DEVO’S NEW TRADITIONALISM IN ACTION
The soul you save may be your own.
“She has got the rap down right!” says Devo’s Jerry Casale with a mixture of admiration and awe. The waitress in the Garden coffee shop of Kansas City’s lavish Crown Center Hotel had brought us menus, taken our orders, delivered our lunches and presented the check without once altering her painted-on cheer or dropping her sunny disposition. Finally, when she said, all innocently, “I enjoyed having you,” in a little-girl voice, we couldn’t take it any more, and started acting like real snots. Imagine if one of those smiling yellow buttons had just served you a meal.
“Like the Stepford Wives,” Jerry ponders in amazement, before stopping, with lead singer Mark Mothersbaugh, to analyze an enormous mural formed completely of oddments—nuts, bolts, ceramic discs, dyed golf balls. Lots of anal objects here, said the pair, prodding at small holes. The massive display was like someone’s therapy treatment gone one step too far.