Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo!

* Original Artwork
* European Artwork

***Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo!*** is the debut studio album by the American new wave band Devo, first released in August 1978 on Warner Bros. Records in America and Virgin Records in Europe. Produced by Brian Eno, the album was recorded between October 1977 and February 1978, primarily in Cologne, West Germany.

Upon release it received somewhat mixed reviews from critics and peaked at No. 78 on the U.S. *Billboard* chart and No. 12 on the UK Albums Chart. Recent reviews have been more uniformly positive, with the album charting on several retrospective "best of" lists from publications including *Rolling Stone*, *Pitchfork*, and *Spin*.

On May 6, 2009, Devo performed the album live in its entirety for the first time as part of the Don't Look Back concert series curated by All Tomorrow's Parties. On September 16, 2009, Warner Bros. and Devo announced a re-release of *Are We Not Men?* and the 1980 album *Freedom of Choice*, which they supported with a tour performing both albums in their entirety.

## Background

### Writing (1974 - May 1977)

Despite being recorded in California & Germany after earning fame from their two singles and live shows, the album was entirely written whilst the band were living in the less than supportive supportive environment of Akron, Ohio.

The earliest written song, *Jocko Homo*, was composed by Mark Mothersbaugh in late 1974, inspired by a creationist pamphlet titled *Jocko Homo Heavenbound* he discovered*.*The next written songs were Uncontrollable Urge and Shrivel Up, speculated to have been written in late 1976 when the band were starting to receive local attention at The Crypt punk music club. *Space Junk* is confirmed as being from this period, and is featured on an official recording dated to December 1976. The rest of the material dates entirely to early 1977. Songs such as Praying Hands & Too Much Paranoais both are included in a bootleg recording of a Crypt performance dated as February of 1977. Mongoloid is also from this period, and was released as the band's first single in March of 1977. Satisfaction, Gut Feeling, Slap Your Mammy, Sloppy, and Come Back Jonee were all debuted in concert on May 19th, 1977, one of the band's final performances before moving to California.

Writing on the album was diversely split between three members of the band, Gerald Casale, Mark Mothersbaugh, and Bob Mothersbaugh, with a healthy blend of group written songs making up it's track listing, songs like, Sloppy and Shirvel-Up feature all three members of the writing team making contributions, with additional writing from former non-performing member of DEVO Gary Jackett on Sloppy. The only solo written songs on the album are 'Uncontrollable Urge', 'Jocko Homo' & 'Too Much Paranoias', written by Mark Mothersbaugh, as well as 'Mongoloid', written by Gerald Casale.

Bob Mothersbaugh's writing for the group was mostly riffs for lead guitar featured on songs like 'Space Junk', 'Gut Feeling' 'Sloppy', and 'Shirvel Up'.

### Getting Noticed (May - September 1977)

After several years of performing in Ohio to negative and even aggressive audiences, the band planned a brief vacation to New York City, where they would perform in the popular alternative venues of the time, such as CBGB's and Max's Kansas City, where they would try to get noticed and promote their Mongoloid Single. The New York audiences loved DEVO, and they gained a cult following. After seeing the positive reception they'd received in New York, the band members moved to California, where they began to perform in local clubs. The reception in California was the best they'd received ever, so they knew they were doing something right. Before they had even entered the recording studio in October of 1977, Devo had a 3 album plan in mind, with detailed track listings for the first two albums.

The original intention for the Are We Not Men track list (Circa May - September 1977)

***Side One***

1. Satisfaction
2. Too Much Paranoias
3. Praying Hands
4. Uncontrollable Urge
5. Mongoloid
6. Jocko Homo

***Side Two***

7. Social Fools
8. Be Stiff
9. Gut Feeling
10. Slap Your Mammy
11. Sloppy
12. Come Back Jonee

### Recording (October 1977 - February 1978)

Following a performance at Mabuhay Gardens in October of 1977, DEVO were approached by Patrick Gleeson, with an offer to produce a quick session with them at Different Fur Studios. Interested to see how they'd sound in the studio, the band all agreed. During these sessions the band recorded Come Back Jonee, and Shrivel Up. These recordings were eventually overdubbed and used on their debut album. By this time their original track listing for the album was already being adjusted, with Shrivel Up becoming slated as the album's closing track, instead of Come Back Jonee, as originally intended.

All the while, the band were sending frequent demo tapes to whoever they could in attempts to secure a recording contract. One such individual to receive a tape was Iggy Pop, who was impressed by the band, and played the tape for David Bowie. Bowie was fascinated with them, and had arranged to meet the band in New York City, just before a performance there on November 15th.

