This man is not an intellectual. Name:Howard Devoto. Group: Magazine. Credentials: One of the prime movers in the first stirrings of the punk revolution in the summer of '76.

He came to the fore as the lead singer with the Buzzcocks - helping to establish Manchester as the new wave's Second City - then left at the first sign of success to reconsider and form a new band.

That band is Magazine - one of MM's picks for prominence in 1978. Devoto is regarded by many as an elusive intellectual. Not so.

"Calling me an intellectual is like calling common-sense witchcraft" says Devoto in a ground-breaking interview on page 28. He has plenty to talk about. Magazine has just been signed to Virgin Records - their fine debut single"Shot By Both Sides " - is out on Friday. and the band's tour starts in London four days later.

Howard Devoto (real name on his mum's side - genealogy freaks) has been tipped for the top in '78 by everyone and her great-aunt Muriel. He is very special.

In a year when "hip young gunslingers" from every dust-bowl of this great prairie have been frantically saloon- bar brawling to take their tilt at the supposed riches guarded by the golden badge of a recording contract - Devoto has low-profiled in Manchester since leaving founder-new-wavers and co-'78-certainties - the Buzzcocks.

He's quietly assembled another band called Magazine and honed his blade for its thrust at the New Year - and emerged with more more eager expectancy of brilliance than anyone else in the game - with the possible exception of the Rich Kids.

How so? Partly because "Spiral Scratch" - so inundated with his spectacularly iridescent word-torrents - seems to have grown in stature with each passing month.

And partly because the current flood of enthusiastic but often ordinary talents naturally makes everyone yearn for the true original (which is one reason why Rotten's power appears still to be on the wax).

And Devoto certainly stands out from the crowd. He's been lumbered with an image as the intellectual heavy - the super-enigma of the new wave.

He accuses me of propagating the image as much as anyone. I'm guilty. But can you blame me when you read interview excerpts like the.following. which - as well as being very funny - betrays an intelligence and breadth of interest somewhat beyond the average rock musician.

He's talking about "Breakdown" - from "Spiral Scratch": "Breakdown works on a number of levels which cancel each other out."

"It's supposed not only to describe a particular kind of breakdown but also to act as a piece of propaganda for that process."

"So the hero of this two-minute epic is exhorting the listener to join him in this state. A state which he is fully aware of as being a mixed blessing."

"The potential for gross ego-expansion is there - the exciting possibility of metanoia is there. The hero is well and truly f*** up. and like all profound but f***ed up heroes wants to cajole others into getting in on the act too."

Interviewer: Who are you thinking of in particular? Iggy Pop? Van Morrison?

Howard: "No. Des Esseintes - Dostoyevsky's underground man - or any of them existentialists. I guess. 'Breakdown's' hero is in the position of Camus' Sisyphu 'To will is to stir up paradoxes"

Devoto is not as daunting. nor as obviously intellectual as I'd expected. He talks slowly. ponderously - with a refined control - not afraid to annex lengthy pauses in order to extract the right verbal part from the scrap-heap at the back of his mind.

He's more willing to bend - and much less cold than I'd imagined but he still isn't easy to talk to. Still - judge for yourself.

Do YOU resent having to go through the publicity machine now that you've signed up' I thought one of your reasons for leaving Buzzcocks was to save yourself going through the mill?

Well - it depends what sort of a contract you sign. I mean - you don't have to go through the mill - you can just stand there and throw things at it. I suppose you'd throw a bit of yourself with it - but it's not necessarily a mill anyway.

But it is a very sordid business - the crass way they push people and the continual orientation towards money - the smell of money-

But it's no good pretending that you can do without money. People find it offensive because they think somehow their soul is being dirtied - but I'm not sure that's very different from having your soul destroyed by having to earn your living. How else would people present their work?.

In an exciting way?

Is money the thing that provides the excitement?

Money provides a certain excitement - yes.

The thrill of its imminence? "No - no - I'm not thinking that way at all. I think in a way it's a vitalising process. Surely only the chase for money could provide a drive once you've earned It - It takes away the drive completely?"

Yes - but that can be the end of the line anyway. I don't mean the point of it all - but it can be the final nail in the coffin.

Are you prepared to sacrifice any artistic exploration you might have in mind to the inertia that money thrusts upon you?

You're a - real idealist. aren't you? You really want to survive - don't you? People who take things from an idealistic standpoint must have a thriving survival drive. Someone who has an idea of how things should be must really want to survive to see that happen.

'And if you haven't got a clear idea you won't need to survive so much. Do you think It's good not to have a clear idea? Art coming.from a fixed standpoint can be very boring.

