Howard Devoto

Howard Devoto

Howard Devoto , civic Howard Trafford , (* 15. March 1952 in Scunthorpe ) is a British rock singer and songwriter, who began his career as a singer of the punk band Buzzcocks began this but left little later in order to Magazine one of the first post-punk bands to establish. After the dissolution of Magazine, he devoted himself to a solo career and later founded the indie band Luxuria.

Career

Trafford was born on March 15, 1952 in Scunthorpe , Lincolnshire and grew up in Moortown, a borough of Leeds , Nuneaton , Warwickshire and Yorkshire . He attended Leeds Grammar School, where he befriended Richard Boon, who later became the manager of the Buzzcocks. In 1972 he enrolled at the Bolton Institute of Technology in Manchester to study psychology , philosophy and literature . At that time he was engaged in the music of Iggy Pop and The Stooges as well as John Cale . Since then he has called himself Devoto (the English "submissive" means to devote himself to something). Peter McNeish, who would later become known under the stage name Pete Shelley , met Devoto when he was looking for someone at the College's Electronic Music Society to add electronic music to an art video he had made. He also made the acquaintance of Ben Mandelson at university.

Buzzcocks

Inspired by two Sex Pistols concerts in February 1976, Devoto founded the Buzzcocks with Shelley and Mandelson that same month. Shelley was responsible for the music on the guitar, the Dostoevsky fan and Stooges admirer Devoto provided the lyrics. Paul Morley , correspondent at the NME in Manchester and attending one of the first concerts, said: "If you took a few steps back, you thought: It sounds like free jazz ." The piece Boredom took Devoto's decision, the Buzzcocks shortly after the EP was released To leave Spiral Scratch and some gigs again beforehand. With the punk music of the Buzzcocks, his lyrics that he wanted to hear did not come into their own. He told the press that he was "fed up with the noise and out of breath" and NME's Morley said, "I get bored very quickly". After leaving the Buzzcocks, he initially wanted to continue his studies, but remained connected to the Buzzcocks.

Magazines

In early 1977 he changed his mind, influenced by the albums Low by David Bowie and The Idiot by Iggy Pop , and wanted to start a new band in which his lyrics should be more in the foreground and whose music should sound like the second page of Low . Devoto and John McGeoch , who studied arts at Manchester Polytechnic , founded the influential and defining band Magazines in April 1977, defining the post-punk genre . Her idiosyncratic style, also influenced by keyboardist Dave Formula and the rhythm group John Doyle and Barry Adamson , is not easy to categorize; they were more or less simplified by the music press assigned to the New Wave (the "new wave"). Magazines published several influential albums that achieved only mediocre commercial success, as well as smaller chart successes with singles such as Shot By Both Sides , The Light Pours Out of Me , Permafrost or A Song From Under the Floorboards (a clear throwback to Dostoyevsky's notes from the Basement hole ). The third studio album, The Correct use of Soap, released in 1980, is widely considered to be Magazine's best album, but by that point it has already surpassed another Manchester band, Joy Division . Again Devoto had anticipated the end of the band in Stuck from the album The Correct use of Soap : “Stop when you cease to amaze me” (“Stop when you no longer amaze me”). With Devoto's departure in 1981, the band broke up, but reunited for five appearances in February 2009 (with Norman Fisher-Jones for John McGeoch on guitar, who died in 2004).

solo

After Magazine disbanded in 1981, Devoto wrote about two years with Magazine keyboardist Dave Formula on his first solo album. Although the reviews for Jerky Versions of the Dream were mixed, the single Rainy Season was highlighted frequently. Jerky Versions of the Dream was re-released in 2007 by Virgin / EMI with several bonus tracks.

Working together

Island Records released in 1983 the collaboration with Bernard Szajner on three tracks of the LP Brute Reason . This was followed in 1984 with a new recording of Big Stars Holocaust for the loose musician collective This Mortal Coil . Their album It'll End in Tears contained contributions from many artists under contract with 4AD , among whom Devoto's piece is rather untypical.

Luxuria

One of his next projects in 1988 was the collaboration with the multi-instrumentalist Norman Fisher-Jones alias Noko (later Apollo 440 ) from Liverpool . Under the name Luxuria, they released two albums and a music video for the single Redneck .

