Greetings, spuds! The last few months at the Basement have been a flurry of activity. We’ve received almost 400 orders since we launched in October of last year! Today I write to you again to tell you of a bunch of very exciting content added to the catalog.

Primarily, there is a whole gaggle of new show recordings in the archive, ranging from 1974 to 1981! Did I say 1974? YES! There is now a circulating recording of DEVO’s second ever performance! The significance of this find cannot be understated, and it must be heard to be believed. That’s not the only milestone we’ve been able to add to the collection. We now also have an amazing tape of DEVO’s first ever performance in Los Angeles!  And as mentioned, there are more new or upgraded tapes from 1978, 1979, 1980, and 1981. As always, all the newest additions are marked for easy reference while browsing.

There has also been a slew of material added to the Specialties section. There is a truly bizarre artifact in the form of the Doctor Detroit Audio Press Kit. But moreover, many tribute compilations have been added! We now host the remaining out of print volumes of the Not Necessarily Beautiful But Mutated series compiled by Rev. Toth Wilder in conjunction with DEVOtional events. Toth still has certain volumes available for sale, and you can use our pages to learn how to order directly from Toth! There are also a few other fan projects from around the dawn of the millennium now preserved here before they become lost to the sands of time.

But that’s not all! There are a handful of newly added Mark Mothersbaugh scores, and one solo performance.

And finally, at the suggestion of a spud named Tim, I’ve put together a checklist spreadsheet that lists the entire Basement catalog. If you’re an obsessive collector, you can use this to keep track! Check out the spreadsheet for tips on its use, and please send in any feedback you might have to make this a better implemented feature of the Basement.

Stay tuned to the Basement site for more updates in the very near future. Soon, we will be offering up an incredible show from August 23, 1977, where the band opens the set with “Recombo DNA”! You can preview the show on YouTube right now courtesy of Mike Ziegler.

That’s all for now, potato people!

Duty now for the future!
-Alex Brunelle
archivist-in-residence, Booji Boy’s Basement

Wow! What a first week of operation! We’ve had 100 requests in just about 10 days! Everyone at the Basement is loving the response, and we’re so happy to be able to distribute this amazing material to so many interested spuds, and all for free.

First up today is, have two new additions to the Live Performances category: There’s a fantastic soundboard recording from Napa in 2012 with a complete SFE-era setlist, and a complete recording of the already-classic Burger Boogaloo 2018 performance, featuring Fred Armisen on drums! Both of these awesome shows come to us courtesy of uber-spud BeAuTiFuL MuTaNt (Aaron Williams-Matthews). Aaron is a longtime hardcore fan. Some spuds may know him for his fanzine De-Evolved from the early 90s, and excellent interviews with the band. Others may know him as an ultra-obsessive collector. He has contributed a number of key recordings to the Basement archive, and has some more goodies coming to us in the future.

In site operations news, spuds now have the option to leave a comment when sending in requests. If you have any questions, or just wanted to say hi, feel free to write some words in the comment box!

And lastly, we did have some growing pains in the first few days of operation. The email addresses we had set up using the @booji.fredflash.com domain mostly caused emails to be massively delayed or lost in the aether, and the form on the Contact page may or may not have worked. Thanks to the continually excellent work of our webmaster Shelby Gonzales, all of this has been ironed out (and Shelby added that comment box while she was at it!). So, if anyone tried to get in touch with us via the Contact page, maybe try again?

Until next time. Duty now for the future!

-Alex, archivist in residence

Welcome (or welcome back) to Booji Boy’s Basement!

Booji Boy’s Basement is a not-for-profit distribution service for non-commercial DEVO and DEVO-related recordings. Nothing is ever for sale. Our goal is to allow every spud and spudess around the world to explore the history of Akron’s de-evolution band. First launched in 2004, and never fully out of service, we’re ecstatic to re-launch in 2020.

If you’ve been here before, the first thing you may notice is a major facelift! The website has been entirely redesigned and rebuilt from the ground up. The changes and updates that have been implemented are things we have been wanting to do for the service for many years now, and will keep us running strong for years to come. 100% of this is thanks to Shelby Gonzales, freelance web designer and DEVOtee, who built the site you are browsing now.

There’s a bunch of new content to check out around the archive, too! You can easily see what’s been added since the last update at the old site as you browse around the audio collections.

A new Compilations section has been added, which features newly curated, comprehensive sets of demos, live rarities, TV appearances, and more. These are entirely new compilations of this material, featuring a plethora of additional tracks and upgrades to what was previously offered through the Basement. Even if you think you have all of the stuff in these sets, you should take a gander.

Another new feature is the addition of Booji Boy’s Basement Curated Collections. These collections have been hand-picked to give you the best of what the Basement has to offer in a few different areas. If you don’t want to go digging through lists, wondering what show to get, or worrying that you’re missing something brilliant, you’ll wanna take a peek at these “one-click” collections. The listing pages also include extensive commentary on the material contained therein.

Many Live Performances have been added to the archive since the last time the old website was updated. There are a smattering of wonderful-sounding recordings, some which are just beginning to circulate, and some upgrades and updates made to previously available material. Additionally, there have been many corrections to various dates and locations of recordings throughout the archive, cross-referenced with the DEVO Live Guide. There are also new goodies in the Specialties and Mark Mothersbaugh sections.

One aspect about the Live Performances section that we want to highlight is the addition of “revisions” by xMetalMarkx for many analog-era recordings. xMMx has painstakingly gone through many, many shows in the collection to correct speed, tape drops, and other imperfections to make for the smoothest listening experience possible. It was a huge amount of work performed over many years, and we’re happy to host them here. These versions are selectable on shows they’re available for.

And of course, stay tuned to this space for further updates to the collection. We’re just getting started!

The sidebar on the left will navigate you to the main areas of the site. Check out the How To section for the rundown of how all this works. Go ahead and dive into the pile!