Heart of a Punk Soul of a Rasta

Howard Devoto - The Shadowy Years Part 2
(Episode 1)

All Hail!
The Conquering Howard Returns

Howard Devoto's musical journey has been as troubling as it has been truncated. After the early and brief Buzzcocks bash, and the three years spent with Magazine, his post post punk musical career is a akin to a shadowplay made up of too many acts for a normal human mind to comprehend. In the Shadowy Years Part One I babbled on about 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 LP in 2011.

After "Jerky Versions", the LP and Tour, and after the various collaborations had been and gone, one would of expected, after a slight pause, the emboldened Howard would have proceeded swiftly to solo album No. 2. But this was not what happened. The shadowy Mr Devoto melted away again at the end of '84 into the darkest of dank Mancunian nights. Several years would pass before we would see the like of him once more. It was January 1988 when he finally surfaced - it was on "a winter's night - the northern quay - the isle of dogs - and the rabid one was he"

There had been a brief glimpse of Howard in May 1987, a fleeting revisiting coming with the release of "Rays & Hail" - Magazine for the first time in digital format. Virgin released the retrospective of 14 tracks (not re-mastered) on a CD format only at a time when for most record companies this was pretty much the order of the day. The CD player by '87 had well and truly taken root and the archives were being plundered for "best of" and "compilations" a plenty. Having said that "Rays & Hail 1978-1981" wasn't just thrown together, it was actually packaged and put together very nicely, for the time. [Unlike the "After the Fact" vinyl LP released by Virgin in '82] Here all of HD's lyrics were reproduced and in situ and the artwork and layout on "Rays" was more than just sympathetic. With good artwork and a sensible track listing it was a pity there was no larger vinyl version - I guess they thought those vinyl days were over - how wrong they were.

January 1988, the Independent Chart was king; Howard signed to Beggars Banquet Records and returned to the fray. This time round though it was in the form of Luxuria, a band of two halves, the other half being NOKO, a geezer who'd been doing the rounds playing bass with the likes of The Cure and Pete Shelly. One thing was for sure from the get go, the poppy and perky "Jerky Versions" was not going to be repeated. Luxuria were a different beast altogether. This was going to get black sadistic tortured and hallucinatory, and Howard rhyming couplets were going to get mightily barbed.

Luxuria's first release was "Redneck" it was greeted by "Sounds" like this:

A suitably impressive review, but of course this meant nought to me cos I'd already got my copy of "Redneck" on both formats from my favoured supplier Sundown Records in Wolverhampton. "Redneck" came out in the same month that Mark E Smith and The Fall released "Victoria", New Order's "Touched by the Hand of God" was riding high in the indie charts, The Smiths were now dead (though you wouldn'thave know it) and Morrissey's debut "Suedehead" was about a month away.

The 7" of "Redneck" was released in a fold out brown paper poster version and the 12" version which you are hopefully listening to now came in an embossed stiff recycled cardboard looking sleeve (it probably was recycled cardboard). The design gave a nod to the sleeves used by Magazine around "The Correct Use of Soap" time. Utilitarian chic I'd call it. But what do I know. Both formats came with the same B side (of differing lengths). A Bob Dylan cover "She's Your Lover Now", which to date must be the most bizarre cover Devoto has ever attempted to pull off, and probably the most uncanny, asinine and majestic. But this Zimmerman cover was unlike what was about to greet our ears on the first fully fledged Luxuria album release "Unanswerable Lust". PTO