Devo
Devo is an American rock band from Akron, Ohio formed in 1973. Their classic lineup consisted of two sets of brothers, the Mothersbaughs and the Casales, along with Alan Myers; the band had a No. 14 Billboard chart hit in 1980 with the single "Whip It", the song that gave the band mainstream popularity. Devo is known for their music and stage shows mingling kitsch science fiction themes, deadpan surrealist humor and mordantly satirical social commentary, their discordant pop songs feature unusual synthetic instrumentation and time signatures that have proven influential on subsequent popular music new wave and alternative rock artists. Devo was a pioneer of the music video, creating clips for the LaserDisc format, with "Whip It" getting heavy airplay in the early days of MTV; the name Devo comes from the concept of'de-evolution'—the idea that instead of continuing to evolve, mankind has begun to regress, as evidenced by the dysfunction and herd mentality of American society. In the late 1960s, this idea was developed as a joke by Kent State University art students Gerald Casale and Bob Lewis, who created a number of satirical art pieces in a devolution vein.
At this time, Casale had performed with the local band 15-60-75. They met Mark Mothersbaugh around 1970, a talented keyboardist, playing with the band Flossy Bobbitt. Mothersbaugh brought a more humorous feel to the band, introducing them to material like the pamphlet "Jocko Homo Heavenbound", which includes an illustration of a winged devil labelled "D-EVOLUTION" and would inspire the song "Jocko Homo"; the "joke" about de-evolution became serious following the Kent State shootings of May 4, 1970. This event would be cited multiple times as the impetus for forming the band Devo. Throughout the band's career, they would be considered a "joke band" by the music press; the first form of Devo was the "Sextet Devo" which performed at the 1973 Kent State performing arts festival. It included Casale and Mothersbaugh, as well as Gerald's brother Bob Casale on guitar, friends Rod Reisman and Fred Weber on drums and vocals, respectively; this performance was filmed and a part was included on the home video The Complete Truth About De-Evolution.
This lineup performed only once. Devo returned to perform in the Student Governance Center at the 1974 Creative Arts Festival with a lineup including the Casale brothers, Bob Lewis, Mark Mothersbaugh, Jim Mothersbaugh on drums; the band continued to perform as a quartet, but with a fluid lineup including Mark's brothers Bob Mothersbaugh and Jim Mothersbaugh. Bob played electric guitar, Jim provided percussion using a set of home-made electronic drums, their first two music videos, "Secret Agent Man" and "Jocko Homo" featured on The Truth About De-Evolution, were filmed in Akron, Cuyahoga Falls, the hometown of most members. This lineup of Devo lasted until 1976. Bob Lewis would sometimes play guitar during this period. In concert, Devo would perform in the guise of theatrical characters, such as Booji Boy and the Chinaman. Live concerts from this period were confrontational, would remain so until 1977. A recording of an early Devo performance from 1975 with the quartet lineup appears on DEVO Live: The Mongoloid Years, ending with the promoters unplugging Devo's equipment.
Following Jim Mothersbaugh's departure, Bob Mothersbaugh found a new drummer, Alan Myers, who played on a conventional, acoustic drum kit. Casale re-recruited his brother Bob Casale, the lineup of Devo remained the same for nearly ten years. Devo gained some fame in 1976 when the short film The Truth About De-Evolution directed by Chuck Statler won a prize at the Ann Arbor Film Festival; this attracted the attention of David Bowie, who began work to get the band a recording contract with Warner Music Group. In 1977, Devo were asked by Neil Young to participate in the making of his film Human Highway. Released in 1982, the film featured the band as "Nuclear garbagemen"; the band members were asked to write their own parts and Mark Mothersbaugh scored and recorded much of the soundtrack, his first of many. In March 1977, Devo released their first single "Mongoloid" b/w "Jocko Homo", the B-side of which came from the soundtrack to The Truth About De-Evolution, on their independent label Booji Boy.
This was followed by a cover of the Rolling Stones' " Satisfaction". In 1978, the B Stiff EP was released by British independent label Stiff, which included the single "Be Stiff" plus two previous Booji Boy releases. "Mechanical Man", a 4 track 7" EP of demos, an apparent bootleg but rumored to be put out by the band themselves, was released that year. Recommendations from David Bowie and Iggy Pop enabled Devo to secure a recording contract with Warner Bros. in 1978. After Bowie backed out of the business deal due to previous commitments, their first album, Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo! was produced by Brian Eno and featured re-recordings of their previous singles "Mongoloid" and " Satisfaction". On October 14, 1978, Devo gained national exposure with an appearance on the late-night show Saturday Night Live, a week after the Rolling Stones, performing " Satisfaction" and "Jocko Homo". After the band achieved this success, co-founder Bob Lewis asked for accreditation and compensation in 1978 for his contributions to the band.
