Check it: having a high forehead (never say "receding hairline": it's cruel to mock) gave Brian Eno intellectual credibility long before his music did.

Devoto's face fits his music as it they'd beer. designed to match by some bright art student: he could be a 2000-year-old man who'd discovered the secret of eternal youth in his early 20s.

He has the air of a man who's been somewhere else: on stage he gives the impression that he's just been somewhere other than a sleazy dressing room - that he's arrived at the gig by time / space warp and that the fact doesn't bother him unduly.

And it's all down to face and demeanour: simultaneously fierce and abstracted. When he sings he grips his microphone like it was the only thing between him and annihilation; when he's finished his verse or song he relinquishes it contemptuously as if it were some totally useless appendage - a crutch he no longer needs because he can walk again unaided.

The effect is impressive: his demeanour lends authority to his music - a direct reversal of the usual scam whereby the music lends authority and justification to the antics of the performer. it was seeing him on So It Goes last year that got me interested: never having seen him with Buzzcocks (admission of first omission) or even heard the "Spiral Scratch" eepee that is the only recorded documentation of his period with the band (admission of second omission) I was unprepared and therefore impressed with the persona power and authority with which he carried himself.

That TV spot was taped on his.second gig with Magazine.

Magazine is Devoto's new band: straight from the off they were a band to watch. The New Wave has changed a lot of people's ideas about a lot of things - notably the amount of time which a band has to spend slogging around before media people take notice of them - the most extreme case being a group who got an interview and picture in Snouds (sic) before they 'd even bought all their gear let alone done anything as vulgar and futile as play - but even so it was unusual a band to get on TV with their second gig before they'd even released their first single.

Saying that Howard Devoto has a cult following is like saying that King Kong was a big hairy gorilla it is superficially accurate but doesn't really convey the full-scale picture On that So It Goes he came on with the most powerful presence I'd seen since the first time I clapped eyes on Johnny Rotten or Elvis Costello or Ian Dury. The kind of guy who's going to get a big hoopla but who deserves it.

Wham - a first single: the darkly powerful "Shot By Both Sides" -thunderous - melodramatic - richly textured - naggingly memorable - paranoiac - self-important - an adolescent fantasy captured and expressed with adult power - ham - a first hit and a curiously unimpressive and unexpressive Top Of The Pops where Devoto appeared too static and sluggish behind rather silly eye make-up and where John McGeoch's guitar solo came out and said what Devoto's vocal performance merely hinted at.

By next week they'll be a big deal. The most convincing post-punk band so far. The true inheritors of the mantle of the original Roxy Music.

The "F" CLUB in Leeds is a reggae/punk crossover no-man's-land. Small - grimy and lively with a spattering of incongruous tables and chairs provided for the benefit of those unwilling to get pogoed on but who want to get - to co-opt Mr Zimmerman's felicitous phrase - just far enough in to be able to say that they've been there - it plays music compounded of equal parts of reggae - New Wave and David Bowie.

The customers vote with their asses as to what they want to dance to - and "Heroes" emerges as something of a clear winner. In between records - forthcoming gigs at this and other venues are announced.

The instrumental members of Magazine - guitarist John McGeoch - bassist Barry Adamson - drummer Martin Jackson and newest addition Dave Formula (keyboards) had spent the period between the sound check and the gig sitting around in a Chinese restaurant waiting for a large and expensive paid - for - by - visiting -firemen - from - Virgin - Records -type meal.

It arrived just in time for the assembled company to eat the first course and then light out.

Devoto didn't join us for dinner. It's his habit to lock himself up in a room by himself before performing. This solitary sequestering is but one of his eccentricities: another is never 'doing interviews on the same day as gigs or recording (when he does do interviews - that is).

Does he meditate - read or cloister himself in the bog to take painful giant shits? "It's just to clear my head - stamp up and down the room a bit and to sleep. I frequently sleep. I'm trying to get out of the habit now but it's a bit like I'm conditioned to it at the moment. I just sleep for half an hour to an hour. It's impossible to arrange things so that I can get in about eight hours and then walk onto the stage. That's just not possible - but I've been able to get in the odd hour."

"I don't know whether it's a good thing either. It got to the point where it was all part of a ritual. This had to happen and then this had to happen and then I had to have a sleep and then this and this would happen and it'd be the gig. At one of the gigs none of that happened - and it was one of the - It was a good gig."

More prosaically - Devoto probably spends a certain amount of his meditation hour putting on his eye make-up.

Does he find ritual comforting or worrying?

"I don't really indulge in is very much. I suppose only at important moments - and I suppose in that way it is comforting - but I'd become worried if I was living a ritual all the time"

The opening of Magazine's set is an excellent double-bluff - one that will undoubtedly achieve status of ritual if they keep using it. Of course then it'll become like a conjuror's trick when the audience knows how. it's done; a favourite bedtime story to which all the kiddies know the ending.

