Dove: Devo’s Christian alter-egos
By the time of their 1979 sophomore LP Duty Now for the Future, no other band had reached such prominence with their degree of barbed subversion. Hailing from the dusky American midwest that spawned like-minded avant punks Pere Ubu and The Bizarros, Devo‘s innovative deconstruction of post-punk and electronic experiments cut a truly unique voice at their founding in the early 1970s.
Guided by the satirical concept of humanity’s de-evolution, Devo embraced an entire multi-media package, both underground filmmakers and art-punk synthesists, with their sardonic low-budget experiment In the Beginning Was the End: The Truth About De-Evolution in 1976.
Already seriously influential by the dawn of the ‘80s, they were receiving high praise from David Bowie and Iggy Pop and recruiting Brian Eno to produce their debut Q. Are We Not Men? A. We Are Devo!. By the time they made their ’78 appearance on Saturday Night Live, delivering a wholly disjointed and jerky rendition of The Rolling Stones’ ‘(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction’, the band was thrust into the homes of middle America with a dizzying pace.
Around this time, members Mark Mothersbaugh and Gerald Casale came across the parody religion Church of the SubGenius, a satire of dogmatic belief systems that chimed perfectly with Devo’s acerbic social critique. A doctrine that centres on JR ‘Bob’ Dobbs, a ’50s salesman who must be worshipped as a deity to save from mass brainwashing from a ‘grand conspiracy’. In an age of MAGA ‘deep state’ paranoia, Dobbs’ disciples were irreverently prescient.
Speaking to Westword in 2011, Casale offered insight into the parody religion’s appeal: “As soon as we found out about the Church of the Subgenius – I think it was 1979 – we were immediately entertained because any church that lampoons religion is our kind of church. I mean, I can’t remember who said that ‘religion is the last refuge of scoundrels,’ but that’s pretty much how we feel about people believing things blindly and repeating their beliefs blindly, and when you ask them why, they have no reasons.”
This meeting of punk and parody was timely. As the growing neocon right was flirting with the evangelicals, a new breed of televangelists was sweeping across America, preaching priggish, moral purity and cash-grabbing commercialism; the plastic creep of corporate Christianity provided the perfect target for Devo’s subversive theatre.
If you were lucky enough to catch any of Devo’s late-1970s sets, you may have witnessed support act Dove, the Christian muzak group, playing easy-listening versions of Devo’s hits. Dressed in suits and accountant visors, ‘The Band of Love’ were clearly Devo in disguise, a foil to satirise a clear display of their de-evolution theory put in stark practice with the pernicious marriage of the church and the Republican party in full swing.
Dove didn’t last long but was cast in the religious spoof movie Pray TV in 1980. With the recent American election results and Trump’s announced administration filled with Christian nationalists who want more Bibles and fewer rights, hopefully, Dove may make an appearance sooner than you think.