The band refused to negotiate, sued Lewis in Los Angeles County Superior Court, seeking a declaratory judgment stating that Lewis had no rights to the name or theory of de-evolution. Lewis filed an action in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio, alleging theft of intellectua
Music genre
A music genre is a conventional category that identifies some pieces of music as belonging to a shared tradition or set of conventions. It is to be distinguished from musical form and musical style, although in practice these terms are sometimes used interchangeably. Academics have argued that categorizing music by genre is inaccurate and outdated. Music can be divided into different genres in many different ways; the artistic nature of music means that these classifications are subjective and controversial, some genres may overlap. There are varying academic definitions of the term genre itself. In his book Form in Tonal Music, Douglass M. Green distinguishes between form, he lists madrigal, canzona and dance as examples of genres from the Renaissance period. To further clarify the meaning of genre, Green writes, "Beethoven's Op. 61 and Mendelssohn's Op. 64 are identical in genre – both are violin concertos – but different in form. However, Mozart's Rondo for Piano, K. 511, the Agnus Dei from his Mass, K. 317 are quite different in genre but happen to be similar in form."
Some, like Peter van der Merwe, treat the terms genre and style as the same, saying that genre should be defined as pieces of music that share a certain style or "basic musical language." Others, such as Allan F. Moore, state that genre and style are two separate terms, that secondary characteristics such as subject matter can differentiate between genres. A music genre or subgenre may be defined by the musical techniques, the style, the cultural context, the content and spirit of the themes. Geographical origin is sometimes used to identify a music genre, though a single geographical category will include a wide variety of subgenres. Timothy Laurie argues that since the early 1980s, "genre has graduated from being a subset of popular music studies to being an ubiquitous framework for constituting and evaluating musical research objects". Among the criteria used to classify musical genres are the trichotomy of art and traditional musics. Alternatively, music can be divided on three variables: arousal and depth.
Arousal reflects the energy level of the music. These three variables help explain why many people like similar songs from different traditionally segregated genres. Musicologists have sometimes classified music according to a trichotomic distinction such as Philip Tagg's "axiomatic triangle consisting of'folk','art' and'popular' musics", he explains that each of these three is distinguishable from the others according to certain criteria. The term art music refers to classical traditions, including both contemporary and historical classical music forms. Art music exists in many parts of the world, it emphasizes formal styles that invite technical and detailed deconstruction and criticism, demand focused attention from the listener. In Western practice, art music is considered a written musical tradition, preserved in some form of music notation rather than being transmitted orally, by rote, or in recordings, as popular and traditional music are. Most western art music has been written down using the standard forms of music notation that evolved in Europe, beginning well before the Renaissance and reaching its maturity in the Romantic period.
The identity of a "work" or "piece" of art music is defined by the notated version rather than by a particular performance, is associated with the composer rather than the performer. This is so in the case of western classical music. Art music may include certain forms of jazz, though some feel that jazz is a form of popular music. Sacred Christian music forms an important part of the classical music tradition and repertoire, but can be considered to have an identity of its own; the term popular music refers to any musical style accessible to the general public and disseminated by the mass media. Musicologist and popular music specialist Philip Tagg defined the notion in the light of sociocultural and economical aspects: Popular music, unlike art music, is conceived for mass distribution to large and socioculturally heterogeneous groups of listeners and distributed in non-written form, only possible in an industrial monetary economy where it becomes a commodity and in capitalist societies, subject to the laws of'free' enterprise... it should ideally sell as much as possible.
