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Mothersbaugh just short of graduating in 1970s
By Carol Biliczky
Beacon Journal staff writer
Published on Monday, May 05, 2008
Despite financial help from his dad, a scholarship and tons of good feelings about the campus, Mark Mothersbaugh walked away from Kent State in 1973 just one quarter shy of a degree.
A musician and composer, Mothersbaugh fixes that at 10 a.m. Saturday when he returns to receive an honorary degree at the university's spring commencement.
''Kent State was the beginning of something for me,'' said Mothersbaugh, now 57. ''It taught me to be proactive. It was where education became relevant to me for the first time.''
A Cuyahoga Falls native,
Mothersbaugh has enjoyed uncommon success as the frontman for the experimental rock group Devo and more recently as a prolific Emmy Award-winning composer of soundtracks for movies, television shows, video games and commercials.
His work spans a sweeping range — everything from TV's Pee Wee's Play House, The Rugrats and Dawson's Creek to the films The Royal Tenenbaums and Lords of Dogtown.
Reached Friday at his Los Angeles production company Mutato Muzika, he was working on his latest project — a soundtrack for Falling Up, an independent film about a New York elevator operator who falls for a rich woman who lives in the penthouse.
That is one of four films the company is currently working on — a career that Mothersbaugh maintains took root in those long-ago days at Kent State.
He chose to go there because he received a partial scholarship, thanks to a recommendation from his Woodridge High art teacher.
The campus opened his eyes and introduced him to the printmaking that he still pursues today. It was there he met Gerald Casale, a fellow student who, with Mothersbaugh's brother, Bob, became members of the avant guard Devo. Bob Mothersbaugh also is a composer with Mutato Muzika.
Mark Mothersbaugh's hatred of the Vietnam War grew at KSU, culminating in 1969 when he rushed to the campus commons to stop the radical Students for a Democratic Society from napalming a dog to demonstrate the atrocities being committed in Southeast Asia. The threat was an idle one — no dog was harmed — but it galvanized Mothersbaugh into an anti-war mode.
''It was an amazing place to me,'' he said. ''The ideas were free-flowing. It was the kind of place people could flourish if they were trying.''
To his father's chagrin, though, Mothersbaugh dropped out in 1973 to pursue his music. Devo became a cult band, with band members donning neon jumpsuits and ''power domes'' on their heads to relay their message that mankind was becoming less intelligent instead of more intelligent.
Since then he never finished his degree, much less earned an honorary one. The recommendation for the Kent State honor came from Christine Havice, director of the university's School of Art.
''It is pretty amazing what he has accomplished,'' said Stephen Sokany, associate vice president of university development. ''We had very strong letters of support for his candidacy. The award is based solely on achievement.''
The honor will put Mothersbaugh in a league with dozens of others who have been honored for what the KSU Web site calls ''acknowledged eminence'' — among them, former Ohio Gov. Richard Celeste (1989), former Cleveland Orchestra conductor Christoph Dohnanyi (1996) and Eagles guitarist Joe Walsh (2001).
Mothersbaugh said he hasn't been asked to speak at graduation, but would give this advice if he was:
''Take this seriously and be the best person you can be. It's kind of surprising how small the difference is between leading a life where you just get by and one where you make a bigger difference for the whole world. . . . I would encourage people not to be afraid to use what they've been given.''
Carol Biliczky can be reached at 330-996-3729 or cbiliczky@thebeaconjournal.com.
Despite financial help from his dad, a scholarship and tons of good feelings about the campus, Mark Mothersbaugh walked away from Kent State in 1973 just one quarter shy of a degree.
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