I crossed another city off my bucket list this weekend: Washington, D.C., this nation’s capital.
Despite the initially dreadful parking situation, I enjoyed what I experienced of the city, which was limited to its outskirts. At one point the silhouette of the Capitol building was visible from the car’s front window as we entered the city, but that was the closest we got. Still, it was interesting to be in the place where the government I live under has its home base. I listened to a lot of Jello Biafra on my iPod as we tried to find a parking spot.
Instead of seeing those usual obelisks and statues, we saw some very rowdy humans do their collective thing. Surfbort put on a lively and very fun show at the DC9 nightclub, full of yelping, stomping, and dancing. They shut out the December chill and proved themselves to be very nice people after the show. I hope the rest of their tour goes just as nicely!
It made up well for having had to cancel a Thanksgiving weekend roadtrip. Luckily, we were able to make the best out of out Mourning Turkey Day. The break had its fair share of ups and downs, and I’m grateful—even thankful—that it’s ups were so, well, up. That, alongside seeing from a distance the site of such a cruel and maddening attempt at a coup in D.C., reminded me of the stark contrast between security and discomfort, truth and manufactured reality. It’s becoming more and more frustrating how so many people hide behind facades of good intent. Maybe “facade” is the wrong word—it seems like almost everybody in today’s world wears their worst traits on their sleeves. It’s a transparent veil at best. From the highest ranks of society’s ladder to somebody on your block, goons are everywhere.
They try to make you feel appreciated when they really want to use you; they try to make you value meaningless things; they will suck up your time and try to justify it. They will place you into boxes, for categorizing humans as three dimensional takes up too much brain power that could be instead used towards contemplating the complacent nature of such cardboard cutouts. If you let society mold you in this way, you may gain popularity within some circle of equally fake people who will only show their true selves when they intend to harm you or at least wear you down. They want to reprogram your way of thinking, to make you think that the things that are harmful are harmless. The longer the frog boils in the pot, the more comfortable it becomes. You are reprogrammed to live a lie.
It takes work, courage, and awareness to stand your ground. It’s not easy to do alone.
If there was anything I was thankful for this last Mourning Turkey Day, it was the true friends I have for support. They provide more comfort and warmth than an early Christmas tree ever could, and they’re the people who remind me that there’s a few good eggs out there. If only they weren’t the 0.1 percent.
But not all is depressing, because life is full of fleeting absurd moments that really make living what it’s worth. I will never forget walking out of the DC9 as it transformed for the wee hours of the night from a punk club to, supposedly, a dance club for rich kids. Judging by the incredible lines outside other buildings we saw later as we drove away, this was not too uncommon. As we made our way down the stairs from the showroom to the small ground level tavern, a vaguely familiar synth melody came on over the speakers. I tried to put my finger on what it was, but soon enough the lyrics answered my question and a wave of pure confusion dawned on me: “Dog goes ‘woof;’ cat goes ‘meow.’” In the year 2021, a club was playing “WHAT DOES THE FOX SAY.” A million times better than Whamageddon.
If you can stretch that definition like a rubber band, you can squeeze DEVOtional within the resulting lasso. It makes the gathering sound not very exhilarating. DEVOtional 2021 was not that. I had been awaiting the weekend for over two years, since COVID-19 turned 2020’s event virtual. I was excited to once again witness a disparate gaggle of hipsters, super freaks, and disco dancers celebrating the existence of DEVO, the De-Evolution Band, over two days of de-evolved joyful noise. After months of slump, we were vaccinated and recharged, and the rubber band was about to snap from the pressure. It had been too long.
It took five and a half hours of highwaying it to Ohio Friday morning to make it to the hotel, where the fall foliage and afternoon sun greeted us warmly against the frigid wind. The refuge of our hotel room was crucial for primping and resting up between days.
As the sun began to sink and the chills intensified, we drove to the Beachland Ballroom some twenty minutes away on the outskirts of Cleveland. The small side tavern was intimate, granting me the chance to connect with friends who I had, for the most part, either not seen in over two years or only knew from the internet. Everyone was jittery to get back into the groove of socialization, taking photos fervently in attempts to preserve each moment.