Popular music is found on most commercial and public service radio stations, in most commercial music retailers and department stores, in movie and television soundtracks. It is noted on the Billboard charts and, in addition to singer-songwriters and composers, it involves music producers more than other genres do; the distinction between classical and popular music has sometimes been blurred in marginal areas such as minimalist music and light classics. Background music for films/movies draws on both traditions. In this respect, music is like fiction, which draws a distinction between literary fiction and popular fiction, not always precise. Country music known as country and western, hillbilly music, is a genre of popular music that originated in the southern United States in the early 1920s; the polka is a Czech dance and genre of dance music familiar throughout Europe and the Americas. Rock music is a broad genre of popular music that originated as "rock and roll" in the United States in the early 1950s, developed into a range of different styles in the 1960s and particular
Tommy Gun (song)
"Tommy Gun" is a song by the British punk rock band The Clash, released as the first single from their second album Give'Em Enough Rope. Joe Strummer said that he got the idea for the song when he was thinking about terrorists, how they enjoy reading about their killings as much as movie stars like seeing their films reviewed. While Topper Headon mimics the sound of gangster movie shootings with quick snare hits and the guitars are full of distortion and feedback, Strummer's sarcastic lyrics condemn rather than condone violence: at the end of the song he sings, If death comes so cheap/Then the same goes for life! In the liner notes of the Singles Box, Carl Barat, says that "Tommy Gun" was important for music at the time because it let people know what was going on in the world—it talked about real issues, he says, It's a product of the volatile climate of the late seventies - all those references to terrorist organizations like Baader-Meinhof and The Red Brigades. It's like a punk rock adaptation of The Beatles' "Revolution".
Joe Strummer - lead vocals, rhythm guitar Mick Jones - lead guitar, backing vocals Paul Simonon - bass guitar Topper Headon - drums Mick Jones -, lead guitar, lead and, backing vocals Joe Strummer - rhythm guitar and lead vocals, piano Paul Simonon - bass guitar, backing vocals Topper Headon - drums Gary Barnacle - saxophones
Cut the Crap
Cut the Crap is the sixth and final studio album by the English punk band the Clash, released on 4 November 1985 by Epic Records. It was recorded in Munich, after Mick Jones, the Clash’s co-founder, lead guitarist and principal songwriter, drummer Topper Headon were fired by vocalist Joe Strummer and bassist Paul Simonon, their manager Bernie Rhodes recruited then-unknown guitarists Vince White and Nick Sheppard, along with drummer Pete Howard, as stand-ins for Jones and Headon. Simonon does not appear on the album, Howard was replaced by an electronic drum machine; the songs were written by Strummer with input by Rhodes, who oversaw song arrangements, track sequencing, the final mix. The often-derided album title, taken from a line in the 1982 post-apocalyptic film Mad Max 2, was chosen by Rhodes; the album was maligned by the UK music press on release who viewed it as an incohesive, "catastrophic" betray of the punk ethos form one of the most important and respected first-generation punk bands.
Contemporary reviews described it as "one of the most disastrous released by a major artist and a complete failure artistically and commercially". Rhodes's production choices were derided; the band split up soon after its release. More critics tend to see the album in a favourable light noting Strummer's song writing and vocal performance on the tracks "This Is England", "Dirty Punk" and "North and South". Following a break after their performance at the 1983 US Festival, the Clash reconvened that June for rehearsals in London. Inter-personal tensions, evident throughout the previous year re-emerged with a few days; the strains stemmed from guitarist Mick Jones's use of a synthesizer he had acquired, as well as his frequent absences from rehearsals. By that point, relations between Jones and vocalist Joe Strummer had broken down. Jones refused to sign the new contract negotiated by manager Bernie Rhodes; the rehearsals were abandoned. Jones said that by this point their "relationship was... bad.
We weren't communicating. The group was dissipating". Not long into rehearsals, in late August or early September, Strummer fired Jones. A week before the official announcement of the dismissal, Strummer and Rhodes met Howard in a pub, where Strummer said he'd sacked Mick Jones, whom he described as "a fucking cunt"; the band placed anonymous advertisements for a replacements in Melody Maker hiring Nick Sheppard and Greg White. The latter took the pseudonym "Vince" after Simonon said he would prefer to quit rather than play in a band with someone named "Greg", asking "name me one cool guy called Greg". Strummer intended the new Clash line-up as a encapsulating back-to-basics punk rock; when practicing early Clash songs, they avoiding the reggae-influenced music of their previous two albums, Sandinista! and Combat Rock. The band booked a short tour of the American West Coast, debuting new songs, which prompted Jones to tell the concert promoter Bill Graham that he was planning to tour the country with former Clash drummer Topper Headon as "The Real Clash".
