The Most Important Man Alive?: Howard Devoto serves up the Special Sauce.
Kevin C ummins/G etty
BORN HOWARD Trafford in Scunthorpe in 1952, Howard Devoto was never one to linger. The original frontman of Buzzcocks, he quit after their pioneering ’76 EP Spiral Scratch to channel sublime post-punk alienation with Magazine, confiding penetrating unease on such essential 45s as Shot By Both Sides and a series of extraordinary LPs. After their 1981 split, he completed the decade with 1983’s solo album Jerky Versions Of The Dream and Luxuria’s electro-acoustic otherness. Thereafter, he re-collaborated with co-founder Buzzcock Pete Shelley for 2002’s Buzzkunst and presided over a 2009 Magazine re-formation. Now Buzzkunst has been “reconfigured” as Special Sauce, conjoined with archival Devoto set Designoid. “Designoid’s only a mini-album,” he warns MOJO, “I thought I wouldn’t push my luck…
Was Buzzkunst really almost titled ‘Buzzcunts’?
That was my little joke, in an early discussion with Pete. He joked back that we could say it was a mistake, a printing error, and that it was supposed to be Buzzkunst. By the end of the discussion Buzzkunst was our working title.
How do you recall that period?