Devo, complete with costumes, ready for Napa invasion

Devo will perform at 8 p.m. Sunday at the Uptown Theatre in Napa. (Courtesy photo)

FAIRFIELD — “Whip it. Whip it good.”

Devo, the band behind the tune “Whip It,” is making its first appearance in the Napa Valley Sunday, after breaking in to the music scene with a 1978 performance on “Saturday Night Live.”

Devo

• 8 p.m. Sunday
• Uptown Theatre, 1350 Third St., Napa
• 259-0123
• http://www.uptowntheatrenapa.com
• http://www.clubdevo.com

That was followed by being among the first artists on the fledgling MTV. However, that relationship quickly went sour, said original member Gerald Casale.

Casale called it a “mixed bag” on how important the MTV network was in bringing the Akron, Ohio, group to the forefront. Devo fared best with shows such as “Saturday Night Live,” “The Merv Griffin Show” and “The Phil Donahue Show.”

“They took us in a big way to the masses,” Casale said.

Like MTV and the music business, Devo changed over the past three decades.

“We went from being young to being senior citizens,” Casale said, with a chuckle.

The group has never excluded itself from the theory of “devolution” and has stopped being “shocking and polarizing,” Casale said.

He compares Devo today to the house band on the Titanic.

“We’re here to make you have a better time,” he said.

While Devo performances aren’t as over-the-top as in the past, Casale said the Napa show is not for those who just expect the band to stand on stage and perform.

“We’ll be doing all the things people want. We’ll take a seamless trip through Devo’s career from beginning to now,” he said. ”There will be songs from every era. Costume changes. A video wall. A lot of communication with the audience.”

And the band stays around after the show and is happy to sign autographs. After all, Casale added, he’s inked everything from hats to food and body parts.

A wine collector, Casale said the Napa show is close to his heart. He has a friend who recently purchased 24 acres in the Napa Valley and Casale and he will grow grapes together.

Devo took its name from de-evolution, the idea man is regressing, not progressing. It’s something the band still believes today. While there have been plenty of technological innovations, they haven’t really helped man evolve, Casale said.

“There has been ‘progress’ with information sharing. But it’s a neutral tool in and of itself. It’s how people use it that makes it interesting or not,” Casale said.

“It seems every new tech tool is used to present more and more melodic, dumb, distracting stuff. We are caught up in trivial pursuits more than ever before. We are turning our back on the real issues.”

The band was caught off guard by the success of “Whip It,” which peaked at No. 14 on the Billboard Hot 100 Chart and went on to rank No. 62 on VH-1′s 100 Greatest Songs of the ’80s and No. 15 on the same channel’s 100 Greatest One-Hit Wonders of the ’80s.

“Devo never sat around trying to write what they thought people wanted to hear. None of us went, ‘this is a hit.’ No one listened and said ‘there is your hit Devo. That’s a good song,’ ” Casale said.

In 2010, Devo released its first album of new material in almost two decades. They took a non-Devo approach to “Something for Everybody.”

The art of song writing was extended to marketing, as focus groups were used to help choose the tracks. The band went with the ad agency Mother, as they are the “ad busters of the ad world,” Casale said. The marketing campaign was about marketing, done tongue-in-cheek.

Devo recently wrote and recorded the theme song for the new SyFy show “Monster Man,” which centers on Cleve Hall, a creature fabricator for almost 30 years.

That song will probably be released on iTunes when the show premieres, Casale said.

There’s also chatter about delving into the archives and bringing unreleased material to the light of day. Those tunes, along with the “Monster Man” song, might just be the next CD, Casale hinted.

As for music’s role in today’s society, Casale said it remains “important” but is “diminishing.” Rather than putting out a body of cohesive work for people to sit down and listen to, today’s music is more like background chatter, he added.

Casale does listen to music and has come across a few acts he really likes. He listed the now-defunct LCD Soundsytem, the English musical duo The Ting Tings, The Kills and LMFAO as artists he enjoys.

Reach Amy Maginnis-Honey at 427-6957 or amaginnis@dailyrepublic.net.

Short URL: http://www.dailyrepublic.com/?p=125145

Posted by Amy Maginnis-Honey on Jan 13 2012.

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