Jones's lawyer had earnings frozen from the US Festival as well as sales of Combat Rock. The tour lasted until the end of the month; the concerts debuted the songs "We Are the Clash", "Three Card Trick", "Sex Mad Roar" and "This Is England". The fired Mick Jones had written all of the band's earlier music. Reflecting in the period after Jones' departure, Clash associate and sometime manager Kosmo Vinyl admitted that the remaining members assumed, wrongly in his view, that anyone could write a punk song. Unknown to the band, Rhodes had conceived his own solution to the problem: he would take control of the music writing; the album was recorded at Weryton Studios, Unterföhring, outside Munich, between January and February 1985. Epic records choose the studio on the basis of cost as the band's finances were dependent on the outcomes of a number of on-going legal cases. Rhodes hired engineer Micheal Fayneas as he was both affordable and had prior experience with programmed drum machines, he employeed the engineers Ulrich A. Rudolf, Simon Sullivan and Kevin Whyte, each of whom are, credited on the sleeve.
Rhodes, who took the pseudonym "Jose Unidos", had no previous experience in record production. He nonetheless sought novel and radical ideas, such as replacing live musicians with synthetic sounds and layering audio from TV programmes over tracks. Although Jones's use of synthesizers and samplers was one of the main reasons behind his dismissal, he utilised those instruments to critical and public acclaim with his next band Big Audio Dynamite. Simonon does not appear on any of the final recordings. New recruit Pete Howard is absent from the album, although writer Chris Knowles described him as a "an astonishingly powerful and prodigious" drummer, that replacing him with a drum machine was "like replacing a Maserati with a Matchbox". Strummer regretted the decision, saying he would never use a drum machine again. Against Strummer's express wishes, Rhodes took the master tapes from the studio, took sole control of the final mixes, adding synthesizers and football-style chants to the recordings.
Due to a restrictive and unfavorable recording contract, Strummer was unable to stop Rhodes, whom he by
Combat Rock
Combat Rock is the fifth studio album by the English rock band The Clash. It was released on 14 May 1982 through CBS Records. In the United Kingdom, the album charted at number 2, spending 23 weeks in the UK charts and peaked at number 7 in the United States, spending 61 weeks on the chart. Combat Rock is the group's best-selling album, being certified double platinum in the United States, it contained two of The Clash's most popular songs, the singles "Rock the Casbah" and "Should I Stay or Should I Go". Combat Rock was the last Clash album featuring the classic lineup. Following the triple-album Sandinista!, singer/guitarist Joe Strummer felt the group was "drifting" creatively. Bassist Paul Simonon agreed with Strummer's dissatisfaction towards the "boring" professionalism of The Clash's then-managers Blackhill Enterprises. Strummer and Simonon convinced their bandmates to reinstate the band's original manager Bernie Rhodes in February 1981, in an attempt to restore the "chaos" and "anarchic energy" of The Clash's early days.
This decision was not welcomed by guitarist Mick Jones, becoming progressively estranged from his bandmates. During this period, drummer Topper Headon escalated his intake of cocaine, his occasional drug usage had now become a habit, costing him £100 per day and undermining his health. This drug addiction would be the factor that would push his bandmates to fire him from The Clash, following the release of Combat Rock; the album had the working title Rat Patrol from Fort Bragg during mixing stages. After early recording sessions in London, the group relocated to New York for recording sessions at Electric Lady Studios in November and December 1981. Electric Lady Studio was where the band had recorded its previous album Sandinista! in 1980. While recording the album in New York, Mick Jones lived with his then-girlfriend Ellen Foley. Joe Strummer, Paul Simonon and Topper Headon stayed at the Iroquois Hotel on West 44th Street, a building famed for being the home of actor James Dean for two years during the early 1950s.
After finishing the New York recording sessions in December 1981, the band returned to London for most of January 1982. Between January and March, The Clash embarked on a six-week tour of Japan, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Thailand. During this tour, the album's cover photograph was shot by Pennie Smith in Thailand in March 1982. Following the Far East tour, The Clash returned to London in March 1982 to listen to the music that they had recorded in New York three months earlier, they had recorded 18 songs, enough material to release as double-album. Having released the double-LP London Calling and the triple-LP Sandinista!, the group considered whether it should again release a multi-LP collection. The band debated how many songs their new album should contain, how long the songs' mixes should be. Mick Jones argued in favour of a double-album with lengthier, dancier mixes; the other band members argued in favour of a single album with shorter song mixes. This internal wrangling created tension within the band with guitarist Mick Jones, who had mixed the first version.