As the night rolled on, the stage, which was almost the same level as the floor, became a showcase of some of the most interesting arrangements of DEVO songs to grace anyone’s ears. One man band Eric Nassau brought loop pedal preciseness to his passionate acoustic guitar, pulling eyes as his tongue clicks, “la-la”s, and whistles were looped and sampled on the fly with the press of his feet. Listening to an audio recording, one may assume he had at least two other guitar players and a beat boxer accompanying him. He was a man-machine with a heart full of soul.
Poopy Necroponde and the Louisiana Fudge Patch Kids followed, subjecting the crowd to a hypnotizing mutant drone-groove that hit like spiked psychedelics. I was entranced by the motley gang on performers: two drummers, women in dashing white hoods and sunglasses looking like vagrants of a post-apocalyptic desert wasteland, a masked drag queen, a tiger print tracksuit bro, a helmeted scrub mutant in heels, and, most normally, Poopy looking like your average indie rocker in a backwards cap and jeans. They were the ones who were kicked out of the circus for suggesting they incorporate more brown notes. As they brought their seemingly endless blast of sonic terrorism to a close, I looked around me to realize they had cut the population of the room down by about half. I stayed. In fact, I wished their set had gone on longer. I was left fascinated and without words. All I knew was that nothing was going to beat Poopy’s platter that night. The crowded bodies slowly refilled the room, a warm refuge from the November weather—until a subtle chill took residence in the air and never dissipated, presumably because someone turned on the AC. After a peek into the Beachland’s basement shop, I departed as the hyperactive Fantastic Plastics live streamed their neon-embodying performance. I needed to rest up for the real big day to follow.
The night’s sleep then gave way to Saturday. Food, shopping at the plaza outside the hotel, food, primping, then back to the Ballroom. The main floor was open, and despite its recent renovations, the place still looked and felt the same as I remembered it. Rows of folding chairs filled the center of the room; merch tables lined the walls; DEVO posters hung high juxtaposed with polka paintings and musty curtains. Assorted freaks and geeks milled around examining the purchasable wares and chatting amongst each other. It was good to be back.
The Jimmy Psycho Experiment kicked off the event about a half hour after I arrived with techie-lounge instrumental arrangements of classic DEVO tracks. The lack of words didn’t keep the crowd from singing along to the ones they remembered—I remember the chorus to “Freedom of Choice” getting a particularly intense treatment. Everyone seemed happier than ever to be uniting once more in that little room.
The event’s special guests also helped provide support. I said hello one time to David Kendrick, who drummed for DEVO in the late 1980s, and I did not get to speak at all to comedian Fred Armisen, who took up drum duty for the band once in 2018, but many others enjoyed getting to speak with them. More power to them.
The most well known guest of the weekend, bassist and ‘chief strategist’ Jerry Casale, was accompanied by his trusty wranglers: manager and friend Jeff Winner manned the merch table for the recent reissue of Jerry’s 2006 album while Jerry’s wife, the kindhearted Krista Napp, was also reuniting with friends and places she hadn’t seen in person in years. Knowing both from the internet, I was glad to finally say hello in person. Jeff, a hep cat who had never attended DEVOtional previously, was great to hang around and joke with throughout the night. Krista proved herself to be the older and cooler version of myself that I always assumed she was, never faltering in her friendliness. We stood together with shared friend Kati to watch Jackson Leavitt’s hyperactive Fight Milk set, chatting between songs [get “Wiggly World” back in your setlist, DEVO!]. As the video projection screen screamed with color and Jackson bopped around the stage, we were given a fascinating glimpse into the mind of a new breed of DEVO fan—the Generation Z strain. There were more younger folk in the room than I remembered in previous years, from very small children to teenagers. Having practically grown up at the DEVOtional—I first attended before I had even entered high school—it was interesting seeing the littluns and the bigguns both have their fun. Then again, I was the one receiving mutual respect from Krista, Jeff, and others I looked up to despite age disparities. It was as if we were all old friends. There were no generation gaps, but we were all DEVO.
