The Sons of Jocko Homo
The following originally appeared in the GRAND JUNCTION FREE PRESS:
Today’s headlines once again shout that the scientific theory of evolution is being buffeted by theist challenges, most recently under the rubric of “Intelligent Design” (or ID, as its proponents often abbreviate it). Despite its reputation as a new idea, the basic precepts of ID date back to 1802 — more than 50 years before Charles Darwin published THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES – when Anglican theologician William Paley posited his famous “watchmaker analogy,” which compared the complexity of the human race to that of a pocket watch found in a field.
But of course there have been other alternatives to Darwin’s theory as well, including one that has been publicly disseminated in the world of pop music for nearly three decades. I speak of the “theory of de-evolution,” a notion that germinated at the site of a shameful American tragedy, then was kindled by an obscure Christian pamphlet, forged in the crazed writings of a racist German monk and that gave its name to the rock band that has espoused it since the early 1970s… Devo.
Devo was formed in 1972 by Kent State students Mark Mothersbaugh and Jerry Casale. After witnessing the infamous shootings of student protesters by National Guardsmen two years earlier, Mothersbaugh and Casale came across a 1930s-era religious tract printed in nearby Rogers, Ohio. Entitled “Jocko Homo, Heaven Bound King of the Apes,” the pamphlet was a mocking fundamentalist anti-Darwin diatribe. About the same time, the pair were exposed to a recent book called THE BEGINNING WAS THE END: KNOWLEDGE CAN BE EATEN by Teutonic lunatic Oscar Kiss-Maerth. Kiss-Maerth’s bizarre thesis was that mankind had evolved from sex-crazed, brain-eating apes.
With their tongues lodged deep into their cheeks, Mothersbaugh and Casale combined the wild-eyed imagery of the religious pamphlet with the pseudo-scientific contentions of Kiss-Maerth to form their theory of de-evolution, which suggested that mankind was moving back toward its primate roots by way of corporate culture and lifestyle conformity. The duo were soon joined by their brothers Bob Mothersbaugh and Bob Casale, as well as drummer Alan Myers, to set their satirical philosophy to the strange melange of punky beats, jagged guitar riffs and insistent synthesizer chords that characterized the Devo sound.
From their first single “Jocko Homo” — the most explicit statement of their de-evolution theory — through subsequent albums like FREEDOM OF CHOICE (which included their one Top 40 hit, “Whip It”), Devo’s songs were sharpened by a subversive anti-authoritarian edge that was not always understood by critics of the time, some of whom labelled the band “fascist.” (A similar fate would befall filmmaker Paul Verhoeven in 1997 when his anti-fascist sci-fi satire STARSHIP TROOPERS was misperceived as advocating the very totalitarianism it criticized.)
We’ll look at the protest roots of Devo in this space in the near future. I hope you can join us then as we examine the band of Spudboys who made plastic hair a fashion accessory and who urged a complacent United States to “use your freedom of choice.”