Manager Bernie Rhodes suggested. This editing took place in Johns' garden studio in Hampshire. Johns, accompanied by Strummer and Jones edited Combat Rock down from a 77-minute double album down to a 46-minute single LP; this was achieved by trimming the length of individual songs, such as by removing instrumental intros and codas from songs like "Rock the Casbah" and "Overpowered by Funk". Additionally, the trio decided to omit several songs dropping the final track count to 12. During these remixing sessions and Jones re-recorded their vocals for the songs "Should I Stay or Should I Go" and "Know Your Rights" and remixed the songs with the intent of maximising their impact as singles. A recurring motif of Combat Rock is the aftermath of the Vietnam War. "Straight to Hell" describes the children fathered by American soldiers to Vietnamese mothers and abandoned, "Sean Flynn" describes the photojournalist son of actor Errol Flynn who disappeared in 1970 while covering the war. Biographer Pat Gilbert describes many songs from Combat Rock as having a "trippy, foreboding feel", saturated in a "colonial melancholia and sadness" reflecting the Vietnam War.
The band was hugely inspired by Francis Ford Coppola's 1979 film about the Vietnam War, Apocalypse Now, had released the song "Charlie Don't Surf" on Sandinista!, which referenced the film. Other Combat Rock songs, if not directly about the Vietnam War and U. S. foreign policy, depict American society in moral decline. "Red Angel Dragnet" was inspired by the January 1982 shooting death of Frank Melvin, a New York member of the Guardian Angels. The song quotes Martin Scorsese's 1976 movie Taxi Driver, with Clash associate Kosmo Vinyl recording several lines of dialogue imitating the voice of main character Travis Bickle. Bickle sports a mohawk in the latter part of Taxi Driver, this was a hairstyle adopted by Joe Strummer during the Combat Rock concert tour; the song "Ghetto Defendant" features beat poet Allen Ginsberg, who performed the song on stage with the band during the New York shows on their tour in support of the album. Ginsberg had researched punk music, included phrases like "do the worm" and "slam dance" in his lyrics.
At the end of the song he can be heard reciting a popular Buddhist mantra. Music for "Rock the Casbah" was written by the band's drummer Topper Headon, based on a piano part that he had been toying with. Finding himself the studio without his three bandmates, Headon progressively taped the drum
Clash City Rockers
"Clash City Rockers" is a song and single by The Clash. First released in February 1978 with the b-side "Jail Guitar Doors," a re-worked version of a song from Joe Strummer's pub rock days, it was included as the opening track of the belated US version of the band's eponymous debut album. The song was first played live at Mont De Marsan, in August 1977 and recorded the same year in the band's October and November sessions at CBS Studios. Following an argument at the end of the band's Get Out of Control Tour, Paul Simonon and Mick Jones were not on speaking terms, leaving Joe Strummer as a middle-man, relaying instructions and insults from one to the other. In December, producer Mickey Foote increased the speed of the tape for the finished master of the song after manager Bernie Rhodes decided the song sounded "a bit flat." This technique, known as "varispeeding," rendered the song one semitone higher in pitch. Strummer and Jones were in Jamaica at the time; when they heard the finished result, Foote was sacked.
With the exception of the 2000 re-issue of the US version of The Clash, the original version of the song has been used on every re-release since. The Clash's first overt attempt at self-mythology, "Clash City Rockers" is, by and large, a song about positivity and moving forward, revisits themes common in Clash songs of the era dead-end employment and having a purpose in life; the middle part of the song is based on an old nursery rhyme, "Oranges and Lemons", after suggesting the groovers of the day owe them a move "You owe me a move say the bells of St. Groove" namechecks David Bowie, Gary Glitter and Prince Far-I. Yeah, before the internet. " The main riff is reminiscent to The Who's debut single, "I Can't Explain"'s main riff, sounds like it has been expanded by The Clash. This riff was reworked by the band again for "Guns on the Roof" on their second album Give'Em Enough Rope. Joe Strummer - lead vocal, pianos Mick Jones - guitars, backing vocals Paul Simonon - bass guitar Topper Headon - drums Mick Jones - lead vocals, backing vocal, lead guitars Joe Strummer - rhythm guitar, backing vocal Paul Simonon - bass guitar Topper Headon - drums Sources Lyrics of this song at MetroLyrics
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