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Which debut is better?

The B-52s
Total votes: 19 (54%)
Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo!
Total votes: 16 (46%)
Total votes: 35

Re: Debut dome: The B-52s vs Devo

22 by matttkkkk
He would focus on certain strings on certain guitars, and using the little Korg analog tuner, he would throw those strings, which I had tuned to digital perfection, off of A 440 ever so slightly. In other words, I had to get it perfect so he could then deviate from there to a place that only he could find.
...
After Ricky checked and tweaked his tunings I would begin to transport the seven guitars, two of them double necks, all with different tunings, to the stage area where I had earlier set up a base of operations. From there I would alter the guitar tunings and string variations during the show, as they changed with each song. We couldn't travel with fourteen guitars so I had to subtract strings and retune using the Korg, as per the set list dictate.
Ricky used only five strings on his guitars, sometimes only four, and always the heaviest gauge possible. For those of you who might ask, 0.18 was the lightest, 0.58 the heaviest. During the show he would punish the strings using an extra heavy pick, staring intensely at some point on the stage floor or a million miles beyond, thrashing away as a constant rivulet of sweat dripped from the end of his nose like a trickle of water off of a mountainside.
He hit hard, holding nothing back, creating his unique chording with his thumb over the top of the fret board and hitting down while pulling up on the higher two strings, usually tuned in unison. Pushing down and pulling up thusly, he pulled out dynamics like lava from a volcano. Ricky created the illusion of two guitarists in this way and combined with Keith Strickland's excruciatingly exact drumming, he produced an infectious rhythm.
Image
From RW's first guitar tech Keith Bennett, memoir here: https://issuu.com/bennettcreative/docs/rickywilson

Re: Debut dome: The B-52s vs Devo

24 by ipitcher
matttkkkk wrote: Sun Aug 11, 2024 9:43 pm
He would focus on certain strings on certain guitars, and using the little Korg analog tuner, he would throw those strings, which I had tuned to digital perfection, off of A 440 ever so slightly. In other words, I had to get it perfect so he could then deviate from there to a place that only he could find.
...
This is great. Thanks for sharing.

Re: Debut dome: The B-52s vs Devo

25 by Anthony Flack
matttkkkk wrote: Sun Aug 11, 2024 7:31 pm B-52's are a very important band to me, and Ricky Wilson's guitar is everything. Devo, much respect, but not in the same league.
I can relate, because Ricky Wilson is perhaps my all-time favourite guitar stylist and those first two albums are like precious joy preserved in amber.

And Devo is not really that, but still Devo is a bigger thing. I think Devo fans could cope with sacrificing Are We Not Men? for the greater good, if you had to Sophie's Choice between that and the B-52's debut, apostrophe and all.

B-52(')s fans could never give up the first record, anything but that.

Whammy! is still pretty good I think, but does it beat Freedom Of Choice?

Re: Debut dome: The B-52s vs Devo

26 by Anthony Flack
Also, did he just call Keith Strickland's drumming excruciating? I guess he means in a good way. I always loved how disciplined he was. And when he needed a fill he would just go DOONG on his big ass rack tom. Awesome. When I started playing drums seriously he was somebody I looked to as a model for simple-but-effective.

Or course Alan Myers was no slouch.

Re: Debut dome: The B-52s vs Devo

28 by eephus
I like Devo, but I love and cherish the B-52's as much as almost any band ever.

I can see how they are roughly equivalent in many ways, but in that case...when one band is loaded with sex and the other one is a kind of dadaist/futurist art project, I'm going to like the first band better.

That said, basically all of what Devo had to say about commercialism, capitalism, the military-industrial complex, overall banality of modern life was true at the time, except what turned out to be prophetic.
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