Remember DEVO, the Ohio band with the bright red “Energy Dome” hat? The band performed at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver and is preparing a new album, so the Ohio Historical Center in Columbus is putting its DEVO treasures on display now through August.
Four of the remaining members, including lead singer Mark Mothersbaugh, grew up in Akron and met while attending Kent State University.
Named for the band’s first album, Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are DEVO!, the exhibit includes a costume, with the iconic red hat or “Energy Dome,” t-shirts, vintage stickers and albums.
The group’s name is based on the idea that the human race is in a process of devolution, a concept that members first read about in the 1924 pamphlet “Jocko Homo Heavenbound.” Later editions (second through fifth) of this anti-Darwinism pamphlet were published in Ashtabula, Ohio, birthplace of Clarence Darrow. A copy of the fifth edition, in the collections of the Ohio Historical Society, is on display with the DEVO Collection.
Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are DEVO! can be seen 9 a.m.-9 p.m. Thursdays and 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturdays in the lobby of the Archives-Library on the third floor of the Ohio Historical Center.
