DEVO originated at Kent State University and started with the Mothersbaugh brothers. Mark Mothersbaugh and Jerry Casales met as Art Majors at Kent. The band was and is an incredibly successful art project. Mark never claimed to be a musician, though the band really developed amzing chops quickly and a totally unique approach to music which set them apart from the beginning and attracted the attention of John Cale and Brian Eno. Mark has had a totally independent career as an artist. His work represents a unique, unbroken personal esthetic that has spanned almost a half century. He states that his non musical, visual approach to composition and technology freed him to make the synthesizers he used do some thing other than what they were intended. He composed the soundtrack for a few of Wes Anderson's films including Moonrise Kingdom. For the film, he said he finally found a use for the collection of antique birdcalls he had collected for years. Mark has had a few retrospective shows in major museums recently and finally a great book, Myopia, spanning his career as an artist has been produced with a forward by Wes Anderson. Wes claims that Mark has created his own Mutant Magic Kingdom and it is Akron, Ohio! Here's a link to sample pages of the book at WINKBOOKS.

If you have never seen the collaboration between Neil Young and DEVO from Youngs film, Human Highway, check this out!