DEVO and Bowie met backstage, where they agreed to have Bowie introduce the show. Whilst on stage, Bowie not only introduced the band, but announced that he was going to produce their first album in Japan. A likely impulsive decision that had not been spoken about beforehand. The band were excited at this, because in spite of their cult success, they were not doing financially well. This announcement shot them from a cult band, to a major press interest.

Very shortly afterwards however, Bowie told the band he would not be able to produce their album, as he'd been scheduled to work on the David Hemmings film *Just a Gigolo*, which would have to be his main focus for the next few months. He instead offered the services of his own producer at the time, Brian Eno. As the band were without a record label, they had no way to pay for the sessions, but Eno assured them that he would pay not only for the sessions, but also to fly them to Germany where he planned to record them.

After a series of performances across the USA in December and January, DEVO were flown to Cologne, West Germany, where they met with Brian Eno and David Bowie, who had been staying there. The sessions took place at Conny Plank's private studio, with Bowie only appearing on the weekends he was free. Bowie was only in Germany for three weeks, before leaving to begin his "Heroes" promotional tour on February 20th.

DEVO and Brian Eno had a tense relationship during the sessions. Whilst DEVO had a clear idea of what they wanted to sound like, Eno was more interested in experimenting with the band's sound, and added his own synthesizer contributions to all tracks, most of which were deleted by the band members during the final mixes. The track listing had been adjusted even further during these sessions. Uncontrollable Urge had been moved to the opening track, Too Much Paranoias had been moved to Side B and replaced with Space Junk on Side A. Too Much Paranoias took the places of Social Fools and Be Stiff on side B, and Come Back Jonee was moved before Sloppy, with Shrivel Up remaining the final track. Sessions finished in late February, and the band returned to the USA.

### Record Labels (March - September 1978)

Ensuing the album's completion, DEVO began to seek out a record label to release it. They'd received offers from Island Records, Virgin, Warner, and even David Bowie's own Belway Brothers record label. It was eventually narrowed down to Warner and Virgin, who began to settle it between themselves. At the same time, the band had been discovered by Stiff Records, who contacted them with hopes to earn European distribution rights to their singles. Seeing as it wouldn't largely effect the battle between Virgin & Warner, they agreed.

At this same time, Mark Mothersbaugh and Bob Casale were flown to Jamaica by Virgin records, who told them that Johnny Rotten wanted to join DEVO. Being stoned on Jamaican grass offered by the label, Mark and Bob laughed at the idea, and refused.

Subsequently, Stiff Records funded a tour of the UK, titled the Satisfaction tour. The performances earned a mixed to positive reception from the audience, and their two singles began to chart shortly afterwards. Eventually a deal was reached with Virgin and Warner. Warner could release the album worldwide, whilst Virgin were given exclusive rights in the UK. The album was released on August 28th by Warner, and then on September 1st by Virgin.

In order to promote the album, the band created a music video for *Satisfaction*, and *Come Back Jonee*, filmed in August of 1978. The two videos were shown ahead of their concerts.

## Tour

The Are We Not Men tour was largely an adaption of the live shows the band had been developing since their move to California in July of 1977. The band wore their yellow suits, and performed 52% material from the album, and 47% unreleased material. The second show of the tour was professionally filmed and included in their 1979 film *The Men Who Make The Music*.

On October 14th, the band had their biggest spike in popularity yet, following a performance of Satisfaction, and Jocko Homo on Saturday Night Live. The US tour immediately sold out following this, with many excited to see more of the band. The World Tour started on October 9th of 1978, and concluded on January 12th 1979. Following this was a brief tour of Japan in May of 1979.

## Later Live Versions

Being one of the group's most popular albums, if not their most popular album, material from *Q: Are We Not Men* has featured in 90% of DEVO's concerts. For the 1979 'Duty Now For The Future' tour, 10 of the album's 12 tracks were performed, with only *Too Much Paranoias* and *Space Junk* missing. The Duty Now tour would begin a setlist tradition with devo, which included placing the *Are We Not Men* material towards the second half of the show. For the 1980 Freedom of Choice tour, DEVO performed 7 of the album's tracks, not including Praying Hands, Space Junk, Too Much Paranoias, Sloppy, and Shrivel Up

For their 1981/82 New Traditionalists tour, the presence of Are We Not Men was significantly undermined, with only 4 tracks being performed in the later half of the setlist, 'Uncontrollable Urge', 'Mongoloid', 'Jocko Homo', and 'Gut Feeling'. For their 1982 'Oh No It's Devo' tour the presence of the album was increased, with 'Satisfaction' and 'Come Back Jonee' being added to the setlist.

