― SoHoLa (SoHoLa), Thursday, 15 September 2005 03:37 (eighteen years ago) link
I can't believe that I didn't post on this thread originally. Anyhow, for the second time on ILM, Momus and I agree wholeheartedly. (The other time was on The Passage!). I must have played Real Life every day for 2 years after it came out. Likewise The Correct Use Of Soap. I didn't rate Secondhand Daylight quite so highly at the time, but over time, I've come to believe that it's their absolute masterpiece - icy and forbidding on the outside, but raging with passion within. Of course I have absolutely everything they ever did, including Jerky Versions Of The Dream, the HD solo album.
What musicians! - Adamson's plunging bass pulse, Formula's incomparable synth and piano wizardry and McGeogh's polymath trickery on guitar. Every song has at least 3 moments of utter sonic genius that you wait for each time you play them. And they never fail to sound as great as the first time.
― Dr. C (Dr. C), Thursday, 15 September 2005 06:27 (eighteen years ago) link
Oh and I really don't get it when people refer to Magazine as 'cold'. For goodness sake - listen to what he's singing! Listen to You Never Knew Me, or Shot By Both Sides, or Stuck, or Because You're Frightened, or I Wanted Your Heart, or......alright you get the point.
Other albums : Play - the live one. Wow - best live album ever? I reckon so. Also interesting (and amazing given the fact that he was an absolute genius) that they didn't really miss McGeoch. Alright Robin Simon rightly sticks to copying McGeoch's parts as closely as he can, but on a couple of songs he is really flying and maybe even sounds better than JM. I'm thinking of Permafrost and The Light Pours Out Of Me.
Magic, Murder and The Weather - fascinating, but this time they did miss JM. When this came out I instantly 'got' what they were trying to do, or at least I thought I did, because I've spent the last 24 years trying to get the same feeling from it. Maybe it'll click again one day - not a bad record by any means, but not up there with the rest. I'd be interested to hear what people have to say about it.
Personal Magazine thoughts/stuff :
1. I once met HD at a record fair....very briefly. I was with my friend N who knew him. N sees H leafing through a box of vinyl and calls 'Howard!' to him, at which point Howard jumps like a startled rabbit, looks around him wildly and bolts for the door.
2. I never saw them live. I can hardly bear to type those words. I'm not sure i actually believe it, given that I leaved and breathed the Manc/Factory scene from the early days of punk for the next 10 years or so. I mean I saw Joy Div plenty of times, but never saw Magazine ONCE. When I was at the Univ of Reading they were down to play (May 5th 1981, I think) on the M,M & W tour, but split before the Reading gig. I still have the bloody ticket somewhere.
3. I missed seeing Devoto-era Buzzcocks on the Anarchy tour by one day! When The Damned were kicked off the bill, The Buzzcocks replaced them for the Electric Circus show. I went the next night to the Cleethorpes Winter Gardens Show, but the Buzzcocks didn't make it across the pennines and only 3 bands played.
4. I did eventually see Howard solo, with SPK and The Smiths at the Lyceum. Dave Formula was on keyboards.
5. I played a gig at the Camden Monarch around 10 years ago and it turned out that we were supporting some Romo-type outfit which had DAVE FORMULA on keyboards. Dave Formula! I can't for the life of me remember the name of the band.
