Music All Genres images from the aidan.co.uk photo portfolio

Picture: Howard Devoto at An Evening with Buzzcocks Urbis Manchester » Filename: PplHowardDevoto5812.jpg

Howard Devoto co-founded Buzzcocks with Pete Shelley. His raw expressive vocals can be heard above the frenetic fuzz guitar and hammering drum kit on the band's self-released Spiral Scratch EP from 1977. He left the band shortly after due to dissatisfaction with the limitations of punk and went on to form the band Magazine.

In archive footage, the young Devoto with his rolling eyes, high cheekbones and pouting expressions is like a scary, possessed creature from the glam era. His band Magazine - I saw them at the Russell Club in 1978- was broad in canvas, touching a dark subterranean undercurrent which Joy Division went on to explore. Follow-up band Luxuria failed to fulfil the promise of earlier years, and he left the music business to work as a full time picture researcher. In 2005 he was collaborating again with Pete Shelley, working under the title ShelleyDevoto. If things had gone differently, Howard Devoto might have achieved a higher profile, but his early work remains influential.

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