Six years later, on their **Total Devo/Now It Can Be Told** tour, Q: Are We Not Men was once again reduced to four tracks, *Jocko Homo*, *Satisfaction*, *Uncontrollable Urge* and *Gut Feeling*. But this was only for the first leg of the tour, as for the second to fourth legs, with Mongoloid and Come Back Jonee being added. The 'Smooth Noodle Maps' tour was mostly the same, with the exception of Come Back Jonee. For their reunion show in 1996 at the Sundance Film Festival, the typical 'Synth Set first, Guitar set last' format was reversed, and so it was opened by the group performing one half of Are We Not Men, Too Much Paranoias, Praying Hands, Satisfaction, Uncontrollable Urge, Mongoloid & Jocko Homo.

From this point on performing one half of Are We Not Men throughout the set became standard, for their 1996 performances at *Lollapalooza* DEVO performed largely the same selection of Are We Not Men tracks, except replacing Paranoias and Praying Hands with Gut Feeling and Slap Your Mammy, these songs, with the occasional addition of Come Back Jonee, would become staples of DEVO sets, only changed for one off shows.

In 2009 DEVO embarked on two tours, one of the UK and the other of the USA. On the UK tour, the group would play the entirety of Q: Are We Not Men in sequential order, and on the US tour the group would alternate each night between playing entirely Are We Not Men and Freedom of Choice. The following Something For Everybody tour featured a majority of the tracks from Are We Not Men, minus Praying Hands, Space Junk, Too Much Paranoias, Sloppy, and Shrivel Up. Four tracks from the album were also featured on the Hardcore Devo tour of 2014.

In their recent setlists (2019), DEVO have only performed 4 songs from the album, Satisfaction, Uncontrollable Urge, Mongoloid, and Jocko Homo.

## Track listing

***Side One (18:06)***

1. Uncontrollable Urge (M.Mothersbaugh) (3:09)
2. (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction (Jagger/Richards) (2:40)
3. Praying Hands (M.Mothersbaugh/G.Casale) (2:47)
4. Space Junk (G.Casale/B.Mothersbaugh) (2:14)
5. Mongoloid (G.Casale) (3:44)
6. Jocko Homo (M.Mothersbaugh) (3:40)

***Side Two (16:18)***

7. Too Much Paranoias (M.Mothersbaugh) (1:57)
8. Gut Feeling (M.Mothersbaugh/B.Mothersbaugh) (Slap Your Mammy) (G.Casale) (4:54)
9. Come Back Jonee (M.Mothersbaugh/G.Casale) (3:47)
10. Sloppy (I Saw My Baby Gettin') (M.Mothersbaugh/G.Casale/B.Mothersbaugh/G.Jackett) (2:40)
11. Shrivel-Up (M.Mothersbaugh/B.Mothersbaugh/G.Casale) (3:05)

### 1979 Bonus Flexi edition

***Side One (18:06)***

1. Uncontrollable Urge (3:09)
2. (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction (2:40)
3. Praying Hands (2:47)
4. Space Junk (2:14)
5. Mongoloid (3:44)
6. Jocko Homo (3:40)

***Side Two (16:18)***

7. Too Much Paranoias (1:57)
8. Gut Feeling (Slap Your Mammy) (4:54)
9. Come Back Jonee (3:47)
10. Sloppy (I Saw My Baby Gettin') (2:40)
11. Shrivel-Up (3:05)

***Flexi***

1. Flimsy Wrap (M.Mothersbaugh/G.Casale/B.Mothersbaugh/G.Jackett)

### 1993 CD issue

1. Uncontrollable Urge (3:09)
2. Satisfaction (2:40)
3. Praying Hands (2:47)
4. Space Junk (2:14)
5. Mongoloid (3:44)
6. Jocko Homo (3:39)
7. Too Much Paranoias (1:57)
8. Gut Feeling (4:04)
9. (Slap Your Mammy) (0:51)
10. Come Back Jonee (3:47)
11. Sloppy (I Saw My Baby Gettin') (2:40)
12. Shrivel Up (3:05)
13. Freedom Of Choice Theme Song (Live) (2:44)
14. Whip It (Live) (2:48)
15. Girl U Want (Live) (2:53)
16. Gates Of Steel (Live) (3:26)
17. Be Stiff (Live) (2:55)
18. Planet Earth (Live) (2:37)
19. Social Fools (2:53)
20. Penetration In The Centrefold (2:28)
21. Soo Bawlz (2:22)