See - what happens in this: the ban d all come on and launch in a near instrumental with Devoto standing on the extreme left of the stage playing rhythm guitar and wearing a flat at pulled down to what he describes - wryly - I hope as his "distinguishing feature." He sings a few bars towards the end - but not enough for an audience unfamiliar so him to suss him instantaneously.

Then at the end everyone's looking d around expectantly wondering from which end of the stage Devoto is going to appear.

Suddenly - surprise! - the unassuming figure on the-end doffs headgear - jacket and guitar and stands revealed in red pants and T-shirt and gleaming scalp as Howard Devoto!

Wowee Howie! And he didn't even have so change in a 'phone booth!

He moves the mike so stage front 'n' centre and crashes into "Shot By Both Sides."

The band are excellent: no novices or passengers. McGeoch alternates hardy slamming rhythm with hyper-thyroid screaming lead and menacing riffs - Adamson's bass is an agile anchor - Formula's keyboards add texture - depth and witty - adept solos and special effects and Jackson never lets the pressure drop for an instant.

Owing to the layout of the club - it's impossible to decipher much that Devoto sings or says if you're standing right at the front. If you're hearing material with which you're familiar from records under such circumstances it's not much of a problem - after all - as someone once said - as gigs one doesn't so much wish to hear lyrics as to be reminded of them - bus when dealing with unfamiliar songs it can be somewhat annoying.

The only numbers thus recognisable - therefore - were "Shot By Both Sides" - which as well as opening the set proper also closed it - the old Buzzcocks chewn "Boredom" - and the set's sole non-original - John Barry's "Goldfinger" from -natcho - the movie of she same name.

Devoto gives the impression of being slightly offended when I ask him if "Goldfinger" is included for its "amusement potential."

"Thank you very much! No - is was not supposed to be a piss take of anything. It's a song that I like very much - and I like the version that we've got together of it. I wanted to do a song from that sort of stable of songs and that one just fitted in very well with what the rest of the songs are about."

Which isn't quite as absurd as it sounds. John Barry would seem to be a hilariously unlikely "influence" for a Modern-World band like Magazine - but these menacing tempos and eerie Duane Eddy guitar ticks and red-alert horn. parts (expertly evoked by Formula's synthesiser) are oddly echoed in much of the rest of Magazine's work - as a casual aural glance as "Shot By Both Sides" should suffice so illustrate.

Howard Devoto sings Shirley Bassey? Why not? It's certainly no weirder than - say - the mayhem wrought by Alex Harvey upon numbers like "Delilah" and "The Impossible Dream."

Their pace and attack (not to mention their clothes) bag them firmly as an outgrowth of the New Wave - but their depth - solidity and invention give sheen a musical strength which should make it worthwhile for people with no taste for ramalamadolequeue and one - two - free - faw to invest a generous quantity of ear-time.

Devoto's dry - crackling vocals are never less than half-buried in the enmeshing drive of the band (an arm and a leg sticking out you might say) even on record - and maybe they should stay there until he develops more confidence and power as a vocalist. Remember - he notched up barely a dozen gigs as The Buzzcocks' vocalist - and -Magazine excepted - he had no other performing experience.

At present - he has his moves and expressions down better than his singing. Hopefully - his singing can retain its idiosyncrasies of style and phrasing while gaining in strength and precision.

The kids in Leeds had a strenuous and enjoyable time - leaping and weaving and rocketing in the grand manner without actually seeming to have had their minds totally blown. When Magazine have released a few more sides and everyone knows the songs -learned she words and picked out a few as special faves - that'll change. It's still early. on - and Magazine have a lot to learn about the practicalities of performance before they can be said to have reached any kind of peak.

Devoto formed the group virtually from scratch after leaving The Buzzcocks - and it is to his credit that he's selected four musicians who are not only pngted individual instrumentalists but who are well on the way to being A Band in the classic sense. Clearly - a man of some taste and imagination.

"They all fell into place very conveniently. I met John through somebody I know - because at that time - it must've been around May - I was just playing around with very vague thoughts. I met him and we got on quite well - worked on about three or four numbers and then he went away for the summer."

"During the summer I decided that I was getting a bit fed up with waiting for him to come back - so I decided that I would try and find the rest of a band so that when he returned we could go straight into rehearsal. And so I stuck up a notice in Virgin Records in Manchester and Barry and Martin and a guy called Bob Dickinson - he was our first keyboard player - answered it. I didn't get a lot of replies so the ad."

"It was very cleverly worded - designed to screen out all sorts of people that I might not want to meet - something like 'Howard Devoto seeks other musicians to perform and record fast and slow music. Punk mentality not essential. Come woodwind - brass or fire.' Something like that - anyway. But I didn't see very many people."

"I saw some people who I was surprised bothered to answer - bus I never held any auditions. I just met people and thought - 'I won't call you and cross-fingers you won't call me.' Barry was the first bass player that I tried anything with and Martin was the first drummer."

"It all fell into shape quite easily."

"Barry decided that I was just the sort of person who needed just the sort of help that he could provide - Martin knew me from the olden days - no - not personally - and it was all really quite easy. Everything just fell into place and John returned."

