says. "He said he'd take us to Tokyo that winter and said the only thing that could throw it off was that he might have to take a role for a movie called Just a Gigolo in Berlin."

As it turned out, Bowie didn't produce the band's debut, 1978's Q: Are We Not Men? A: We Are Devo! The band wound up working with Brian Eno, and recorded the album over a period of four months between October 1977 and February 1978, primarily in Cologne, Germany. Bowie would drop in to hang out with the band during the recording sessions. The album was a hit.

Synths and Stuff

When Mothersbaugh first came to Los Angeles back in the 1980s, he crashed at punk icon Iggy Pop's Malibu home — the twohad become friends. Eventually, Mothersbaugh bought a house in L.A. and then started working out of a Marina del Rey rehearsal space. The commute was a killer as he'd ramble down from his home in the hills above Sunset Boulevard in a 1958 Mercedes Benz with no power steering or power brakes.

He would drive past the building that now houses Mutato Muzika every morning, envious of its prime location and unique shape. When it came up for sale in 1995, he bought the place and has turned it into a space where he can both write music for plays, movies and TV and work on his various art projects.

In one room, a giant HD TV monitor sits above a keyboard and studio console. In that same room, he