― Dr. C (Dr. C), Thursday, 15 September 2005 10:51 (eighteen years ago) link
― Dr. C (Dr. C), Thursday, 15 September 2005 10:52 (eighteen years ago) link
― mullygrubbr (bulbs), Thursday, 15 September 2005 10:59 (eighteen years ago) link
― mullygrubbr (bulbs), Thursday, 15 September 2005 11:02 (eighteen years ago) link
― Dr. C (Dr. C), Thursday, 15 September 2005 11:13 (eighteen years ago) link
― mullygrubbr (bulbs), Thursday, 15 September 2005 11:21 (eighteen years ago) link
― mullygrubbr (bulbs), Thursday, 15 September 2005 11:24 (eighteen years ago) link
― Dr. C (Dr. C), Thursday, 15 September 2005 11:27 (eighteen years ago) link
― mullygrubbr (bulbs), Thursday, 15 September 2005 11:34 (eighteen years ago) link
― mullygrubbr (bulbs), Thursday, 15 September 2005 11:35 (eighteen years ago) link
― simian (dymaxia), Thursday, 15 September 2005 12:39 (eighteen years ago) link
Spiral Scratch, Real Life, Secondhand Daylight, The Correct Use Of SoapThis man's records took my breath away and filled me with hopeA darkness, daring and lyrical drama the world has long since lostSong From Under The Floorboards, Parade, Motorcade and Permafrost"
It's hard to know if I have anything to contribute to this discussion when our members are having chats with Devoto over ice cream, but I'll take a shot. Magazine floated under my radar for the first couple years of my radio show, which mostly focused on post-punk. Next door to the station was the newsaper office, where I served time as arts editor my third year. There was a beat-up cassette of The Correct Use Of Soap, which didn't grab me the first few times it was played. The "Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)" cover didn't seem to add much to the original in my mind, and Dave Formula's keyboard work seemed almost MOR compared to say, Pere Ubu. But slowly the lyrics would sink in, particularly "A Song From Under The Floorboards" and I started to realize how brilliant and subversive Devoto was, more so than even Nick Cave. I dug into their other albums and decided that Magazine were nearly as powerful and intense as Joy Division, but not all their songs were as immediately gripping, and needed time to grow on you.
I remember reading an interview with Devoto where he addresses the lyrics to "Permafrost," in either Uncut or MOJO, but I can't find it. Isn't there an index for those magazines?
In looking around, I found Chris Ott's inappropriately timed dismissive take on Magazine in John McGeoch's obituary:
Devoto's sneering delivery and Magazine's unabashed use of border-prog synth sounds left a mixed legacy of obsessive fans and disinterested observers; though a handful of revered post-punk classics like "Permafrost" and "The Light Pours Out of Me" mandate remembering Magazine, the band's three studio albums between 1978 and 1980 were increasingly spotty, and McGeoch's dramatic leads far outshone the hesitant songs they supported.
That's a load of steaming crap. McGeoch actually held back on the last album (probably under Hannett's direction) to let the rhythm section and Devoto's songs shine. And he also infers that Reynolds intentionally left Magazine out of his 2001 post-punk article. The reality is that Reynolds needed 577 pages to include what he needed, and still can't please everyone. Of ...Soap, he wrote, "...it was hailed, correctly, as the band's masterpiece. Devoto's lyrics drew inspiration from an idea he'd found in a book of essays on love and lust by Theodore Reik -- the notion that you are particularly vulnerable to falling in love after you've experienced some kind of trauma or life crisis. 'Imay love you out of weakness/Is that what I was afraid of?' he wonders on the superb 'Stuck', a strange track loping somewhere unclassifiable between art-funk and jazz-metal. Enhanced by teh crisp edges and eerie hollows of Martin Hannett's production, Magazine's music finally matched the lofty themes, while Devoto penned some of his most darkly witty and literate lines: 'I could have been Raskolnikov/But Mother Nature ripped me off' (a reference to the anti-hero of Dostoevsky's Crime And Punishment)."
Here's a more interesting article from Stylus circa '02 - Rhythm Of Cruelty: Howard Devoto, Magazine and the Post-Punk Revival.
"So how did I spend my wilderness years, Momus, I'm glad you askedI was up on the summit of Mount Olympus giving a songwriting classTo Aphrodite, Zeus and Psyche and many other godsOf the early to middle Greek pantheon -- now they all write fantastic songs"
― Fastnbulbous (Fastnbulbous), Saturday, 17 September 2005 16:22 (eighteen years ago) link
― Fastnbulbous (Fastnbulbous), Saturday, 17 September 2005 16:23 (eighteen years ago) link
READ IT AND WEEP BIATCHES
― ESTEBAN BUTTEZ!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!, Saturday, 17 September 2005 16:23 (eighteen years ago) link
― Ian Riese-Moraine: Let this bastard out, and you'll get whiplash! (Eastern Mantr, Sunday, 18 September 2005 01:37 (eighteen years ago) link
― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 10:12 (eighteen years ago) link
― leigh (leigh), Wednesday, 8 March 2006 10:34 (eighteen years ago) link
― dr x o'skeleton, Wednesday, 8 March 2006 10:39 (eighteen years ago) link
― to scour or to pop? (Haberdager), Sunday, 28 January 2007 17:03 (seventeen years ago) link
― latebloomer: crapness 2 the Nth degree (latebloomer), Sunday, 28 January 2007 17:50 (seventeen years ago) link
― Andy_K (Andy_K), Sunday, 28 January 2007 17:55 (seventeen years ago) link
The info located on this page (between items on Testament and America):
EMI has announced the release of definitive CD editions of Magazine's four studio albums: Real Life, Secondhand Daylight, The Correct Use Of Soap and Magic, Murder And The Weather. Jerky Versions Of The Dream, the first solo album recorded by Magazine mainman Howard Devoto, is also reissued.