And who is more DEVO than Jerry Casale? I met him face to face once at my first DEVOtional over three years prior, and he might as well have been meeting an entirely different person. On Saturday, I was granted the chance to meet him as the person I have become since then. The times I got to speak with him across Saturday and Sunday were the most soaring highs of the weekend. We talked in truth, and he responded to me with genuine appreciation and interest. I got to see firsthand the humility he maintains while retaining passion and pride for the work he’s done. Considering my previous positive experience, I wasn’t not expecting it, but it was gratifying to be on the receiving end after such a long wait. I don’t listen to interviews with Jerry as much as I used to—his frequent devolutionist doom-and-gloom zeal, while truthful, is best ingested in moderation, especially when college applications and other investments for the future are being made. But in a few of the more recent ones I’ve heard, he’s cited the enthusiasm of the youth, that new generation, as a vital source of encouragement. It was fitting, then, that he showed someone like me respect. He seemed delighted when I told him I had my target set on his and Krista’s alma mater, Kent State—my own duty now for the future. I felt as if, finally, someone outside of my isolated small town bubble thought I was worth talking to. He had no obligation to be in that room, but he showed up anyway. He treated the people he met with respect and dignity. It was a true honor to feel so valued.
Jerry disappeared after a riveting performance of “Girl U Want” with local teen punk group Detention; their female lead singer Elliott sang the lyrics in first person right beside Jerry, who sang in third person. The group surged with youthful energy, knocking the performance of theirs I’d seen at 2019’s 5KDEVO out of the water. They were noticeably more comfortable with their position as local rock stars than they had been two years ago. They were also even better at physicalizing the raw emotions that come with teen angst, yet that clearly didn’t stop the oldsters from having a ball right along with them. The aforementioned Fred Armisen even joined in their final song, a ditty entitled “Fist Fight In The Parking Lot.” TEEN ANGST!
The explosion of energy that Detention brought was hard to follow up. Al Mothersbaugh’s Massive Hotdog Recall—Mark and Bobby’s cousin—did a damn good job of doing so, injecting classic DEVO tunes with horns, green visors, and one face plant. My initial disappointment of not being able to give Jerry a formal goodbye was washed away in a flash as I couldn’t help but let myself loose.
DEVOmatix, an Atlanta based tribute group who have been an end-of-the-night staple for the past few years, were next, serving a mixture of fun DEVO covers and entirely original songs, a daring move for a DEVO tribute band to make. Nonetheless, not shabby.
The rest of the night after Al’s band was more low-key on my end, though that could not be said for the more rowdy attendees. The final group, The Super Thing, was a lighthearted super group of members of bands who had played earlier. This was apparently a signal for everyone who had been drinking throughout the night to let loose like there was no 5K in the morning—not that most of them were running it, anyway. A football playing spaceman in a long matted black wig had been running around since early on in the day, and he was still filled with energy despite being stripped of his wig and subject to runners in his uniform. A green-bobbed Holly Hobbie was also bopping around, sometimes shielding her face from boy cooties with a reflective visor; she wore red hair and a J-Pop Strawberry Shortcake getup the previous night. A relatively normally dressed man who had been getting visibly more and more jittery as the night wore on made it known that he wasn’t just a new waver: “PLAY ‘IRON MAN!’ PLAY ‘IRON MAN!’” No Black Sabbath songs were performed. The playful drunken mayhem was extremely amusing to watch from my folding chair. By the end of the night, a strange monument to the insanity I had just witnessed was installed in the corner of the room—a puffy rainbow coat decorated with the spaceman’s armor and hat wrapped on some sort of mannequin. It was a beautiful sight.
Eventually the super group performed their last song and the lights switched on. Party people said their goodbyes and organizers began to clean up. We parted ways with friends old and newer for the night. Jeff the rookie admitted he was glad he had stuck out for the long haul; he ended up really enjoying himself. I couldn’t see why anyone wouldn’t have.
