How Mark Mothersbaugh of Devo fell in love with a knock-off Beatles
Mark Mothersbaugh is the lead singer and co-founder of the obscure new wave band Devo. Devo’s absurd stage shows and music have provided the group with a cult following since the mid-1970s, and Mothersbaugh also amazingly composed the music for the animated kids’ TV show Rugrats.
Reflecting on his path, he once opened up on his early influences, noting a particular love for the Beatles. “With five kids, the way my dad kept everybody under control at dinnertime was by putting a little portable black-and-white TV in the kitchen, and we would just watch and shut up,” Mothersbaugh said. “That’s where I saw the Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1964. They started playing ‘I Want to Hold Your Hand’, and I lost my mind. I went, ‘Oh my God, that’s why I’ve been tortured with organ lessons my whole life, so I could do that.'”
Like many young kids in the 1960s, the Beatles provided Mothersbaugh with a first foray into the new world of rock and roll music. The Beatles’ power in the 1960s reached all four corners of the world. However, Mothersbaugh was also susceptible to the downside of Beatlemania: the knock-off bands.
“Right around that same time, I went to Woolworth’s with my 25-cents-per-week allowance,” Mothersbaugh revealed. “The Beatles had all these records, and I was like, ‘Oh man, how do you choose?’ All their albums were like $3.99, but then I saw one that was only $1.99. So I bought that record, The Beetle Beat, put it on, and thought, ‘They didn’t play that on Ed Sullivan.'”
He added: “Then I hit ‘Mersey Mercy’, where they go, ‘You’ve got me bug, bug, bug, bug, bugged/Because now little ladybug, you belong to me!’ and I went, ‘OK, that’s way too stupid for the Beatles.’ Finally, I realised it said ‘The Buggs’ in big letters up at the top of the record.”
The Buggs claimed to be the “original Liverpool sound”, but the album was actually recorded in New York and New Jersey. In fact, The Buggs weren’t even a real band; The Beetle Beat was recorded by a New Jersey band called Coachmen V, who thought the record would be released under their name. There was disappointment in the group when the album was released under The Buggs, and they too were the fools of the Beatle-mania scam.
Mothersbaugh also noted: “Many years later, in the ’70s, I had this little PAiA sequencer and a ring modulator that could make these really aggressive, nasty sounds. I wrote a song called ‘U Got Me Bugged’ where I sang in this weird electronic voice. It was crazier than the Buggs’ version, that’s for sure.”
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