Friday, October 30, 2009

Random: Rock


By 1978, Saturday Night Live was starting to hit a nice stride in terms of it’s hosts, edgy comedy and musical guests. With staple acts like Bonnie Rait, Billy Joel and the Rolling Stones, ratings were good and no big risks were being taken. That changed on October 14th when DEVO took the stage in studio 8H. Nobody expected a gang of nerds outfitted in yellow vinyl jumpsuits and 3D glasses. Certainly nobody guessed that they would jerk and twitch their way through a brilliant—albeit unusual—new wave cover of the Stone’s (Can’t Get No) Satisfaction. I distinctly remember trying to process and categorize the mesmerizing performance with my adolescent grasp of pop music... and coming up blank. But I knew I liked it. Push play >>

4 comments:

Neckdeep said...

Now THIS is an SNL performance. Unreal. And also check out the link on the page with John Joseph (Cro Mags) talking abut being backstage before hand...

http://www.videosift.com/video/FEAR-Saturday-Night-Live-1981-Historic-Performance

WordLab said...

Yeah Chris, I watched that. I knew Belushi was bros with the FEAR guys... it was a whole chapter in his book. Crazy.

Neckdeep said...

You're in Mexico huh? DEVO play here Friday and Saturday night...

WordLab said...

What?! Oh dude, you HAVE to go to that. I would be yeah, I'm down here. Take photos.