Avanti fanzine - Issue no 1 from 1988. Written and Published by David Simpson from Leeds.

I Want To Burn Again

I stifle a tremor as he sits opposite, it's not often I come face to face with, well let's face it, one of my all time idols! With even less hair than ever, due in no small part to a severe crop rather than the Eno syndrome, and clad in black shirt and trousers, Howard screams PRESENCE! His face bears a clever, knowing, slightly mocking expression as only a living legend can carry off. From time to time his tongue is placed firmly in cheek, hut throughout Howard is charming, friendly and forthcoming, he even poured the tea for God's sake!

Well, Howie, where've you been for five years

Well, my solo album took care of most of 1983; 1984 I did that track 'Holocaust' with This Mortal Coil being much attracted to the idea of doing something like that by.Song To The Siren' which I thought was a very nice record, um but there again that took about three hours so hardly gets rid of 1984

Doesn't actually!

Er I spent quite a while trying to find somebody to work with, a collaborator, I didn't want to be In a band as such again I also was not very pleased with my solo album, eventually, so 1 spent some time doing that, and then not finding any satisfaction there I basically fell asleep and took care of 1984 in that manner. Then, 1985, some friends of mine told me they were starting a book production company, they thought it might interest me so I worked with them for about a year and then I started writing songs again as I ascended to unhappiness, and then I met Noko.

How did you meet him

Well, through Peter Shelley really, he'd done Some work with Peter and what actually happened was I started doing a hit of work with Barry Adamson (ex-Magazine bassist) and we thought we'd involve a guitar player. I'd heard about Noko and then I met him and we talked about Proust and decided it was about time we both read him, and so that's what we sort of started doing and around that time Barry decided that he wanted to concentrate on film music, So Noko and I increasingly grew together on this one. I'm now talking about the beginning of 1986 you see and effectively getting Luxuria to where it is now has taken two years.

The LP was done substantially by him and me. Jim Garner plays keyboards live and on the album, he was in a band called The Umbrella with Noko in Liverpool but basically it's him and me.

Do you write the lyrics and Noko the songs or is it more a collaboration of both

It's kind of going that way at the moment, I mean some of the earlier things we did were songs that I had started and got to a certain stage, like 'Public Highway' and 'Celebrity', but some of the later things we've done, the music has been substantially put together by Noko, he plays bass, he plays guitar and he programmes them drum machines.

Burst

Is that a similar way to that in which Magazine worked Was it Dave Formula and John McGeoch that used to compose a lot of the music and you that would add the lyrics and atmospherics

Er, in a kind of. But I mean there was also Barry, and I would also have some beginnings of songs that I wanted to do, and so it's similar but in Magazine there were a lot of competing contributions, my function was much more to sort of order those really, cos there were three people chucking stuff out.

Why did Magazine finish, was it because of conflicting musical personalities or was it that you felt as a project. it had gone as far as it could

You could say John (McGeoch) left because of that, a year before we finally split up, but no not in the end - in the end because we, well I finished because my willpower went.

Was that your willpower for Magazine or music generally

I think my willpower for just about an awful lot of things. um, I don't regret it but er you know, it having taken me so long for me to get to something that I'm at least as happy with has made me realise it's a lot easier to destroy than create.

Magazine were certainly a very influential band, the music does stand the test of time far better than a lot of the other stuff from that period

I think so. I think it was designed that way and its design has seen out.

Did you see that Channel 4 programme 'The Way We Were' There was a Magazine track

Yes the funny thing about that programme was that I felt the same about the other bands that were on there that I felt at the time, that there weren't actually that many that I really liked Iggy looked good in it and of course he was around before many of us and still is very good.

It seems that a lot of your contemporaries - Wire, Pere Ubu are all back around again. I wondered If you found any strange coincidence in it, the 'class of '78' back again

Well, Pere Ubu, I hardly know that stuff at all.

They were definitely in your field at the time, you know, art rock

Is that what it is!

Ha, er, you know, intelligent rock, new wave

NOUVEAU FORMIDABLE!

Howard's adopted French erupts around the room. There was a whole group of bands, '78-'80, Joy Division, The Only Ones

Secretly I think I know what you're getting at!

I think so yes

But Pebe Ubu, I didn't know them I got the first couple of Wire album, I never really connected with them very much, but I love the title of their album 'The Ideal Copy', I must hear it

Back To Nature

What sort of stuff did you grow up listening to

Oh, Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix

What about the 76/'77 period, what attracted you to the 'new sound' of which you became at the forefront of How did you first get involved, what made you want to be in a band for example

Well, it was listening to Stooges records when I was at college, just one day it really seemed to be the only thing that mattered, and I suddenly realised 'this isn't actually all that difficult, I can sing along with this, I can play a few of those chords, and I'm sure it won't be too difficult to DO this!' So that's where it came from this was prior to Peter (Shelley) and I seeing the Sex Pistols. It was difficult in the first few months to convey what one was getting at to other people. I think Peter kind of knew what I was getting at, but about three months later we saw the Sex Pistols, just sort of looked at each other and said 'Oh, we'll go and do something like that!, Cos there wasn't anybody else at that time, we came down to London, it wasn't like they'd ever got out of London, and so that's what we did and suddenly within months an awful lot of people started to do it.