Retreat into private life

For most of the 1990s, Devoto had little to do with the music industry and made a living working for a photo agency.

Mansun

In 1997 and 1998 Devoto also worked with the Chester- based band Mansun . He wrote a title for the EP Closed For Business and appears on their EP Being A Girl (Part One) .

In 2001, after 25 years, Devoto reunited with Pete Shelley of the Buzzcocks and released the highly regarded album Buzzkunst under the name ShelleyDevoto. The reviews were mixed.

In 2002 Devoto played a small role in the film 24 Hour Party People . The film is about Factory Records , a record label from Manchester. In his brief guest appearance, Devoto plays a cleaning man who cleans the men's room, while actor Martin Hancock (who doesn't look like Devoto at all) in the role of Howard Devoto has an appointment with the wife of concert promoter and journalist Tony Wilson . The real Devoto turns to the camera and says with an unmoved expression "I definitely don't remember this happening" ("I really can't remember anything like that").

In February 2009 magazine celebrated a short comeback with Noko on guitar with five concerts in Great Britain.

On July 9, 2009, the University of Bolton Devoto awarded an honorary doctorate for his contributions to music.

Influences on other artists, cover versions

Several music groups name Devoto as an influence or role model. Momus recorded the Devoto title The Most Important Man Alive (based on a quote from Morley in the NME) in 1988 for the Bungalow Records Compilation Suite 98 . Mansun , with whom he had also worked, covered "Shot By Both Sides" live. Both Ministry and Peter Murphy covered Magazine's The Light Pours Out of Me ; Morrissey covered the magazine title A Song From Under The Floorboards . Radiohead and Jarvis Cocker both covered Shot By Both Sides .

Discography

→ Main article: Buzzcocks

→ Main article: Magazine

solo

• Jerky Versions of the Dream (Album) (1983)
• Rainy Season (single) (1983)
• Cold Imagination (1983)

Luxuria

• Redneck (single) 1988
• Unanswerable Lust (album) 1988
• Public Highway (12 "single) 1988
• The Beast Box Is Dreaming (12 "single) 1990
• Beast Box (album) 1990
• Jezebel (single) 1990

literature

• Savage, John: England's Dreaming: Anarchy, Sex Pistols, Punk Rock, and Beyond . St. Martin's Griffin, New York 2002, ISBN 0-312-28822-0 .
• Simon Reynolds: Rip It Up And Start Again . Hannibal Verlag, Höfen 2007, ISBN 978-3-85445-270-6 (Chapter 2 Outside of Everything: Howard Devoto and Vic Godard ).

Individual evidence

1. ^ "Enciclopedia della musica rock", Cesare Rizzi. HOWARD DEVOTO (HOWARD TRAFFORD) (March 15, 1952): voce
2. ↑ Dave Simpson: Howard, It's your last chance to be venerable. In: guardian.co.uk. December 8, 2008, accessed October 4, 2010 . 
3. ↑ Stewart Osborne: Clarity Has Reared It's Ugly Head Again ... The Music of Howard Devoto. (No longer available online.) In: beefheart.com. October 1, 2000, archived from the original on July 1, 2011 ; accessed on October 4, 2010 (English). Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
4. ↑ Simmy Richman: Never mind the Buzzcocks: The re-emergence of Howard Devoto. In: independent.co.uk. February 8, 2009, accessed October 4, 2010 . 
5. ↑ cf. Savage, John - Page 153: "I'd known Howard from Leeds Grammar School (...)," Richard Boon.
6. ↑ ^{a b} cf. Reynolds - page 50
7. ↑ Aidan O'Rourke: An Evening with Buzzcocks, Urbis Manchester 12 Aug 2005. In: aidan.co.uk. August 12, 2005, accessed October 4, 2010 . 
8. ↑ cf. Reynolds - page 52
9. ↑ Charlotte Robinson: Howard Devoto: Interview with a Resurfacing Should-Have-Been Musical Legend. In: popmatters.com. Retrieved October 4, 2010 . 

Web links

• Official website of Magazine on MySpace
• Official website of the Buzzcocks
• Howard Devoto at Allmusic (English)
• Lyrics by Howard Devoto on LyricWiki
• Devoto's lyrics at Magazine in LyricWiki