The next morning, I got up, donned my running gear, waved goodbye to the hotel, and headed down to Akron, the site of the weekend’s grand finale: the 5KDEVO. Most of the others who attended the previous night didn’t follow suit. I could see why. I still had energy within me to run three miles; I had been training for over a year at that point, and I wasn’t going to let the opportunity to show my stuff go to waste. I didn’t. I earned the third place trophy in my age group and set a personal record.
The race’s aftermath was forced to bend to that force that humans have been bending to more and more in recent years: the weather. The efforts made to defy the cold, including taking refuge in a cheesesteak parlor, were understandable, but the event in turn lacked the fanfare of the sunny late July installment of the race I had ran two years prior. A strings and flute performance of DEVO songs by a chamber quartet was worth running the race to watch, yet the low-key nature of the post-race in general, in no intended offense to the race’s organizers, felt a little anticlimactic. Maybe everyone just wanted to get it over with as the cold took hold of them. Maybe some of them wanted the overwhelming weekend to end quickly and painlessly. Yet even being left in the cold as the scene winded down couldn’t damper the warmth I was still feeling from earlier.
We moseyed to the parking garage where our car was waiting to take us back to the real world. One thing was certain: I had a new standard of living.
[Photo by Tim Nolan. Thanks again, Jerry!]
Thanks Nick, Michael, Tim, Jeff, and everyone else who helped make DEVOtional 2021 happen!
Last weekend went by not like the rickety but effective trains that linked me from the airport to my hotel room to Douglass Park, home of the beloved Riot Festival. In hindsight, my time in Chicago feels like it passed me with the speed of a Japanese bullet train. Finally, life felt almost like it did before COVID-19 grounded planes and ravaged the live music industry. Simultaneously I was granted a rare time to let loose and release all my adolescent urges. I had been needing to do so for a while.
The zeitgeist was in full effect as we made our way inside the festival’s grounds on Saturday. Signs pointed towards COVID testing sites. I flashed my vaccination card alongside my ID to be let in. The first band of the day, Man On Man, was formed over lockdown by Faith No More’s keyboardist and his boyfriend out of quarantine boredom; it was their second live show. FNM would have been hitting the stage later that day had their seemingly impenetrable frontman not cancelled their tour to deal with a mental health crisis.
A fitting sign from the train station.
It quickly became evident that everyone was more than happy to be back. I try to socially distance myself from GWAR as much as possible due to cleanliness concerns, but I couldn’t help but spy on their performance. I ended up getting a clear view of their assorted liquids arcing over the heads of the hooded rain poncho clad security guards and into the untamed audience. (My friend Kati walked out with green stains splattered across her starch white mask and tote bag.) Later, as Les Savy Fav played, it was impossible to socially distance from frontman Tim Harrington, who frequently retreated into the crowd for a variety of antics. He rode an audience member down the aisle like a toddler receiving a pony ride from his dad; he took and wore on his head many pairs of sunglasses before redistributing the Ray-Ban wealth to an entirely different section of the crowd; he rolled out a roll of tarp across everyone’s heads, got on top of it, bore a hole in it, and reemerged among everyone else. It was truly a sight to behold.
The next day, I stood on my feet for over five hours. The first band I witnessed during this test of leg strength was Body Count. From the safety of the VIP section, I was protected from the mosh pit happening not very far away from me. Ice-T didn’t refrain from giving his commentary on the pit, which he found unsatisfactory. It even once transformed into my eyeballs’ first wall of death at Ice’s behest. If Ice-T tells you what to do, you do it. The band was tight and talented, and the songs were topical and pretty infectious. Add a hefty dose of Ice-T being extremely Ice-T and you’ve got one unforgettable performance. “I PLAY ONE ON TV!” the Law & Order actor reminded us as the band closed their set with “Cop Killer.” You love to see it!
DEVO do their thing.
