Devo's open letter on "Drowning in a Devolved World"

[BootinUp]

Devo's open letter on "Drowning in a Devolved World"

Cory Doctorow
26 mins ago


Robbo writes, "Gerald Casale, founder of DEVO, has written an open letter in response to the band being inducted into the Rock 'N' Roll Hall Of Fame."

Casale was an SDS activist who was present at the Kent State massacre and who was friends with the students who were murdered by the National Guard there. He describes how his hope for an society that evolved toward a better world soured with the conviction that the world was devolving, thanks to the "encroaching fusion of technological advances with the centralized, authoritarian power of the state."

Casale describes a 40-year career on the sidelines of America where "the capacity for critical thought and reasoning were eroding fast" thanks to right-wing dumbing-down, and the commodification of rebellion, right up to the 2016 election, with "our vile, venal Mobster-in-Chief (who makes Idiocracy’s Macho Camacho look fit for office) and his corrupt minions rob the nation’s coffers in a shamelessly cruel, Grab-'Em-By-The-Pussy Kleptocracy."

He proposes that Devo was inducted into the Hall of Fame "because Western society seems locked in a death wish" -- they're "the house band on the Titanic."

Cont’d at link
https://boingboing.net/2018/12/07/house-band-on-the-titanic.html/amp

Devo's open letter on "Drowning in a Devolved World"

[Achilleaze]

1. .

[RustyWheels]

2. LOVE DEVO

I love DEVO... Great read. Thanks for posting.

Voted form them too!!

[flamingdem]

3. Crack that whip

[marble falls]

4. Someone needs to fact check that article. I really doubt Jerry Casale knew or claims he knew all ...

all four dead and the nine others wounded on May 4.

The Mothersbaugh brothers had a lot to do with forming Devo, too.

I knew them when most of them were renting a house on Grand or South Highland before Alan Myers was drumming. They also recorded their first EPs at Bushflow Studios (owned by the late bassist for Tin Huey, Mark Price who rented me a room there).

[Cal Carpenter]

5. He says he knew 2 of those killed pretty well

From his full statement:

Forty-eight years ago, on May 4, 1970, as a member of SDS (Students for a Democratic Society), I was front and center being fired on by my fellow Americans in the Ohio National Guard at Kent State University, as we peacefully protested President Nixon’s expansion of the cancerously unpopular Vietnam War into Cambodia without an act of Congress. I was lucky and dodged the bullet, both literally and figuratively, but four students were killed, and nine more were seriously wounded by the armed, mostly teenaged, National Guard troops. Two of the four students killed, Alison Krause and Jeffery Miller, were close acquaintances of mine. Less than a year earlier, as an Admissions/Curriculum counselor to incoming students, I had admitted them to the Honors College program.

https://noisey.vice.com/en_us/article/qvqek5/devo-open-letter-devolution-rock-hall-trump-2018

It's powerful stuff.

[BootinUp]

6. Did you read the letter? It's the 2nd link.

[JudyM]

7. Love Devo. Didn't know this interesting background though. Good post!

[littlemissmartypants]

8. Brush with greatness.

I partied with them after a concert at my undergraduate university in Greensboro. It was either in '78 or '79. They were deeply into martial arts. Don't remember too much else. I posted about this in music appreciation group. I have had a wonderfully, interesting life.