That's why I think money can make it interesting - if they have to pander to a market then it's maybe a little more interesting than just standing in a corner talking to yourself.

'It's like deciding what sort of music you're gonna play: if you're gonna play to 20 or so people locally or to you see where you can reach the mass market and work out some kind of compromise.

I'm not saying I think this way but - I might.

Why should that bother you? I'm a very sensitive person. If I can find a bit of sympathy I'll crawl half a mile. But I'm unsympathetic to anyone who stands on one side of the field and says"this is the only place to be".

But isn't that what punk did at the start?

No - I think it ran crazily all over the field saying - 'Waugh' I love being here! It's great being here! God - isn't it crap over there!' When everybody goes and stands where they are they say. 'How thoroughly dull of you to come and stand in the same spot that we're standing In -

Don't you think I'd be more sympathetic to your lyrics if you explained them?

Well. I'm a bit perverse about this. Where I really get my kicks is if I slap somebody around the face and they they want to give me sympathy.

(Long pause. into which I'll insert the lyrics in question. to "Shot By Both Sides")

Oh. I'll give some clue as to what it's about. We were talking about this field. weren't we - people standing on one spot. I suppose it's about somebody who says in a reasonably convincing voice. 'This is the place to be' - then finds when he gets there that the only thing he wants to' do is something offensive - commit a crime or do something disruptive. Just for the hell of it; just because he's found himself standing on one spot.

Are you making any kind of generalisation - saying that anyone who commits themselves to a particular spot will find a difficulty in keeping their balance?

No - I'm not saying it applies to everybody - although I suspect it does apply to a lot of people. I'm very humble about this - I just think of myself as writing songs for people who might sit in the corner of a cafe very quietly going out of their minds.

I'm trying to write some words that they might want to have going through their heads at that moment - 'cos I think you can get a lot of strength from having someone supply the words for a certain moment. And it can even - on a more educational level - help them create such moments - which I think are very Important ones to have. Moments of breakdown are important?

Yeah. That's what I was saying in that song (i.e. "Breakdown ") I mean - it you ye got everything cut and dried - set up with a steel pole up the back - that's the end isn't it really? That's it - you've created. your spot to stand on.

You're not interested in having any spot to stand on?

Well I think everybody's interested in security. But that doesn't mean it's everybody's only reason for living. their only objective. And I think it's a fact that a lot of people subtly subvert their own attempts to create security - or to look for it.

So that. in fact there's no sensible way they can go about looking for a place to stand on and be coddled.

Is it at all a worthwhile goal - though - security - or is it desirable to subvert it - to head in the opposite direction?

I really don't know. All the time you're looking for something "worthwhile" =- "good" - and I don't know that I do that. I Just say"this just is".

Would you call yourself an existentialist?

I don't really know what it means. I've read books that are supposed to be of that strain and yeah - I've thought I could go along with it in my weaker moments - but it's not like being a gas-fitter or a clown - is it? There's a little bit of the gas-fitter in me and a little bit of the existentialist.

The other thing I'd like to get straight - and you're one of the worst sinners at this - is all this "intellectual" bit. I think calling me intellectual is like calling commonsense witchcraft.

You know now that I'm not half as smart as I sound. But I'm sure it'll come out good in print. And the ball will keep rolling on and on

So you'd rather not be thought intellectual?

I want whatever is the truth to come out. I just don't think of myself that way at all. It seems to me that if that word means anything it indicates a certain approach to living your life which I don't have. I'm far more tactile than that.

Yet people in Manchester have told me they were scared of you. Are you an approachable person? You seemed very wary when I came up to the bar -

Well - I didn't know who you were - did I? You might have been asking for money or something. I was just feigning boredom. I don't ask everybody the time of day -maybe that makes me unapproachable.

How much do you need contact with other people - or relish it? I mean - do you like relatively frivolous communications or do you prefer to keep to the few deep and intimate relationships you might have? Or less than that perhaps - do you just keep to yourself?

(Incredibly long pause.) I find myself on my own a lot. of the time. I tend to think that it happened by accident. Anyway I like my problems to work their evil way within me - let them do what they will rather than let them out. Does the idea of being a rock 'n' roll star attract you?

I don't know what it means. Limitless wealth and adoration - your face on a million walls -

No. I can't think it does. If that happened to happen - I'm not going to say I'd be unhappy with it - but if I really wanted that I'm sure I could think of better ways to go about attaining it than what I'm doing now.

---------
ShotByBothSides.com/mm_210178.htm