After Body Count left the stage, I spent the next two and a half hours standing in front of the rail waiting for my main attraction, DEVO. I had been there for their final pre-COVID performance almost two years prior, and it seemed unbelievable that the wait was finally over. Their set began with a 70s film of the band tussling with their fictionalized pushover manager, Rod Rooter. It was followed by a recently shot clip of the same guy riding an exercise bike and wearing a tiger print tracksuit. Disappointed that the band he once managed wasn’t doing stadiums “like Kid Rock,” he sardonically reintroduced the band to the audience. (They aren’t your everyday boy band.) It was a reminder that, as much as you may want them to go away, DEVO never truly will. Even with two frontmen having recovered from COVID-19, the spud boys still carry force, talent, and an electrifying presence. In fact, they incited such a frenzy that I spent a good amount of the show ducking crowd surfers who got dangerously close to crushing me. Security guards cradled them like Booji Boy babies as they passed one by one over the rails before being shooed to the back of the crowd. Later I overheard that their forceful performance of “Secret Agent Man” incited a fist fight farther back in the mass of de-evolving dregs. If a mini-militia of costume changing, whip-smart punk scientists in or nearing their seventies can still hold it, don’t listen to Rod: they still shoot straight. See DEVO while you still can.
“Freedom of Choice” completed the band’s set; the group had apparently been under threat of getting the cord pulled due to going over their time limit, which would have been blasphemy. The next thing I knew I was sprinting across the sunset lit field as the Flaming Lips’ set opener—“Race For The Prize,” of all songs—echoed across the darkening park. I was able to blend into the crowd as the happy-sad hymn to medical progress came to a close. How else would they open a post-vax concert? I spent the majority of their awe inducing performance in a haze fueled by exhaustion, awe, and second hand smoke. Slightly hypnotized by the neon psychedelic video backdrop, assimilating with the seizure inducing swirl seemed much more preferable to walking to the train station.
The Flaming Lips feat. their giant inflatable pink robot.
Eventually, the lights on the Roots stage dimmed and Wayne Coyne’s virus proof giant bubble deflated for the last time. We worked our way through the darkness to reorient ourselves and ended up catching a portion of the night’s closing performance, the Slipknot spectacle, from afar. We reunited with a friend we had chatted with earlier in the day and took the opportunity to rib on the group. We all agreed that, while they were obviously dedicated to their presentation, their musical content couldn’t live up to it. At another stage out of our range, Machine Gun Kelly, the creepy rapper turned equally creepy pop punk poser, was also playing. Another example of when immaculately crafted style outweighs substance. Interesting that the two bands immediately behind them on the billing—the Lips and the VOs—were the ones who actually hit a successful combination of the two. Life is not fair.
But the pain of Machine Gun Kelly’s existence did not ruin the weekend, as weird as it was to witness such a large crowd once more. It was a time of strange euphoria and semi-reluctant indulgence. It was relieving that the long stretch of boredom that had made up life up until that point was finally interrupted by a brief blip of in person camaraderie. There’s no wonder why stepping out of those gates for the last time and taking that final train ride felt as if something was being lost. If only the fun could last forever.
While my previous logs were written from my room, I wrote the entirety of this piece over the course of a few study hall periods, as school is back in session. I must admit, I forgot how much teenager germs still make me gag, all the more a reason to wear a mask walking to and from my classes. Almost all of my peers are abstaining from wearing theirs since there is no enforced mandate. My COVID concerns still linger, so it’s still slightly unsettling, but I’ve managed to make myself comfortable. It helps that all my teachers are nice.
Yes, fall is kicking in, though the runoff of the hottest summer the Northern Hemisphere has ever experienced (thanks, climate change!) doesn’t make it feel that way. Neither does darling little Delta lingering around the corner, waiting to crash your party and leave you realizing the next morning that the previous night wasn’t as good as you thought it was. It’s a real pity. I thought this was supposed to be an ascending fall, but I guess the only positive curve is the hospitalization graph!
On my calendar, September holds large scale events that I have been anticipating since March of last year, yet the threat of Delta’s dance keeps them hanging in the balance. The first on my list, the Riot Fest gathering in Chicago, has already had two of its biggest acts—Troubled Trent! Frank! Nooo!—withdraw out of COVID concern only to be replaced by…Slipknot. Didn’t one of their members just catch COVID, and didn’t another one just straight up die a few weeks ago? My condolences, of course, but I didn’t expect overly angsty (and, it seems, painfully mortal) nu metal to be the soundtrack to the world’s reopening.
