Gerald Casale, a founding member of the American New Wave legends DEVO, has announced the upcoming release of the band’s new single, ?Don’t Roof Rack Me, Bro! (Seamus Unleashed).? The track satirizes presidential wannabe?Mitt Romney’s infamous 80s road-trip wherein his Irish setter Seamus sprayed liquid feces over the windshield of the family car while strapped atop in a custom-built crate.
The dog incident reads like a scene cut from National Lampoon’s?Vacation?and has come to be known, predictably, as Crate-Gate.? That the scandal borrows its well-worn suffix from Watergate is just the beginning of a melange of cultural references encircling this project like a snake eating its own tail.
The title, ?Don’t Roof Rack Me, Bro! (Seamus Unleashed),? naturally derives from the ?Don’t tase me, bro!? meme?that emerged during an overzealous security incident in which a ?University of Florida student was tased at a Sen. John Kerry speech. Moreover, the track is being released in tandem with the mobile game The Crate Escape: Seamus Unleashed???its title paying homage to both the 1963 Steve McQueen star vehicle The Great Escape?and Django Unchained, the forthcoming Quentin Tarantino flick, which, knowing the director’s predilection for cinematic references, likely takes inspiration by from the 1960s spaghetti western Django?and its rash of spin-offs.
Will DEVO’s latest culminate into a super-meme larger than the sum of its parts or merely become fodder for cultural pooper-scoopers like myself? You be the judge ??the track can be previewed at RollingStone.com
?Don’t Roof Rack Me, Bro! (Seamus Unleashed)? drops at all digital music retailers on August 26, which (not coincidentally) is both National Dog Day and the eve of the Republican National Convention.
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