23. Patrick Grant Discusses Devo, Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo!

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Patrick Grant, creator of Tilted Axes: Music for Mobile Electric Guitars,  introduces me to an album that I long avoided because I thought it might be “scary,” but his quest is to show us that it's just scary good. The album in question is Devo’s “Q. Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo!”, and Patrick breaks down the album’s many innovations. We also talked about Switched On Bach, Patrick’s interactions with Devo and Robert Fripp and his project, Tilted Axes.

Patrick referred to alternate versions of some of the tracks on Are We Not Men. You can listen to those B Stiff EP versions here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhwCQdBK2XY.

Here is a link to the Devo performance on SNL that was the starting point for Patrick’s fandom: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04pbtf5t_LU.

Places online to find Patrick: patrickgrant.com, strangemusic.com and tiltedaxes.com

You can find me on Twitter at @almelchiorBB and @youmealbum. I have just joined Instagram and have created an account for the show there: @youmealbum. Come give me a follow...there will be content soon!

1:10 Patrick joins the show

2:16 Patrick and Al’s mutual connections

4:02 Songcrafting and creating Tilted Axes as a “musician’s revenge”

7:37 The path that took Patrick from A Clockwork Orange to Bach to King Crimson to Devo

15:55 How Patrick wound up working with Robert Fripp

25:50 Patrick had something to talk about with the members of Devo

26:06 Devo’s message had hippie roots

28:30 Devo initially put art in the foreground and music in the background

30:25 Patrick notes Devo’s liberal use of “found art”

33:40 Devo’s sound involved both distant and human elements

37:50 Patrick’s tortured introduction to Are We Not Men?

Track-by-track breakdown

43:25 Uncontrollable Urge

47:15 (I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction

48:02 Praying Hands

50:11 Space Junk

52:16 Mongoloid

54:13 Jocko Homo

57:32 Too Much Paranoias

59:47 Gut Feeling/(Slap Your Mammy)

1:00:43 Come Back Jonee

1:03:44 Sloppy (I Saw My Baby Gettin’)

1:05:44 Shrivel-Up

1:07:51 Whip It got misunderstood

1:11:59 Devo did a number of cover songs

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