All five albums were originally issued by Virgin Records. Each CD has been newly remastered from the original tapes at Abbey Road.
The CD of each album is supplemented by the complete non-album tracks, drawn from the album's contemporary singles. Jerky Versions Of The Dream also features the Howard Devoto's never-before-issued John Peel session from 1983.
― Andy_K (Andy_K), Sunday, 28 January 2007 18:22 (seventeen years ago) link
― Colonel Poo (Colonel Poo), Sunday, 28 January 2007 18:33 (seventeen years ago) link
― GLC (ZakAce), Sunday, 28 January 2007 19:57 (seventeen years ago) link
I also prefer getting *just* the album, I hate it when extra tracks are tacked onto the end. I want a single artistic statement, and nothing more, whenever I buy an album. The single exception to this is Ride's GBA, but I count those tracks as part of the album anyway so it's OK.
Listening to this whilst a little drunk is fucking fantastic. Matches my confused yet relaxed, confortable yet slightly depressed mood.
― to scour or to pop? (Haberdager), Monday, 29 January 2007 02:08 (seventeen years ago) link
― js (honestengine), Monday, 29 January 2007 02:13 (seventeen years ago) link
― kwhitehead (stephen schmidt), Monday, 29 January 2007 03:14 (seventeen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 29 January 2007 03:28 (seventeen years ago) link
― to scour or to pop? (Haberdager), Monday, 29 January 2007 03:43 (seventeen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 29 January 2007 03:59 (seventeen years ago) link
After a day's listening, I'd say that most of the album will stick. I've already noticed a comparison between the piano in the intro to 'Back To Nature' and that in Mogwai's 'Auto Rock', sigh. Which reminds me, I may have to re-evaluate Mr. Beast at some stage; I gave it an awful kicking after not too many listens...
― to scour or to pop? (Haberdager), Monday, 29 January 2007 04:06 (seventeen years ago) link
Hurrah! And about bloody time too!
"I know all these songs. But very little ever actually sticks."
Ned, are you familiar with "Rainy Season" from the aforementioned solo album?
― Stewart Osborne (Stewart Osborne), Monday, 29 January 2007 22:00 (seventeen years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 29 January 2007 22:16 (seventeen years ago) link
I'm going to give these guys a try again. Only a couple of songs have ever stuck with me, sorry to say
And....Ned?
Now Playing : I Wanted Your Heart. OMG, OMG, OMG!
This is as close as I get/as I ever get...
― Dr.C, Wednesday, 26 September 2007 16:05 (sixteen years ago) link
Somehow, I'd forgotten that Martin Hannett produced The Correct Use of Soap. Of the remasters, that's the one I'd want.
― Naive Teen Idol, Saturday, 3 November 2007 01:28 (sixteen years ago) link
"Real Life" is great too.
― Geir Hongro, Saturday, 3 November 2007 02:08 (sixteen years ago) link
Geir likes Real Life?!!!??!
Damn.
Great album btw, just listened to it.
― stephen, Sunday, 27 January 2008 19:34 (sixteen years ago) link
Fantastic album...It seems to come out of nowhere - a true original.
― Bob Six, Sunday, 27 January 2008 19:48 (sixteen years ago) link
i love the album with The Great Beautician In The Sky on it. the one every one raves about - correct use of soap, not quite so much. production is a bit too 80s pop sounding.
