I could have posted this the instant it occurred to me yesterday – but now after BBC R4 Today playing a clip of Devo and interviewing Gerry Casale this morning #Devo is UK trending all over twitter this morning.
I’ve posted before how Devo’s first UK gig at the Roundhouse Sunday 30th April 1978 was part of my best ever day of live music. I have Devo on vinyl and replaced as MP3 in the last couple of years, since they became active again recently – playing them now of course. Put Akron, Ohio on the map (after car tyres, and before Chrissie Hynde, that is).
Anyway, what I was going to post was a suggestion on devolution – Yes, let’s have better local government arrangements, let’s get more federal – let’s redraw the Scottish border at (say) Watford Gap so more of us benefit – or maybe draw it around the M25 and leave London inside as the UK’s “Capital Territory”. (And incidentally, as a government politician, Salmond knocks spots off the current shambles in Westminster. Win-Win.)
Now that would be “Devo Max”?
Jocko Homo – Are we not men?
They tell us that we can’t go free,
To control our own destiny.
I say it’s all hypocrisy.
Are we not Scots? We’re Devo Max.
Are we not Welsh? D-E-Vo Max.
Surreal that “Jocko” fits the context 34 years after the fact. Also intriguing that the originally degenerate de-evolution of “Devo” could become aligned with devolution – a reversal of civilisation’s trend to bigger global / corporate to smaller local / human arrangements. Maybe it’s not humans that are devo, but society – in a positive way. Weird that a rhyming political sound-bite can “create” what lay latent. I swear I’ve had this thought before, but never thought to write it.