Weird being back in Manchester to see Howard Devoto and Magazine recently. If there is an odder, stranger or more unlikely front-person in the history of popular music then I’d gladly embrace them. He’s somewhere between Kinski as Nosferatu and mad-bad Donald Pleasance in a Mini-Me costume; there was a marvellous moment live when he literally flew round the stage with arms akimbo in the style of a six-year-old playing Spitfires. Devoto’s a piece of Gothic architecture we should pamper and preserve. Musically Magazine’s creations haven’t dated at all, probably because they’re incredibly influential again. Just listen to Morrissey’s new album ‘Years Of Refusal’ and you can’t help thinking that the unsettling blueprint for this 21st Century “punk” sound – which many critics accuse Moz of striving to achieve - lies within the grooves of ‘Play’, ‘Real Life’, ‘Secondhand Daylight’ and ‘The Correct Use Of Soap’. Despite the harsh quality of ‘Refusal’ and the dark beauty of ‘Black Cloud’, frankly it can only stand in the shadows and blink at the awesome vision of ‘The Light Pours Out Of Me’. Morrissey-Devoto comparisons were inevitable at the Manchester Academy. Not only was their artfully-mutual friend Linder Ludus the high-pitched and floaty Miss Haversham-does-The-Slits support act, but Devoto also paid hero worship to Adam Faith onstage (Faith’s ‘Baby Take A Bow’ inspired ’Sheila…’) No wonder the Mobster once declared, “the last of the famous international playboys are Bolan, Bowie, Devoto and me”.
