DEVO - Worried Man (1982)

The video clip below includes the framing device from the 1983 'We're All DEVO' home video compilation, featuring Laraine Newman and Michael Swartz as The Rooters, Donut and Rod...



DEVO adapted the old traditional 'Worried Man Blues' for a sequence in Neil Young's little-seen film, 'Human Highway', a musical fantasy-comedy set on the eve of nuclear apocalypse.

Much of the filming for the movie took place in 1978.
The film received a very limited theatrical release in 1982.

The movie was co-directed by Neil Young and Dean Stockwell. The cast included Young, Stockwell, the members of DEVO, Russ Tamblyn, Dennis Hopper, and Sally Kirkland.

The film's score was the first by Mark Mothersbaugh of DEVO, who has gone on to great success in that field over the years.

'Human Highway' was eventually released to VHS and Laserdisc in 1995, but other than isolated clips (like this one), there has been no commercial release for the film since then.

DEVO performed this song in concert occasionally, usually in their 'opening act' guise of 'DOVE, The Band Of Love'.

Commander Cody Band - 2 Triple Cheese (circa 1981)

The music video features the now-extinct Kwik-Way Drive-In Oakland, California.
It was directed by Joe Dea, and aired several times 'back in the day' on 'VideoWest' a locally-originated show that ran on KQED,
San Francisco's PBS station.

The song was released on the Cody Band's 'Lose It Tonight' LP from 1981, released on the Peter Pan record label (yes, the kiddie record label).

Apocalypse Pooh (1987)

'Full' version of T. Graham's short masterpiece, w/ fakeout nature doc intro, 'Blue Peanuts' trailer, and 'AnArchie In The UK'.

Renaldo and the Loaf - Songs For Swinging Larvae (1981)

Videographer Graeme Whifler directed several music videos for some of the Ralph Records stable of artists in the late 1970s and early '80s, including The Residents, Snakefinger, MX-80 Sound and Tuxedomoon, and then a few for some other musical acts beyond Ralph, before eventually working as a screenwriter and director in film and TV.

'Songs For Swinging Larvae' is perhaps the most striking of his Ralph works.
The video actually incorporates three tracks from the first Ralph album by the mysterious English duo, Renaldo and the Loaf;
'Spratts Medium', 'Lime Jelly Grass' and 'Melvyn's Repose' (which was only included on later CD editions of the 'Songs For Swinging Larvae' album - - though recorded in the period of the other tracks, it appeared originally on a Ralph Records rarity and B-side compilation LP, 'Frank Johnson's Favorites').

- For a trove of info regarding the production of the video, the cast and the basis of the story behind it, click over to an entry at
Pop Musicology.

Klaus Nomi performs 'The Cold Song' live

Nomi's final public performance, circa 1982.

He sings 'The Cold Song' from Henry Purcell's 1691 opera 'King Arthur'. Filmed in Munich for broadcast on German TV.

Klaus would succumb to AIDS in August of 1983.

- See also: The Klaus Nomi Website

- The film documentary, 'The Nomi Song: The Klaus Nomi Odyssey' is also highly recommended. As of this writing, it can also be viewed online for free at SnagFilms.