LeftyBassist.com

Only Devo - with lefty Gerald Casale on bass, could do a one-off of the classic Stones Tune, and have Mick up and dancing! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jadvt7CbH1o

Story of Mick here.... http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/entertainm ... ce-1062872

wow, I don't recall every seeing this before. Pretty effin brilliant!

That was no small feat to get the Stones/Jagger to approve because the Stones almost NEVER allow their music to be covered.

I just saw Devo last week perform at the Best Buy Theater in Manhattan. It was a real treat because they only played material from their early "Hardcore" years, most of which had never been performed before. Back to their avant garde roots. Jerry played his flipped Steiny. Here's an article about the show:

http://www.brooklynvegan.com/archives/2 ... hardc.html

Side note: Jerry's early basses were righty Gibsons. The one in the video is a righty Ripper bass he sawed the horns off of. He also played a righty EB0 bass flipped too. Then there was that red "potato" bass he played with a Gibson neck. It's never been clear to me whether or not this bass was created using parts from his EB0 or not, or whether or not he still owns either Gibson bass.

With Ripper:


With EB0:


With custom red:

This is one of my favorite tracks, ever.

That beat is just.........mind blowing.

totally agree. That syncopation ... OOOOOFF!

Definitely complicated enough that you couldn't just "fake" your way through this one - it's brilliant! Thanks for the info on the basses, and I like the fact that he had no compunction about sawing the horn off his bass to make it more playable.

Here's a gig-story from the past... played in a trio rock band in the early 2000's, and we had decided to learn "Whip It". I wasn't too thrilled about playing a Devo song, but went along with my bandmates, and learned it, along with vocal parts etc. We had a gig in an old sugar mill town called Waialua, on the North Shore of Oahu, not far from Haleiwa. We were playing in an old bar named of all things "The Sugar Bar", and were playing to a small crowd of maybe ten people, Sitting in front of us was a long-haired, blue-collar hippie-type of guy, in his 30's, who was enjoying the music. When we started playing Whip It, he jumped up and started dancing, and singing along! After we ended our set, he came up, and told us what a big fan of Devo he was, and had seen them many times in the "mainland". Made me re-think song choices, and that at least learning and knowing songs you may not really like, may just make a patrons night!

Not to hijack this thread, but this is right up my alley so I thought I'd add some interesting tidbits to anyone who cares:

The unforgettable flipping red haired punk in the video is Spazz Attack (real name Craig Allen Rothwell). He played in Tony Basil's band for a while as the bassist (remember her? "Oh Mickey, you're so fine...!), though it's unclear how proficient he was on the instrument. (I know I wouldn't be too good if I were busy flipping while playing, ). Tony Basil dated Jerry Casale for a while, and since Spazz was friends with Devo he was recruited. he also toured with Bowie on his Glass Spider tour as dancer/sometimes keyboardist too. Here he is in Tony's rendition of the Devo song, "Be Stiff" doing what he does best:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwzxHTD-n-M

Scroll down a bit to a little bio about him too:

http://www.oldpunks.com/oldpunks3.html

And here's Spazz as an evil clown in Devo's Peek-a-Boo:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZBRREj1CLpQ

Great video... and dig the flips!