### 2009 version with 'Live At The London HMV Forum'

1. Uncontrollable Urge (3:10)
2. (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction (2:41)
3. Praying Hands (2:48)
4. Space Junk (2:15)
5. Mongoloid (3:44)
6. Jocko Homo (3:38)
7. Too Much Paranoias (1:57)
8. Gut Feeling (Slap Your Mammy) (4:56)
9. Come Back Jonee (3:47)
10. Sloppy (I Saw My Baby Gettin') (2:40)
11. Shrivel Up (3:10)
12. Uncontrollable Urge (Live) (3:32)
13. (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction (Live) (3:15)
14. Praying Hands (Live) (3:30)
15. Space Junk (Live) (2:35)
16. Mongoloid (Live) (4:53)
17. Jocko Homo (Live) (4:45)
18. Too Much Paranoias (Live) (2:34)
19. Gut Feeling (Slap Your Mammy) (Live) (4:25)
20. Come Back Jonee (Live) (4:27)
21. Sloppy (I Saw My Baby Gettin') (Live) (2:32)
22. Shrivel Up (Live) (3:19)

### 2009 'Ultra Devo-lux Ltd. Edition'

1. Uncontrollable Urge (3:10)
2. (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction (2:41)
3. Praying Hands (2:48)
4. Space Junk (2:15)
5. Mongoloid (3:44)
6. Jocko Homo (3:38)
7. Too Much Paranoias (1:57)
8. Gut Feeling (Slap Your Mammy) (4:56)
9. Come Back Jonee (3:47)
10. Sloppy (I Saw My Baby Gettin') (2:40)
11. Shrivel Up (3:10)
12. Uncontrollable Urge (Demo) (3:08)
13. Social Fools (Demo) (3:42)
14. Sloppy (Demo) (2:21)

## Credits

* Performed By: Mark, Jerry, Bob1, Bob2 & Alan
* Producer: Brian Eno
* Graphic Supervision: John Cabalka
* Package Production Design: Erik Munsön
* Engineer: Conrad Planck
* Graphic Concept And Execution: DEVO Inc
* Photography By: Bobbi Watson

* Mark Mothersbaugh:
	+ Writer of 'Uncontrollable Urge', 'Jocko Homo' & 'Too Much Paranoias'.
	+ Co-Writer of 'Praying Hands', 'Gut Feeling', 'Come Back Jonee', 'Sloppy' & 'Shrivel-Up'
* Gerald V. Casale:
	+ Writer of 'Mongoloid' & 'Slap Your Mammy'
	+ Co-Writer of 'Praying Hands', 'Space Junk', 'Come Back Jonee', 'Sloppy' & 'Shrivel-Up'
* Bob Mothersbaugh:
	+ Co-Writer of 'Space Junk', 'Gut Feeling', 'Sloppy' & 'Shrivel-Up'
* Patrick Gleeson
	+ Recording on 'Come Back Jonee' & 'Shrivel-Up'
* Mick Jagger, Keith Richards:
	+ Writers on 'Satisfaction'
* Gary Jackett:
	+ Co-Writer on 'Sloppy'

***Uncredited. Adapted from live footage between 1977 - 1979***

* Mark Mothersbaugh:
	+ Vocals on all songs except 'Space Junk' & 'Mongoloid'.
	+ Synth on all songs except 'Slap Your Mammy', 'Sloppy' & 'Shrivel Up'.
	+ Guitar on 'Satisfaction' & 'Too Much Paranoias'
* Gerald Casale:
	+ Bass Guitar on all songs
	+ Vocals on 'Space Junk' & 'Mongoloid'.
	+ Backing Vocals on all songs except 'Space Junk', 'Mongoloid', 'Gut Feeling', 'Sloppy' & 'Shrivel Up'
* Bob Mothersbaugh
	+ Lead Gutiar on all songs
	+ Backing vocals on 'Uncontrollable Urge', 'Satisfaction', 'Space Junk', 'Mongoloid' & 'Jocko Homo'
* Bob Casale
	+ Rythmn Guitar on all songs except on 'Shrivel Up'
	+ Synth on 'Sloppy' & 'Shrivel Up'
	+ Backing Vocals on 'Come Back Jonee'
* Alan Myers
	+ Drums on all songs
* Brian Eno
	+ Synths on 'Space Junk' & 'Shrivel Up'
	+ Backing Vocals on 'Space Junk'

## External links

* *Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo!* at Wikipedia
* *Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo!* on Discogs