DEVO Live: The Mongoloid Years
| DEVO Live: The Mongoloid Years | ||||
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| Live album by Devo | ||||
| Released | 1992 | |||
| Recorded | 1975-1977 | |||
| Genre | Art punk, new wave, post-punk | |||
| Label | Rykodisc | |||
| Producer | Devo | |||
| Devo chronology | ||||
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| allmusic |   |
DEVO Live: The Mongoloid Years is a live album consisting of recordings from three early Devo performances.
The album presents parts of three Devo concerts from their early days, presented in reverse chronological order: Max's Kansas City in November 1977 (mislabeled as May 1977), The Crypt in Akron in December 1976, and the WHK Auditorium in Cleveland on Halloween 1975. The concerts were recorded on four-track tape by the band, and the selections are described by Gerald Casale as "the best of the only audio tapes that escaped total disintegration over the last 15 years" in the liner notes.
The album includes an essay and description of the shows presented penned by Gerald Casale, titled "The rest, as they say, is De-evolution." It describes both the environment of the shows, and the development of the early band.
Covering tracks 1 through 9, this concert is noted as being introduced by David Bowie, who called Devo "The band of the future," and offered to produce their first album. It shows an early Devo at the top of their performance. According to Casale's essay, the day after the show, in Akron, the band began to receive phone calls from record labels.
The band performed two sets at this show. The performance on the CD is the early set, save for "Come Back Jonee" from the later set. In 2014, the Max's Kansas City tracks were re-released as a limited edition LP with recovered audio of David Bowie's introduction.
This concert covers tracks 10 through 13 and is a performance of Devo opening for The Dead Boys. At the time, there was a feud between fans of Devo and The Dead Boys and a fist fight, allegedly started by Cheetah Chrome, occurred during the show.
This was one of the first shows with drummer Alan Myers.
The remainder of the disc is a very early Devo concert, featuring the quartet lineup of the band which included Jim Mothersbaugh on electronic drums. The band had been hired as a joke to open for Sun Ra at a private party, and had been billed as a cover band. They are introduced by local radio personality Murray Saul.
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Wikipedia