Yellow is Not a Neutral Color (Devo/Tom Tom Club/Dan Deacon, McCarren Park Pool, 6/26/08)

Got there just in time to hear Dan Deacon (myspace) thank everyone for tolerating his set.  How can anyone hate this guy?  (Please don't answer that.)

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Tina looks great.  Chris looks like Bill Clinton.  TTC's DJ looks like he popped out two generations after this band first played.  TTC's guitarist looks like a DJ.  Mystic Bowie's pants look like they're carpet remnants from KidZone.  Mystic Bowie looks like he does 1,000 push-ups a day.  Mystic Bowie chucked ads for himself into the audience at the end of the set.

It's a lot of fun saying "Mystic Bowie."  It is probably a lot of fun being Mystic Bowie.

I haven't heard that first Tom Tom Club record in over a decade, though you never stop hearing "Genius of Love."  "Wordy Rappington" was livened up by trade-offs between bongos and DJ Grandkid.  We got covers of Hot Chocolate ("You Sexy Thing") and Al Green ("Take Me to the River").  Mystic Bowie can't hit Reverend Al's high notes, but then few can.

PA system played Modern Lovers while TTC's gear was getting packed.  Ooooo, so close to being a reunion of The Heads.

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Some folks are really into Devo.  Which is cool, because it's not.  (I'm not -- cool, or really into Devo.  A friend had a +1.)  Luckily, the cats (or, okay, subhumanoids, or whatever) in Devo (myspace) are still really into Devo, too, tearing through coveralls and ripping apart guitar strings and proudly modeling kneepads.

Early on, Mark Mothersbaugh tossed out a few of the band's iconic red conical crowns.  One bounced off several sets of outstretched hands and landed on the ground between two people near me.  Both reached down to pick it up; they came up holding a clear plastic cup.  Devo, where art-punk meets magic.

Also there:  Best Week Ever, Brooklyn Vegan, Flaming Pablum, Kevchino, Merry Swankster, Moneyries, nyctaper, Pitchfork, Rolling Stone, The Sky Report, Twang of the Void, The Vault of Buncheness

"Uncontrollable Urge" is just an awesome song.  And so it goes into the new single-minded muxtape along with LCD Soundsystem, Usher, Cyndi Lauper, The Pogues, The Golden Dogs, Matt & Kim, Jimmy Strange, Busta Rhymes, YYYs, Local H, and a certain over-vigilant purple dude.

Don't you hate those lame-ass mixes where some dude obviously just searched iTunes with a keyword and schlumped a bunch of tracks together based on their titles?  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

tags: muxtape  concert reviews  devo  tom tom club  pants  

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