Did he have any specific vision at the beginning of the kind of group that he wanted to be in?

"I haven't got specific Sounds in my head but once I start working I discover that I've got impressions of them and" (in comic extra-thick Mancunoid accent) "I know what I like and I know What I don't like."

Devoto's own tastes in music incline towards Bowie and Can - though he also expresses a fondness for Sly And The Family Stone - Bob Dylan and Ornette Coleman ("so you see I could be quite versatile if I wanted to be.")

Does he regard writing - recording and performing as being separate entities or simply different aspects of the same thing?

"I tend so see performing as a bit of a different thing. For me she writing comes first - definitely. There again - once you've done the writing - you have a responsibility to yourself to get that over and develop it in its best form for writing and performing"

Indeed. If nobody had invented rock and roll - Devoto would probably have been a poet of the ascetic bohemian variety - and if you think I'm going to drag Samuel Beckets into this - you're crazy.

On stage - it seemed that he was moving with remarkable freedom considering the intensely limited stage area available to him.

"Well - that's just trying to give as much density and space so a performance as possible. I do tend to get a little - oblivious - on stage. I feel that I'm a very cramped performer - actually."

"I never felt that I was very expansive. If you think about it - it was always - I may move around a lot but it's always well on the spot."

What does Devoto feel "cramped" by? His own limitations or circumstances imposed by others?

"I'm a very responsible person. I always lay is pretty squarely on the line to myself. I find it quite hard to blame other people - so its me."

So what particular aspects of yourself are you trying to transcend?

"Errrrrrrrrhhhhhmmmmmm"

The pause is deafening.

"I don't really feel anything like that. I don't really feel that there's something there that I've got to get over. I suppose I'm just feeling around to see if there is anything there that I'm trying to get over."

Devoto professes a fierce aversion to The R Rock Business - an aversion that extends to a total boycott of all aspects thereof that don't concern him directly. "I don't really feel a part of it" he says. "I feel a part of my own bit of is - but"

You won't - therefore - see him listed in T-Zers as having attended a vast list of gigs or functions - or - for that matter - any at all. The selective awareness that causes him to switch on and off almost visibly when he's performing and which sends him into a locked room by himself before he goes on stage is applied to - ahem - social life as well.

I mean - I've heard of reclusive - introvert performers - but this guy's the outside edge of that particular zone.

Virgin Records' PR man - international legend Al Clark - was almost childishly gleeful in Leeds because Devoto - on their third meeting - actually came up and said hello to him without having been previously addressed. "He must be feeling unusually expansive" remarked Droning Al happily.

That's right - you've guessed right. Howard Devoto does not want to be a star.

"I think it's - - if I understand what we mean by stardom - do you mean the image?"

No - I mean stardom as a creative endeavour a la Bowie circa '721'73.

"You mean going through all the motions that say 'I am a star whether you think so or -not and this is quite indisputable by virtue of the fact that I'm in a limousine and the best hotels and I'm surrounded by 50 people at all times'? Is that what you mean?"

No - not quite. I mean stardom as an integral part of the creative process of rock and roll.

When Devoto fields a difficult question he'll preface his reply or stall for time with what almost amounts to a whimper.

"I can't pin this down - I'm sorry - I can't quite see what you're trying to get at."

Okay - let's rephrase it. Are you interested in experimenting with the techniques and processes of stardom?

"Ahhhhhhhmmmmmmm I am to the extent that is interests me; the whole way the bits other than the music go out to people - bus the way the other bits go out - and I'm thinking in terms of image -for some people it would seem to be a very large part of it. I think you have to face up to the way things are down and the way things have been done and the way people see those things - like she ritual of a live performance and"

Another lengthy and agonised pause.

" - because a lot of that determines the way your music is seen - I think. So that if you turn a blind eye to that - you're not precisely cutting off your nose but"

Playing hell with your complexion?

"Yes."

Yeah - but Howard - do you actually want so be a star?

"I can't think sensibly about that question at all. What does is mean? What does it mean to be a star? I'm really not interested in being recognised in public places. I'm only interested in is insofar as it does tie in with the songs."

"Ahhhhh - shit! I'm coming out with all the boring this that I hate reading in other interviews. I love so hear people shooting their mouths off" he announces caustically"making extravagant claims for themselves - being offensive to people"

Whether or not Howard Devoto is - in fact - too sensitive to live is a debatable point. To me he's that most irritating of human personality types - the infinitely arrogant introvert - the man who illustrates his contempt not by the bellowed insult but by turning his back. During the photo session which followed our interview - he turned out to be the most uncooperative subject I've yet seen in several years of sitting in on photo sessions.

He is in the odd position of courting the world via rock and roll - and at the same time punishing it for its shallowness and insensitivity by retreating into reclusion at the slightest provocation.

A couple more things you might like to know about Howard Devoto.

His manager is Andrew Graham-Stuart - whose other principal client is Tangerine Dream.

And his real name is Howard Trevor.

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