Jihad Jerry

This intimacy with commerce has afforded Devo the opportunity to "sell out" its legacy with an unusual degree of collusion. When Disney approached the band about retooling its music for kids, for example, Casale assumed the reins and produced the audio and video content of Dev2.0, a giddy Devo tribute band made up of tweeners, for an audience of 4-to-8-year-olds. Much harder to miss, though, is the Swiffer commercial, featuring a woman jerking around the living room to the slightly altered tones of "Whip It." Devo re-recorded the song but had nothing else to do with the ad, which Casale critiques like a director, rather than an artist who's just seen his band's most famous song co-opted in the name of state-of-the-art housecleaning: "It's just aesthetically offensive," he says. "It's got everything a commercial that turns people off has."

While "Swiff It" (or this current tour's affiliation with a tequila sponsor) may contribute to the perception of Devo as a VH1 artifact or mere novelty, the band's influence hasn't been lost on successive generations of younger artists. In interviews and musical tributes, Weezer, Soundgarden and Mr. Bungle have all testified to the impact of Devo.

The Matches, a young band from Oakland, California, has an upcoming album, Decomposer, that's markedly influenced by Devo. "They were clearly ahead of their time," says Matches singer Shawn Harris. "I'm attracted to their legacy because they're so self-aware of their contradictions, allowing them to--I don't know--write the theme songs to cartoons without losing any credibility."

"I would give my right hand to have as much credibility as Devo," says Epitaph-label kingpin and Bad Religion guitarist Brett Gurewitz, who co-produced the Matches album. "I love that band. I think they changed music. Their work with Brian Eno was revolutionary."

For his part, Casale--who has a new solo project due September 12 under the handle Jihad Jerry and the Evildoers--seems less concerned with his legacy than the mounting evidence of de-evolution. "We see a planet full of psychos and stupid people running the show," he says. "Meanwhile, global warming is real, the oceans are literally dying, there's rampant new bacteria that's been dormant for a half a billion years and we're killing, destroying, wasting the lives of thousands of innocent people."

It's enough to put in perspective an infamous summer day 36 years ago. "What I went through and what everybody went through then was kindergarten compared to the world we live in today," he says. "When I ask audiences, 'Who thinks de-evolution is real?,' I get a huge scream."