Me being me, the prophetic songs of DEVO, who are still on Riot Fest’s bill and have a show I’ll be catching at Radio City Music Hall two days later, sound like a much better choice. They also seem brazenly enthusiastic about finally getting back out on the road after years of Mark Mothersbaugh being too busy making movie score money. I assume they trust their fans with actually taking precaution and getting their shots, considering that both of the group’s frontmen have caught the virus in its early days; Marky Mark even needed a ventilator. His recovery was also apparently interrupted by the indulgent partying of the youthful TikTok stars living next door, a modern day exercise of the “live fast, die young” mentality that has latched onto so many. There’s no good future in sight, so why not submerge ourselves in fun, partying, tossing cash around, assorted acts of degeneracy that our parents’ bank accounts let us get away with while we still can? It’s saddening to see, yet it’s not an unnatural response considering the circumstances.
It seems like everyone is thinking, “what can I do that makes me happy before the world burns?” That includes myself. But typing on an energy-consuming computer with the lights on isn’t actually as damaging to the environment as carbon dioxide-pumping, uselessly polluting companies want me to think. Neither is letting yourself loose in a crowd of like minded people while your favorite (and not favorite) bands bring their songs to life.
So, DEVO and Slipknot, eh? Not all jumpsuit wearing, clown mask bearing bands are made equal. But can we expect anything to not happen at this point?
The Straight Facts On DEVOtional 2021
Saturday, November 13th, 2021“A bunch of nerds in a room.”
If you can stretch that definition like a rubber band, you can squeeze DEVOtional within the resulting lasso. It makes the gathering sound not very exhilarating. DEVOtional 2021 was not that. I had been awaiting the weekend for over two years, since COVID-19 turned 2020’s event virtual. I was excited to once again witness a disparate gaggle of hipsters, super freaks, and disco dancers celebrating the existence of DEVO, the De-Evolution Band, over two days of de-evolved joyful noise. After months of slump, we were vaccinated and recharged, and the rubber band was about to snap from the pressure. It had been too long.
It took five and a half hours of highwaying it to Ohio Friday morning to make it to the hotel, where the fall foliage and afternoon sun greeted us warmly against the frigid wind. The refuge of our hotel room was crucial for primping and resting up between days.
As the sun began to sink and the chills intensified, we drove to the Beachland Ballroom some twenty minutes away on the outskirts of Cleveland. The small side tavern was intimate, granting me the chance to connect with friends who I had, for the most part, either not seen in over two years or only knew from the internet. Everyone was jittery to get back into the groove of socialization, taking photos fervently in attempts to preserve each moment.
As the night rolled on, the stage, which was almost the same level as the floor, became a showcase of some of the most interesting arrangements of DEVO songs to grace anyone’s ears. One man band Eric Nassau brought loop pedal preciseness to his passionate acoustic guitar, pulling eyes as his tongue clicks, “la-la”s, and whistles were looped and sampled on the fly with the press of his feet. Listening to an audio recording, one may assume he had at least two other guitar players and a beat boxer accompanying him. He was a man-machine with a heart full of soul.
Poopy Necroponde and the Louisiana Fudge Patch Kids followed, subjecting the crowd to a hypnotizing mutant drone-groove that hit like spiked psychedelics. I was entranced by the motley gang on performers: two drummers, women in dashing white hoods and sunglasses looking like vagrants of a post-apocalyptic desert wasteland, a masked drag queen, a tiger print tracksuit bro, a helmeted scrub mutant in heels, and, most normally, Poopy looking like your average indie rocker in a backwards cap and jeans. They were the ones who were kicked out of the circus for suggesting they incorporate more brown notes. As they brought their seemingly endless blast of sonic terrorism to a close, I looked around me to realize they had cut the population of the room down by about half. I stayed. In fact, I wished their set had gone on longer. I was left fascinated and without words. All I knew was that nothing was going to beat Poopy’s platter that night. The crowded bodies slowly refilled the room, a warm refuge from the November weather—until a subtle chill took residence in the air and never dissipated, presumably because someone turned on the AC. After a peek into the Beachland’s basement shop, I departed as the hyperactive Fantastic Plastics live streamed their neon-embodying performance. I needed to rest up for the real big day to follow.
