Heart of a Punk Soul of a Rasta

Howard Devoto - The Shadowy Years
Part 1 (Episode 1)

Howard's End

Howard Devoto's musical journey has been as troubling as it has been truncated. After the early and all too brief Buzzcocks bash and the three years spent with Magazine, his post post punk musical career became a akin to a Shadow play made up of far too many acts for a normal human mind to comprehend. In the Shadowy Years Part One we'll start on day one and then attempt to make sense of the early post Magazine years, the solo return and the vicarious collaborations. In Part Two I will attempt to bring things up to date ending with the reunification of Magazine in 2009 and the fifth Magazine studio album in 2011.

Magazine finally ran out of steam during the recording of their final "Magic, Murder and the Weather" LP in 1981. Between 1981 and the Magazine reunion 2009 Howard Devoto became a shadowy figure that wandered in and out of the "music scene" and in and out of my record collection. Like an itinerant Uncle who "was still alive somewhere", "probably overseas" or "banged up in prison". Howard Devoto was rarely spoken of, and invariably only half remembered. There would be years of nothingness and then suddenly he would reappear, as if from nowhere like the storekeeper from Mr Benn in some new guise, beneath a hat, or behind thick black specs. Peeping out from behind a urinal door in "24hr Party People" or waiting by the "Cemetery Gates" for Morrissey. He'd return just in time to remind you exactly what you'd been missing. The awkward enigma, the unclassifiable Mancunian, the singer without a pigeon whole, the shadowy one, Mr Devoto.........Howard.

So where to begin? Well I guess at the start, or should I say at the end. Here's Howard being interviewed by Dave McCulloch in Sounds 1981. Magazine was over.

I don't believe in Magic
I don't believe in Murder
I don't believe in Weather
I don't believe in Pistols
I don't believe in Thatcher
I don't believe in Shelley
I don't believe in Kinnock
I don't believe in Dostoevsky
I don't believe in Hannett
I don't believe in Manchester
I don't believe in My Tulpa
I don't believe in Monarchy
I don't believe in Factory
I don't believe in Zimmerman
I don't believe in Magazine
I just believe in me
Howard that's me
And that's reality

The dream is over
What can I say?
The dream is over
Yesterday
I was the Raskolnikov
But now I'm reborn
And so dear friends
You'll just have to carry on
The dream is over.

So the die had been cast, death was, as always, irreversible and Howard was on his tod. Lack of commercial success by Magazine which was cited in the McCulloch interview as a contributing factor to the split, had for a long time been the favourite barb of the music journo. They loved to stick this salient point into Howard Devoto & Magazine on a regular basis, and were forever comparing their commercial success with others, especially The Buzzcocks. It had become a mantra for the likes of McCulloch and it would rear its ugly head again, and again, and again, in the future.

With John McGeoch gone Magazine had had the wind taken from its sails. They'd enough energy left to play one final card, it hadn't been an ace, and an ace was the only card that would have won the hand. Lack of commercial success or not Magazine had run its course, there was no time for recriminations or myth making - the question was now where to next for Howard? We were going to have to wait another 2 years to find out.

NB: Just a quick warning before we start The Shadowy Years about my "personal taste". My favourite album by Magazine is they're troublesome second: "Second Hand Daylight". I don't care what the music scribblers said at the time. Dubbing it "more prog rock than punk rock" And I don't care about the success and plaudits that were heaped upon "Correct Use of Soap". I can't help this. "Second Hand Daylight" is the Magazine LP that most often finds its way onto my turntable and for me is Howard at his skin piercing best. So this is where I stand and this is where I'm coming from as far as Magazine are concerned. Striking melodies, beautiful harmonies and enchanting pronouncements of love are not what I'm seeking from Magazine. I want gallows humour, existential grime and melodrama bordering on insanity. And my commentary will reflect this. Now let's get on................