In 1983, at age eleven, I was more of a “singles” guy than an “album” guy. Albums seemed pretty useless. I wanted only to hear the hits.

Nevertheless, I had three albums in my possession (they were probably my sister’s): Men At Work’s Business As Usual, The Stray Cats’, Built For Speed, and The Clash’s Combat Rock. I’d cue up the needle to where each respective “single” was found; this meant I was looking for “Who Could It Be Now,”  “Stray Cat Strut” or “Rock This Town,” and “Rock the Casbah,” the third track on side one, respectively. Eleven-year-old aim being what it was – let’s not discuss the toilet seat aim in those days – I’d inevitably end up hearing a snippet of the previous song. The snippet ran anywhere from 10 – 30 seconds, depending on the aim. On Combat Rock, the snippet was of track 2, a song called “Car Jamming”; strangely, hearing the same sample of the end of “Car Jamming” over and over didn’t make me want to know the song any better. I guess I wasn’t particularly musically adventurous back then.

Anyway, as reluctant as I was to hear more than I had to of “Car Jamming” and eager as I was to Rock The Casbah, I never remotely considered going back to track one, “Know Your Rights.” The song scared the crap out of me anyhow. I mean, the guy was angry. He wasn’t really singing, and he was talking about “getting killed” and all that sort of stuff. I just wanted to hear my happy little Clash song.

Much later, I got totally obsessed with the Clash’s London Calling (1979) album for about a year. Within that context, I went back to Combat Rock and got really into “Know Your Rights.” Coming on the heels of the 3-LP Sandinista! album, which I barely paid attention to, “Know Your Rights” (and even “Car Jamming”) sounds succinct and downright tasty. In a way, it’s the ultimate Joe Strummer song: angry, up-tempo, funky, retro in an early-60s surfer-vibe kind of way, and absolutely riveting. Sandinista!–era excesses are gone, as are London Calling–era attempts at sounding overly polished: sounds like one take was all it TOOK.

I barely have any of London Calling left on my iPod because I overplayed it, but this one remains handy, always, if I ever have trouble recalling my, um, rights.

Album info: Combat Rock (1982)

Live in 1983:

Last Halloween Soul Purpose played a gig at D.Coy Duck’s.  I wanted the band’s costume to be Devo, but that meant I had to provide the costumes.  I bailed on the idea.

Anywho, “Gut Feeling” is little more than five major chords repeated (E – G – C – A – D) as the arrangement adds instruments and intensity.  There’s no verse, chorus (except that the singer starts in with “Got a gut feeling” towards the end of the song), bridge, etc.  Who the hell said this could work as an interesting piece of music?

I’m sold.  It’s great driving music, and it’s also fantastic for jumping around the house.

Part of the interest, for me, lies in the “fiveness” of it.  Otherwise, it just kind of, like, rocks.  About two minutes in, Mark Mothersbaugh finally starts singing (“Something ‘bout the way you taste makes me want to clear my throat” … NICE.  And, could have been an Elvis Costello lyric from around the same era, I might add), and suddenly it’s classic Devo (can Devo be classic?).  The “Slap Your Mammy” part is bonus.

It’s definitely not punk, at least not if you listen to the guitar tones (clean-ish) and ‘60s garage-band-era organ sounds.  No, that puts it firmly in the New Wave camp, where punk anger becomes the more marketable “irony.”  “Gut Feeling” doesn’t strike me as that ironic, though, compared with their version of “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction” (also on my 4GB iPod, and not coming off anytime soon).  Okay, well maybe the lyrics are somewhat ironic in the Romantic sense of the word, as in the singer assuming a stance that is at a DISTANCE… he’s got a “gut feeling,” or rather he’s disgusted.  He’s not fawning with love and goo-goo-ga-ga love stuff.  The simple fact that the musical models here, as for lots of New Wave, are the mid-’60s era garage band stuff, or even the early late-’50s rock and roll pioneers, is an ironic stance against what John Covach calls “the hippie aesthetic, which dominated rock music from the late 60s until the middle of the 70s (think virtuosic instrumental solos, long-drawn out jams, glam, glitter, and androgyny, singer-songwriter-ish introspection, and so on…).  Elvis Costello dressed up like Buddy Holly is perhaps the best visual expression of what I’m talking about…

Enough talk.  You should be jumping around by now.

Album info: Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo! (1978)