The night’s sleep then gave way to Saturday. Food, shopping at the plaza outside the hotel, food, primping, then back to the Ballroom. The main floor was open, and despite its recent renovations, the place still looked and felt the same as I remembered it. Rows of folding chairs filled the center of the room; merch tables lined the walls; DEVO posters hung high juxtaposed with polka paintings and musty curtains. Assorted freaks and geeks milled around examining the purchasable wares and chatting amongst each other. It was good to be back.
The Jimmy Psycho Experiment kicked off the event about a half hour after I arrived with techie-lounge instrumental arrangements of classic DEVO tracks. The lack of words didn’t keep the crowd from singing along to the ones they remembered—I remember the chorus to “Freedom of Choice” getting a particularly intense treatment. Everyone seemed happier than ever to be uniting once more in that little room.
The event’s special guests also helped provide support. I said hello one time to David Kendrick, who drummed for DEVO in the late 1980s, and I did not get to speak at all to comedian Fred Armisen, who took up drum duty for the band once in 2018, but many others enjoyed getting to speak with them. More power to them.
The most well known guest of the weekend, bassist and ‘chief strategist’ Jerry Casale, was accompanied by his trusty wranglers: manager and friend Jeff Winner manned the merch table for the recent reissue of Jerry’s 2006 album while Jerry’s wife, the kindhearted Krista Napp, was also reuniting with friends and places she hadn’t seen in person in years. Knowing both from the internet, I was glad to finally say hello in person. Jeff, a hep cat who had never attended DEVOtional previously, was great to hang around and joke with throughout the night. Krista proved herself to be the older and cooler version of myself that I always assumed she was, never faltering in her friendliness. We stood together with shared friend Kati to watch Jackson Leavitt’s hyperactive Fight Milk set, chatting between songs [get “Wiggly World” back in your setlist, DEVO!]. As the video projection screen screamed with color and Jackson bopped around the stage, we were given a fascinating glimpse into the mind of a new breed of DEVO fan—the Generation Z strain. There were more younger folk in the room than I remembered in previous years, from very small children to teenagers. Having practically grown up at the DEVOtional—I first attended before I had even entered high school—it was interesting seeing the littluns and the bigguns both have their fun. Then again, I was the one receiving mutual respect from Krista, Jeff, and others I looked up to despite age disparities. It was as if we were all old friends. There were no generation gaps, but we were all DEVO.
And who is more DEVO than Jerry Casale? I met him face to face once at my first DEVOtional over three years prior, and he might as well have been meeting an entirely different person. On Saturday, I was granted the chance to meet him as the person I have become since then. The times I got to speak with him across Saturday and Sunday were the most soaring highs of the weekend. We talked in truth, and he responded to me with genuine appreciation and interest. I got to see firsthand the humility he maintains while retaining passion and pride for the work he’s done. Considering my previous positive experience, I wasn’t not expecting it, but it was gratifying to be on the receiving end after such a long wait. I don’t listen to interviews with Jerry as much as I used to—his frequent devolutionist doom-and-gloom zeal, while truthful, is best ingested in moderation, especially when college applications and other investments for the future are being made. But in a few of the more recent ones I’ve heard, he’s cited the enthusiasm of the youth, that new generation, as a vital source of encouragement. It was fitting, then, that he showed someone like me respect. He seemed delighted when I told him I had my target set on his and Krista’s alma mater, Kent State—my own duty now for the future. I felt as if, finally, someone outside of my isolated small town bubble thought I was worth talking to. He had no obligation to be in that room, but he showed up anyway. He treated the people he met with respect and dignity. It was a true honor to feel so valued.
Jerry disappeared after a riveting performance of “Girl U Want” with local teen punk group Detention; their female lead singer Elliott sang the lyrics in first person right beside Jerry, who sang in third person. The group surged with youthful energy, knocking the performance of theirs I’d seen at 2019’s 5KDEVO out of the water. They were noticeably more comfortable with their position as local rock stars than they had been two years ago. They were also even better at physicalizing the raw emotions that come with teen angst, yet that clearly didn’t stop the oldsters from having a ball right along with them. The aforementioned Fred Armisen even joined in their final song, a ditty entitled “Fist Fight In The Parking Lot.” TEEN ANGST!
