Buzzcocks get b***legged SOUNDS 20 May 1978 Is There Life Before 'Spiral Scratch'?

Falling off the back of lorries around London at the moment is an album (on new 'independent' label Voto) called 'Time's Up' - which contains all ten tracks that the Howard Devoto Buzzcocks (pictured above) laid down in a tiny studio in Stockport October 76 - 'the Stockport Tapes'

What do you get? A red cover - with a shot of Devoto and Shelley in pristine paint-spattered threads (remember the Jackson Pollock look? 'Jaws' does-) working out in front of their tiny and battered PA. Inside - all the ten tracks from the session (recorded on 4 track in a 'loft' - 1st take - no overdubs) are represented in rea.sonable fi (ie better than most 'live' tapes - slightly worse than 'Spiral Scratch') with the bonus of the 'Spiral Scratch' 'Boredom' Track listing as follows: 'Boredom' - 'You Tear Me Up' - 'Can't Control Myself' - 'Orgasm Addict' - 'Friends Of Mine' - Side two: 'Drop In The Ocean' (in fact an early Devoto/Shelley put down called 'Lester Sands'). 'Breakdown' - 'Love Battery' - 'Time's Up' - 'Love Everybody' (ha ha - in fact the Buzzcocks re-arrangement of Beefheart's 'ILove You - You Big Dummy' seguing into 'Don 't Mess Me Around') and finally - the 'Boredom some of you already at least know - if not love.

Is it worth hunting for? A resounding yes. An invaluable 'historical document' blah blah. Just to hear Pete Shelley singing the 'ba-ba-ba'back-up vocals on 'I Can't Control Myself' is worth the price of the album alone. Here - by the way - the bumpkin lasciviousness of the Troggs' crud-rock classic is forsaken for a 'fast' treatment with very 1976 lyric changes: 'This kind of feeling could destroy a nation-' - 'Drop In The Ocean'is sneakily sibilant - while the 'Big Dummy' re-arrangement should be familiar enough to those who 'ye already had the luck either to see the Buzzcocks in their early days or latterly Magazine.

Some 2000 have been pressed - so it is rumoured - and - yes - the groups concerned already have copies (which they bought). Don 't ask us where to find them etc. and good luck!

Information City NME 9 Feb 1980 by Fred Dellar "When during 1975 did Howard Devoto meet Pete Shelley and come up with the idea of forming Buzzcocks? Also - when did the band commence rehearsals - when - did Howard leave and when did the Shelley-'Garth'-Maher-Diggle Buzzcocks start gigging? " S BAWES - Lancaster - Lancs

No one at New Hormones is into exact dates but it seems that Devoto and Shelley first thought about forming a band after attending one of the Sex Pistols' first gigs at the end of '75. Then they mat up with Steve Diggle and John Maher - the Buzzcocks coming into existence during the Spring of '76 - resulting In a debut gig with the Sex Pistols at Manchester's Lesser Free Trade Hall on July20 - 1976. Devoto left soon after the release of 'Spiral Scratch' (January1977) - at which point Diggle moved back to guitar - Shelley began demonstrating his vocal prowess and Garth Stepped in on bass - remaining until the release of the 'Orgasm Addict' single (August 1977) - at which point he was replaced by Barry Adamson of Magazine - who played for six dates while the band auditioned bassists - finally relieving Stave Garvey of his P46.

Rolling Stone - Mark Coleman - thIS MORTal COIL: It'll End In Tears.

This Mortal Coil is a sort of house band at the U.K. independent label 4AD. It'll End In Tears deploys members of Cocteau Twins - Cindytalk - Colourbox - Dead Can Dance - Modern English and Xmal Deutschland in a series of one - off collaborations. Pop purists may gag on the Alex Chilton covers here - but Howard Devoto's deadpan reading of "Holocaust" successfully updates the old Box Top's wistful cynicism. And as fascinating as it is to hear Elizabeth Fraser warble lyrics that actually mean something on Tim Buckley's lovely "Song to the Siren" it's the instrumental contributions of Robin Guthrie and Simon Raymonde that stand out.

Raymonde's pensive bass line pushes Cindytalk singer Gordon Sharp through Chilton's "Kangaroo" while Raymonde and Guthrie come dangerously close to rocking out behind Modern English's Robbie Grey on the turbulent - throbbing "Not Me." Some of the instrumental passages do cross the line from ambient to oblivious - but the album's closing cut"A Single Wish" has a melodic lilt that's positively uplifting. When Gordon Sharp breathes"It'll end in tears" right before the fade - I want to grab him and say"Not always."

High Fidelity - Ken Richardson - LUXURIA: Unanswerable Lust.

Here comes another British duo - but rest easy: Luxuria does not sound like the dreaded Pet Shop Boys. Rather - Luxuria Sounds like everything but the Pet Shop Boys. Yet in quoting nearly all pop genres from the past two decades - Luxuria - more than any other band I've heard these days - somehow avoids simply rehashing Where We've Been and instead comes out chiming Where We're Going.

One half of this duo is Howard Devoto - who with Pete Shelley founded the Buzzcocks - a new - wave band of the late Seventies best heard on its collection of 45s - Singles Going Steady. But Devoto left after contributing to the group's first EP - Spiral Scratch - and went on to form the more complicated Magazine - which released five albums before disbanding in 1981. Two years later - Devoto made a solo LP - Jerky Versions of the Dream - and five years further on - he checks in with Luxuria. The other half of this duo is Noko - a Liverpool guitarist whose band - the Umbrella - had folded when he met Devoto through Shelley in 1986. Devoto and Noko co - wrote all nine songs here (with help on a few of them from keyboardist/programmer Leroy James and Magazine bassist Barry Adamson) and they bring to Luxuria a hot mix of prime Buzzcock/Magazine elements along with some of the most urgent guitar work to leap from England in quite a while.

