Re: Long Time, No Listen: Episode V (The Turntable Strikes Back)

Five more albums (well, six, actually) that I haven't listened to in at least ten years. (Yes, Steevee, I did have one more selection from the D section.)

Devo - Now It Can Be Told: DEVO at the Palace 12/9/88
A three-sided live album recorded a few years after their early '80s peak. It opens with a mostly unplugged rendition of "Jocko Homo," recasting it as a folk song. From there, it goes into songs from Devo's prime era, alongside newer songs from their debut Enigma release Total Devo, and a dismal song called "It Doesn't Matter to Me," all played at drastically slower tempos with distinctly un-Devo-esque arrangements. I mean, forget about their lounge-lizard sets as "Dove, the Band of Love," or their E-Z Listening releases; everyone was in on the joke with those. The sluggish arrangements on Now It Can Be Told just come across as poor ideas. And the self-pitying stage patter doesn't help: "It's not easy to be a Devo fan these days ... A lot of people out there think Devo just isn't cool anymore." (When was that not true?) The spuds drop the mawkishness and pick up the tempos on Sides Two and Three, albeit with some irritating touches, like the false ending imparted to "Jerkin' Back 'n' Forth." (Maybe the sour aftertaste of Side One makes me less amenable to such feints.) And there's just no way for them to dress up the weak songs from Total Devo. Side Four has "Attention spuds! No groove! Do not play!" printed on the label, along with etched cartoons (purportedly) by the band members. The cover of my copy has a cut-out notch, so I couldn't have paid very much for it. Maybe it'll be a collector's item for someone else.

Joe Ely - Live Shots
From the juiced-up bar-room piano that opens "Fingernails" to the mournful climax of "Boxcars," this is much more like it for a live disc. The former Flatlander recorded this album with his band while they were opening for The Clash on a UK tour. (Joe, Mick and Topper appear in the gig photos on the inner sleeve.) The performances are consistently energetic and passionate. The audience's applause gets faded out after almost every track, but it sounds like Joe and his band received a warm response. Definitely a keeper.

French, Frith, Kaiser, Thompson - Live, Love, Larf & Loaf
The first collaborative effort between these four musicians has its weak points, mostly the songs fronted by Fred Frith's nearly tuneless voice. But musically, it's always entertaining and energetic. The whole thing has a Captain Beefheart vibe (not a big surprise, thanks to the participation of Magic Band alumnus John "Drumbo" French), which is something I always appreciate. Most of the selections fronted by Thompson's voice, like "Drowned Dog Black Night," Tir-Nan-Darag" and "A Blind Step Away," would've been standouts on his own albums of the time. And the goofy version of "Surfin' USA" is a hoot. Another keeper.

Face to Face
Face to Face - Confrontation
This Boston band's self-titled album came to me as a freebie from our local radio station; their other album has a cut-out notch in the cover, so I assume I got it at a discount. Not to be confused with the punk band of the same name -- this is an AOR-friendly quintet with a female singer named Laurie Sargent. She's not as consistently commanding a vocal presence as Pat Benatar, but she doesn't descend to the levels that Patty Smyth scraped in Scandal. (Sargent also is a fairly capable rapper on "Under the Gun.") And they add a lot of funky touches that make the overall results a notch more interesting than either. (Arthur Baker is listed as producer on two tracks on the debut, and on most of the second album.) The weakest tracks are the ones fronted by guitarist/singer Angelo Petraglia; he's a much less interesting vocalist. In the end, despite Baker's funky influence and Sargent's consistently impassioned performances, the band can't keep the stench of fake-rock from descending over the proceedings. (Just when I was about to say that it's not as consistently bad as Cutting Crew, a smarmy saxophone crops up to make the comparison more inevitable.)

54-40 - Show Me
Thanks to the geographic advantage, music fans here in Washington tend to be much more familiar with a wide range of Canadian artists than the music lovers further south of the 49th parallel. I don't remember ever hearing people in Colorado talk about Sloan, Metric, The Tragically Hip or 54-40 ... whereas those artists are a big deal here. The third album by this Vancouver quartet has a pretty big production, blending varying measures of heartland rock with U2-ish anthem rock. But it doesn't feel overwrought in that "execrable '80s way." (I thought I heard those cliched synthetic horns on one song, until I read the liner notes and realized one of the members does double on trumpet.) And the musicians know how to use dynamics, which is more than Cutting Crew or Face to Face can say. Yeah, my Washington friends know what they're talking about. Keeper.

I recall seeing Face To Face on MTV back in the day. Not sure if I saw them more than once, or if a chorus that's just yelling "10 9 8!!!" is simple enough that it didn't take much to lodge it in my memory. Don't remember anything else about the song, though. I kinda remember that their album had a blue cover when I'd see it in the store.

Now It Can Be Told: even tho I was at that show, I forget about that album!

Def a low-point in Devo's career. The concert was at the Hollywood Palace, which has a capacity of only 1500, and this is just a few years after their peak. I had seen them at the Universal Amphitheater in '82 - research reveals that they did two shows, playing to around 13,000 ppl total. Then, for this live album in '88, they did 2 shows at the Palace for a total of, what, 3,ooo? Assuming they were sold out. Don't know what the math is to figure the percentage drop, but quite the plunge in popularity.

It's kinda funny that I went to this show at all. I wasn't even thinking about the 1st gen punk/Wavers anymore in '88. Most ppl weren't. So many of the orig. bands were gone, and weren't reuniting yet. Heck, even the college-rock scene seemed to be winding down. Me and my friends were a lot more hyped about, say, Public Enemy at this time. But the fact that we still wanted to see Devo, even as crappy as their late '80s albums were, suggests that they still meant more to us than, say, Gary Numan or whoever.

And yet today Devo are huge! They seem to be so much more popular now, even tho they've released only one new album in the last 35 years. They headlined 2 nites at the Hollywood Bowl last year, which has a capacity of like 17,000 or so. Yes, the B52s opened, but it's not like everyone left when they finished their set. Judging by the massive response (and all the energy domes), it would appear that Devo were the stars of the show.

One good thing about that Palace show - me and my friends were able to walk up pretty close to the front of the stage. Fat chance that's happening nowadays...

Want the album, Fab? I'm sure we can work out something.

Am I credited in the liners?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/28/2026 07:44PM by MrFab.

Ely made some fine studio records, but Live Shots is generally considered his best album. (Ten years later he did another live record called Live at Liberty Lunch documenting his more stripped-down and rocking band, and it's also great.) Glad you found it. Is the bonus 7-inch there?

Fun (?) fact: Face to Face guitarist Angelo Petraglia moved to Nashville and became a producer, songwriter, and session player. (I saw him play in Kim Richey's band once.) In that capacity, he discovered a scruffy band of brothers from a religious background, and mentored them as producer and co-writer to semi-stardom. Thus you can draw a direct line from Face to Face (who, like Breno, I remember solely from the "10-9-8!" bit of a chorus) to the Kings of Leon (who I cannot stand, but your mileage may vary.)

I bought Live Love Larf & Loaf sight unseen because it had Richard Thompson on it, and didn't know what to make of it at the time. Over the years, I've come to really appreciate it, though in general I prefer the follow-up Invisible Means. Somehow the latter came out on Windham Hill Records.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/29/2026 04:44AM by Michael Toland.