The explosion of energy that Detention brought was hard to follow up. Al Mothersbaugh’s Massive Hotdog Recall—Mark and Bobby’s cousin—did a damn good job of doing so, injecting classic DEVO tunes with horns, green visors, and one face plant. My initial disappointment of not being able to give Jerry a formal goodbye was washed away in a flash as I couldn’t help but let myself loose.
DEVOmatix, an Atlanta based tribute group who have been an end-of-the-night staple for the past few years, were next, serving a mixture of fun DEVO covers and entirely original songs, a daring move for a DEVO tribute band to make. Nonetheless, not shabby.
The rest of the night after Al’s band was more low-key on my end, though that could not be said for the more rowdy attendees. The final group, The Super Thing, was a lighthearted super group of members of bands who had played earlier. This was apparently a signal for everyone who had been drinking throughout the night to let loose like there was no 5K in the morning—not that most of them were running it, anyway. A football playing spaceman in a long matted black wig had been running around since early on in the day, and he was still filled with energy despite being stripped of his wig and subject to runners in his uniform. A green-bobbed Holly Hobbie was also bopping around, sometimes shielding her face from boy cooties with a reflective visor; she wore red hair and a J-Pop Strawberry Shortcake getup the previous night. A relatively normally dressed man who had been getting visibly more and more jittery as the night wore on made it known that he wasn’t just a new waver: “PLAY ‘IRON MAN!’ PLAY ‘IRON MAN!’” No Black Sabbath songs were performed. The playful drunken mayhem was extremely amusing to watch from my folding chair. By the end of the night, a strange monument to the insanity I had just witnessed was installed in the corner of the room—a puffy rainbow coat decorated with the spaceman’s armor and hat wrapped on some sort of mannequin. It was a beautiful sight.
Eventually the super group performed their last song and the lights switched on. Party people said their goodbyes and organizers began to clean up. We parted ways with friends old and newer for the night. Jeff the rookie admitted he was glad he had stuck out for the long haul; he ended up really enjoying himself. I couldn’t see why anyone wouldn’t have.
The next morning, I got up, donned my running gear, waved goodbye to the hotel, and headed down to Akron, the site of the weekend’s grand finale: the 5KDEVO. Most of the others who attended the previous night didn’t follow suit. I could see why. I still had energy within me to run three miles; I had been training for over a year at that point, and I wasn’t going to let the opportunity to show my stuff go to waste. I didn’t. I earned the third place trophy in my age group and set a personal record.
The race’s aftermath was forced to bend to that force that humans have been bending to more and more in recent years: the weather. The efforts made to defy the cold, including taking refuge in a cheesesteak parlor, were understandable, but the event in turn lacked the fanfare of the sunny late July installment of the race I had ran two years prior. A strings and flute performance of DEVO songs by a chamber quartet was worth running the race to watch, yet the low-key nature of the post-race in general, in no intended offense to the race’s organizers, felt a little anticlimactic. Maybe everyone just wanted to get it over with as the cold took hold of them. Maybe some of them wanted the overwhelming weekend to end quickly and painlessly. Yet even being left in the cold as the scene winded down couldn’t damper the warmth I was still feeling from earlier.
We moseyed to the parking garage where our car was waiting to take us back to the real world. One thing was certain: I had a new standard of living.
Thanks Nick, Michael, Tim, Jeff, and everyone else who helped make DEVOtional 2021 happen!
Tags:5KDEVO, adolescence, college, concerts, Detention, DEVO, DEVOmatix, DEVOtional, DEVOtional 2021, Eric Nassau, Fight Milk, human interaction, Kent State, Massive Hotdog Recall, music, personal experiences, Poopy Necroponde, reviews, running, The Fantastic Plastics, The Jimmy Psycho Experiment, The Super Thing, things I enjoy
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