The Michigan Daily-Friday, July 27, 1979-Page 9 A touch of elitism breeds ruin simply a great album, a scary hand from the future reaching through a time vortex to pull the listener into the hallucinatory fog of things to come. The difference between that and what hap- pens on Duty Now For The Future is that whereas on the first album the hand belongs to some monster-mutant too repulsive to be comfortable with, yet so riveting, so familiar (because, deep down, the mutant is us, gorged on technology and chemicals) that it is almost always compelling, the feel of Duty Now For The Future is more like some latex.Halloween monster glove a snotty-nosed kid put on to spook you when you're asleep. In the great tradition of Sam the Sham and The Pharaohs, DEVO's members need to get down on all fours and clean all the pooty-poot-poot from their plates instead of just playing with their food. On their first album they gorged themselves on excessive amounts of cultural flotsam and jet- sam, and then vomited it back: They gave us tales of falling spack junk, odes to masturbation and hopelessly con- fused intercourse, and explanations of the true mongoloid essence of the average suburban breadwinner.The songs on Duty, however, are either (a) uninterestingly obscure or (b) exhibit an unfortunate evolution undergone by the group, one which now puts them above the level of those poor schmucks (us, dummy!) they sang about and were part of on their first album. MORE THAN anywhere else, the dif- ference is found in the lethargic nature of the -ongs. On Are We Not Men? "S.I.B. (Swelling Itching Brain)" would have been a greatsong, with its paranoid-bordering-on-hysterical ly- rics about some poor guys' wormy grey matter. But it needs to howl, and on Duty it is given the most godawful risky- ticky arrangement. "Red Eye," without even good lyrics, sounds as if it were trying to achieve a Moroder-like production quality (no joke - the group says it is moving in the direction of sci- fi disco). In fact, the whole album sounds like a room full of blipping video games. Perhaps the saddest thing about the album is pointed out in this swell tidbit a member of the group told a Free Press writer: "The use o) the guitar automatically is a reference to music that clouds the issue. It is obsolete. It's time for a radical change ... (our music) will be more electronic and scientific. We're going to put the brains into it." Thanks guys, but I liked you a lot better when you said "we're pinheads all," and liked playing guitar. "DEVO Corporate Anthem" and "Triumph of the Will" are just so much wasted vinyl - real artsy-fartsy fan- fares that fall over. Except for when the singer squeals "I'm so stroft," "Pink Pussycat" lacks all of that no-nonsense wickedness that made perv-o workouts such as "Sloppy (I saw My Baby Get- tin')" and "Praying Hands" Grade-A stuff. the group's first album, thus giving us little hope for DEVO's future. "Wiggly World" and "Smart Patrol/Mr. DNA," although affected by DEVO's new cor- porate anti-guitar policy, sound fine. But they don't salvage the album. What was a great grab-bag of strange theories of man's evolution from brain-eating anes and of his ultimate return to protoplasmic slime has become a rigid and lifeless master plan. Now, Domingo Samudio had the right idea. I mean. he saw all the dreck- infested glory of this great land, and he knew just how much he got off on it. Possessing too much integrity to do things any other way, and having too much smarts to believe that an earnest career pursuing the rock and roll dream was a wise way to spend a life, he did the only noble thing - he made his whole career One Big Yuk. DEVO started out walking in Sam's footsteps, which was great - but also soun- ded as if it was clinging to a faith in energy and loud noise to transform things, which was even greater. I dunno about them now. Maybe they got scared seeing how much there really is to laugh at, or maybe they just weren't as smart as they seemed. When Sam latched onto his vision of infectious cultural madness, he cheerfully came out with stuff like "Lil' Red Riding Hood" and "The Hair On My Chinny Chin Chin" (just check out the titles to discern some of the underlying dum- hness). So how come DEVO has to fall back on grand schemes and scientific methods when what is needed is simple openness to whatever happens, and exuberance instead of thoughtfulness? I mean, is that any way for a bunch of spudboys to act? PART FOUR Taken from the files of Odilon Redon, M.D., 5/20/79. Re: Abridged transcrip- ts of conversations with Domingo Samudio several months after he reported to me on his various hallucinations. SAMUDIO: Oh God, Doc, they was gone for so long, you know, those dreams, and then I nodded off last night while I was watching Love Boat. I remember I was eating apple sauce and drinking beer, when I must have fallen asleep. But you know what? This is strange, but somehow, I think this is my last nightmare, and when I just think about it, well it wasn't very scary. I mean, I sort of wouldn't mind having it again . .. There I was, doing the Sham on the beach in this place I didn't recognize, when this barrage of go- rillas right out of Planet of the Apes came up and said they loved me, that they wanted to pt me on ape-television and they wanted me to make records for them, then said I could be on Satur- day Night Live... It was weird: They said most humans were "de-evolved," only fit to do slave jobs or else be hunt- ed down for game. But they told me I was their hero, because I had "escaped the forces of evolution" or something, and "saw things like them." We sat down to dinner that night, and - I can't believe it now, but didn't bother me then - we had this meal of brains! Really, they was pretty good c(Samudio snickers loudly here, but looks visibly shaken up by the dream I) . . . and the last thing I remember, before I woke op to TV College, was these apes all gathered around me, shakin' my hand and telling me how much they liked my songs. Behind this little group, though, other apes walked by. Remember those guys in my other nightmare, who talked about "dancin. the poot" and who wore those yellow suits and sunglasses? Well they were all hanging by their ankles from this long pole the apes was carryin', headed for a bonfire - they was hunted down . . . Samudio really nervous here; his whole body is shaking)) I dunno, I remember waking up and thinking, "I guess they just didn't make the evolutionary grade .. . END OF SAMUDIO REPORT WEDNESDAY IS MONDAY NIGHIS1 ADULTS FRI., SAT., SUN. WNE "GUEST NIGHT" EVE. S HOLIDAYS $3.50 "BARGAIN DAY" TWO ADULTS MON.-ThUEVE. $3.00 $1.50 UNTIL 5:30 ADMITTED FOR THE ALL MATINE$250 )AILY AT' 7:15-9:45 THE FEW SONGS that do escape their bland fate date back to the time of ARTS STAFF ARTSEDITOR Joshua Peck Reopens August 1-5 ARTS STAFF: iSndra Bobroff. Sarah Cassill, Mark Coleman. Sara Goldberg. Eric Graig, Jock Hender- POWER CENTER son. Katie Herzfeid Anna Nisean.' r-onA. SHOWS DAILY AT SHOWS DAILY AT 1:00-3:30-7:00-9:35 1:00-3:30-7:00-9:35 "'ALEN' Ior. oekr, nloper, ar.us'r ARE YOU READY FOR a anf" nVA GOOD TIME? BILL MURRAY.