredibly dissonant? Indeed. But for anyone who might have forgotten, this record will remind you of what punk was originally all about: Pi**ing people off. I can't make up my mind whether this is high art or some cosmic joke, but it's sodding brilliant.

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