Devo - Jocko Homo / Mongoloid

I had never heard of Devo until I saw this single in Boots in Dundee. I was intrigued by the de-evolution idea. I had resisted the sudden conversion that many of my friends had made to punk and new wave and had been much more selective, so I tended to wait for things that grabbed me. Ian Dury was the first, when I heard Sex & Drugs… then Elvis Costello and these were both on hearing the music but Devo was different, this single cover held promise of something unique within so when I put on Jocko homo for the first time I was very pleasantly confirmed in what I heard. I was not a surprise; I kind of knew that this is just what it would sound like. I have been a fan ever since partly because most of the people I knew simply didn’t understand what they were about and thought they were really un-cool, which in its own way was terribly cool. On the day of the US Presidential Election 2008 I find myself reflecting that the election of George W Bush eight year ago (and again 4 years ago for god’s sake!!!) kind of proves that they had a point but here’s hoping that tomorrow we will wake up to a new era where we start getting smarter again.