Legendary rock group Devo are celebrating their 50th Anniversary with a tour — and exhibiting rare photo prints of them in galleries across the country
Devo launched their 50th anniversary tour in Philadelphia in late April. It will encompass 19 cities in total over the next several months. In keeping with their groundbreaking visual mindset, in each city of the tour they will visit an art gallery that will present a curated portfolio of Devo images rarely if ever seen.
Contrary to the usual, more straightforward shots of rock ‘n’ roll bands, these photos are more thoughtfully composed. The portfolio reinforces the impression that Devo was ahead of its time in maintaining an all-encompassing sense of design, social commentary and forward-thinking aesthetic.
Devo worked with a select number of photographers in curating the portfolio as well as selecting like-minded galleries, one per city. Fans and collectors are now able to view the portfolio at these galleries (check locations here: https://devoportfolio.com) and whoever buys a print will be invited to an exclusive reception to meet the band.
Collectors know it’s not often that photographers and their subjects reconvene years later in a collaboration like this. In keeping with the limited edition nature of these museum quality prints, once all the prints have been sold they will not be offered again in this format. Iconic music photographers Neal Preston, Allan Tannenbaum, Ebet Roberts and Richard Alden Peterson — the folks who saw it all — expressed their excitement at seeing these images come out of the vaults. And Devo emphasized their delight in making these prints available, and presumably there’s some delight for all parties in making a few bucks from the sales too.
The backstory to all this is that I met Jerry Casale at a media and technology conference about a dozen years ago. We got to chatting and I told him a story that brought tears to his eyes. At one point, I had worked in a building on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles, right next to Devo World Headquarters (that lime green round building you see in the photo). The company usually brought lunch in so it was rare I ventured out for lunch, but one day I did. As I walked past Devo’s front door I saw there was a laminated photo of Jerry’s brother who had just died. There was a Sharpie pen and folks were leaving comments. I wrote “In the end, we will all be stiff.”
Jerry recognized I had picked up on an obscure Devo B-side song title. We stayed in touch.
A year ago the band was coming through Del Mar and he said, come down before the show, let’s meet. I brought the Neal Preston print that Neal had given me and Jerry was astounded. He called in the other band members and when they saw Preston’s image of them posing in front of Devo World Headquarters, they were scratching their heads, trying to recall when the image was taken, and who suggested their clever finger placement in the image.
They started talking about how they should be doing something with this and I said “Well, I’m doing this with George Clinton.” They said, “We’re gonna be touring in 2025, what if we found galleries, we could show up for the reception?” I took it from there.
What does being a band for a half century feel like, I asked Jerry? “Frightening. The Grim Reaper awaits and de-evolution is real!” he replied. I asked him what the highest and lowest points of their remarkable journey were, and he answered: “As we say, the beginning was the end. David Bowie introducing us at Max’s Kansas City in 1977 devolving to playing in a zoo during the Something For Everybody tour in 2010.”
His favorite picture, since you asked, and the one that he thinks most epitomizes Devo, is the Ebet Roberts b&w, with them behind the blind busker wearing a sign about making his living from music