How did you feel to be suddenly hailed as 'the new thing', the young Howard Devoto, in his first band, being written about in such terms as 'this is the way British music is going'

I thought 'Of course! This is how life was always supposed to be, everybody's right, yes, of course, this is quite correct!'

Did you feel part of 'the punk movement'

I'm never very good at feeling part of a movement, yes I did in some way by association, and yes, the whole thing changed my life.

Watching and listening to Howard talk about Buzzcocks and about punk, his eyes lit up as if he were a child recounting his first visit to the fun fair, I can't help but remind myself, 'yes, oh yes, it was that good, it really was that important'.

Magic, Murder

Where did you spend your early years

I was born in Scunthorpe, I lived in the Midlands, Leeds, then I was at college in Bolton. I started studying psychology, I gave that up and studied humanities which was literature, philosophy and history.

Is literature a substantial source of inspiration

Well, Dostoyevsky was the reference point for some of the Magazine songs. Not a lot though get right through. Proust, his life's work was one long book which is in twelve paperback size books in total, Two thirds of it is pretty dispensable, but the rest he's very magical.

Do you see yourself as the bookish type, Certainly others see you as the bookish type

I'm not really, I've got far more books than I've read, my library reflects my aspirations rather than what I've actually read.

How about films

I was very impressed seeing 'The Passenger' again, the Antonioni film, the wonderful use of sound in it is like a man listening to his death approaching. Yes, I like that very much! Eraserhead was definitely very nicely curious but 'Blue Velvet' I got the impression that the audience in the cinema were there seeing this film by David 'Eraserhead' Lynch, who was showing us these wacky, cooky American characters just to be laughed at, but I don't think that's where he's at all, so I couldn't even watch the film sensibly, so in fact seeing films at the cinema is a waste of time to me much of the time because it just, you know, you're kind of dictated to by everybody else's reaction. I felt like seeing the David Byrne film 'True Stories'

That had a similar feel to 'Blue Velvet American anachronisms, eccentricities

Yes, but without the stabbing darkness of Blue Velvet'. There were some extraordinary things in 'Blue Velvet', the effect of pop music on Frank Booth, just very twistedly beautiful.

How do you feel about the affect of pop music

Well, I just know it affected me, has meant a lot to me and still means a lot to me, er, therefore it must to other people. It's changed my world so but no I don't subscribe to the 'rock can change the world' U2 kind of thing.

How do you view the state of current contemporary music

I'm pretty ignorant really (laughs), I don't know very much about it at all, um, I'm hard pressed to name very much from the last year that I liked um, I liked The Smiths album, and an album by The Bathers, but really I don't know what the hell people are doing.

Is that a deliberate shutting yourself off

No, not really. I would like to like more than I do, I don't like sounding like a lot of musicians that you read who do slag off just about everything else that's going on but there's certainly nothing very interesting that's attracted my attention, want to recommend anything!

Having been very impressed by a Yargo gig a couple of weeks before, I go on to extol the merits of that Manchester quartet

Celebrity

I believe you're friends with Morrissey

Mmm we're friends

Have you ever thought of recording together, or would it be like two competing people, you're both character singers

Ohhh Well, well, well, I don't know about that. We never talk about it, it would seem a bit like saying, you know, 'shall we share the same girlfriend' or something!! The kind of thing you just don't talk about!

Are you an admirer of his work

Yes, I thought The Smiths were very, very good. I believe he liked Magazine.

How did you meet him

Well, he was first mentioned to me by Linder, who you'll know was Ludus, she did the sleeve for 'Real Life', she was my girlfriend at the time. She said to me, 'I've met this guy, he's very interesting, you ought to meet him but I never did meet him. I'm talking about '77 or something, 78. I never did get round to meeting him, and in fact didn't meet him until 1985 when as I said I was working with this book production company. The one thing we wanted to avoid was books on rock music, but I did think a book on The Smiths would not have been inappropriate, and that's how I met Morrissey.

Did you become friends instantly or did it take a while

Sporadically instantly

Oh, Manchester

Howard stretches across two chairs, relaxed and clearly in his element. The chink chink of the waitresses clearing glasses from the bar provides a surreal sound track to our conversation. Do you keep in touch with your old cohorts

I see them from time to time, I know where they are!

Do you have contact with any of the other Manchester musicians

I don't know New Order, I run into Mark. (Smith) every now and then and we exchange two sentences, in a friendly manner. I don't really connect with The Fall, I like the idea of The Fall in principle, but I don't really know emotionally what's going on at all.

Joy Division

They touched a few spots. I haven't really connected with much of Hew Order. 'Atmosphere', hearing that I kind of thought they were alright but when I heard that one I thought '- Yeah there is something there'.

Thank You (Fallettime be mice elf again)

You must be content to have made your mark. in contemporary music

Well, I know that people still listen to those records and they still mean things to people, and that really is something.

With 'Unanswerable Lust', Howard Devoto has proved he's got as much to offer now as he did back then, now that really is something!

ShotByBothSides.com/mag_fanz.htm