And all those other influences - too: majestic "Wichita Lineman" violins from the Sixties ("Lady 21") - noisy Robert Fripp guitar bursts from the Seventies ("Flesh") - and wide bass channels from the Eighties - whether by way of four - string funk ("Public Highway") or bouncy synth ("Luxuria"). There's also a beautiful cello line in one spot - not to mention horns (used intelligently - at long last) in two spots - not to mention real live drums in most spots (especially the glorious hollow crack of the snare in "Celebrity"). Meanwhile - Devoto takes us on a tour of Keyboards Through the Ages - and his insistent lead vocals - here melodramatic - there sly - combine the flavor of a Bob Geldof with the torn motion of a John Lydon. Most important - however - is that Noko guitar - source of hard - rock chords ("Pound") - sputtery breaks ("Rubbish") - American - style spangles ("Mlle") - and enough distortion to keep things a bit messy. But despite such a traffic jam - the music remains pop - albeit cerebral - layered - and unmistakably British - all of which may explain why the album's first single"Redneck" has failed to make a dent in the charts.

Another explanation could be the thicket of Devoto's lyrics - hardly the stuff of singalong hits. The man who wrote "Orgasm Addict" ten years ago still has love and sex and everything in between on his mind: the name of his band derives from the Latin for "lust" the name of his album is Unanswerable Lust - and much of the material here delves into affairs of the body. "It's one hell of a thing - sex" Devoto comments in a press release"one hell of a notion at least." Trouble is - in Devoto's language - it can become at most one hell of a novel - making several of these songs word - heavy. Indeed - most of the songs - no matter the subject - are burdened somewhat by the weight of Devoto's dreams. He even quotes Proust - for Pete's sake. Still - the lyrics are always imaginative - and Devoto is capable of getting to the point quickly and sharply: "I hate having to desire you/ Hate feeling this again/ I hate having to desire you/ In common with other men."

My suggestion is that you drink in the music a few times before opening the CD booklet. Headphones are a good idea - too. Though the CD does give more of an edge to Noko's guitar accents compared with the perfectly fine LP version - neither format alone can fully sort through the intentionally busy production. However you listen - enjoy an album that already belongs on your Ten Best list for 1988 - and take pleasure in the notion that 1989 and the Nineties will be very good musical years if bands like Luxuria are able to thrive.

People - Michael Small - LUXURIA: Unanswerable Lust.

Howard Devoto - front man for this British duo - emotes like a lounge singer who has gone slightly loony. So intense is Devoto's delivery and so extreme his heights of romantic lyricism that without even raising his voice he can sound perilously close to losing his grip on reality. But as he proves on Luxuria's first album - Devoto holds as much - if not more - control over his senses as most other singer - songwriters. In fact the one - time leader of Magazine and the Buzzcocks (both much - loved art - punk bands) joins his bandmate Noko in creating pleasant - if sometimes odd - melodies that will appeal to any pop music fan with a relatively open mind; both Devoto on keyboards and Noko on guitar easily shift musical accompaniment moods. Those who listen carefully will find even finer surprises in Devoto's lyrics - which tend to symbolist poetry. In "Lady 21" one of many expressions of Devoto's tortured desire for love - he begs"Press me to her tumbling beauty - oh gorgeous siren wraith." In "Mlle." he toys with an excerpt from Proust's Remembrance of Things Past while describing a love affair that resembles an emotional grenade. In a departure from libidinous topics - the album's opening number"Redneck" depicts a performer who grows rich from baring his anguish to the world. "Watch me bite on a bullet and spit out a limousine" Devoto sings. The song ends with the chilling suggestion that "I simply may be evil - I simply may be evil." Tha idea nags at Devoto as he explores his Unanswerable Lust. He repeats the same line (in slightly altered form) in "Luxuria" a song that ends with the refrain"God's gone back to heaven/ He's deserted us/ But what the hell/ He never understood us anyway." Delivered in Devoto's out - of - kilter voice - that twist on an old form of blasphemy can still give a listener the shivers.

People - Michael Small - LUXURIA - BEAST BOX

Take away the melody from most lyrics - and they sound like doggerel. Not to with the words of Howard Devoto - the literate British post - punk rocker who writes songs as if they were destined for a poetry review. Best known for leading the late '70s experimental group Magazine - Devoto luxuriates in every syllable that he delivers with this duo. "The atomic structure of this caress/ Massive - silent and numb/ As light as consciousness" he sings in "Karezza."

On Luxuria's 1988 debut album - Devoto and his sideman - Noko - took similarly rich language - matched it with poweful rock melodies and created a style that deftly balanced high and low culture. If they intended to take another step closer to the mainstream with this new album - they failed. Beast Box - though full of pleasures - plunges Luxuria back into obscurity; both the lyrics and the music reach new levels of complexity. Noko - who plays guitars - keyboards and banjolin - has polished these arrangements to the point that they overpower the melodies. Devoto's singing also defies standard rock styles. His quavering delivery - full of unpredictable emotion - makes him sound close to nervous collapse. It takes time to appreciate Luxuria's music. But if you're the type who regularly attends poetry readings - maybe this CD's for you.

Some from Howard Devoto Boulevard