― titchyschneiderMk2, Sunday, 27 January 2008 20:06 (sixteen years ago) link
It's a crime that you can only get the Peel Sessions disc in the 3-disc box. As is often the case, many of these versions outstrip their studio counterparts.
― Mr. Odd, Sunday, 27 January 2008 22:20 (sixteen years ago) link
The 3 disc box set was as the same price as a normal CD when I bought it. Maybe the price has gone up since then I suppose, dunno.
― Colonel Poo, Sunday, 27 January 2008 23:00 (sixteen years ago) link
great performance clip on youtube of "song from under the floorboards" w/a seriously funky black bass player
― m coleman, Sunday, 27 January 2008 23:39 (sixteen years ago) link
today I bumped into you again I have no idea what you want but there was something I meant to say
As the day stops dead at the place where we're lost I will drug you and fuck you on the permafrost
― m coleman, Sunday, 27 January 2008 23:49 (sixteen years ago) link
classic, absolutely
Words to live by.
― Andy K, Sunday, 27 January 2008 23:54 (sixteen years ago) link
Totally forgot the line about drugging and fucking until I played that song on my radio show this past week. Hi there, FCC!
― kate78, Monday, 28 January 2008 02:00 (sixteen years ago) link
Great, but better than Wire? wtf no.
― S-, Tuesday, 29 January 2008 00:38 (sixteen years ago) link
mick mercer linked to this band today: Gloria Mundi
Gloria Mundi - Myspace http://www.myspace.com/gloriamundifansite
They released an album on RCA in 1977 ! and sounded a bit like Magazine. Were Magazine inspired by this band? did they ever tour together?
Eddie Maelov - vocals // Sunshine Patteson - keyboards, vocals// Beethoven - guitar// c.c. - sax// Mike Nichols - drums// Ice - bass//
― djmartian, Saturday, 1 March 2008 17:47 (sixteen years ago) link
Saw them at the Forum last night and they were utterly brilliant. Right from Devoto announcing at the start that they had reformed so he could 'impress a woman.' The band were a really tight ship, and Noko performed McGeogh's parts to a tee. The support act Ipso Facto, clearly fans, sang backing vocals. "That's probably their daughters' band," my friend suggested.They played everything you might expect or hope for, except maybe Boredom and Back to Nature. Poor old Barry Adamson had to sit down to play the bass in Thankyoufalletimebemiceelf, but devoto was a malevolent live wire throughout. The only curious bit was Great Beautician in the Sky never seemed to shift into 4/4. Highlight for me was Motorcade.
― Dr X O'Skeleton, Saturday, 14 February 2009 19:00 (fifteen years ago) link
there in spirit
― there's no antivote to (country matters), Saturday, 14 February 2009 21:13 (fifteen years ago) link
would pretty much of paid £30 to watch Pimp Barry Adamson playing the Basslines of Magazine for two hours, but yeah, fuckin A
― EMPIRE STATE HYMEN (MPx4A), Saturday, 14 February 2009 22:04 (fifteen years ago) link
they did The Book, and Twenty Years Ago sounded like some lunatic house shit
I did not realise until I read Petridis' review that Devoto was wearing 3/4 length pants :/
dude is basically Jesus though so fair enough
shame about not Back to Nature/Feed the Enemy/much else off Secondhand Daylight; also wish someone had thought to wave a lighter during Permafrost
― EMPIRE STATE HYMEN (MPx4A), Saturday, 14 February 2009 22:10 (fifteen years ago) link
so they played most of Soap then
really really feeling like I should of found out about this sooner
― there's no antivote to (country matters), Saturday, 14 February 2009 22:14 (fifteen years ago) link
devoto in 3/4 length pants, espadrilles and a pink jacket, like some demented gameshow host meets sex tourist
― Dr X O'Skeleton, Sunday, 15 February 2009 14:45 (fifteen years ago) link
Great gig in Manchester last night. Thought they are sounded great - agree Devoto looked a bit odd, but Barry Adamson still looked like the coolest dude around. Fantastic bass playing too.
― Peteski, Sunday, 15 February 2009 15:03 (fifteen years ago) link
please come to NY!
― dan selzer, Sunday, 15 February 2009 16:07 (fifteen years ago) link
so, will it be good? -
http://music.is-amazing.com/sites/music.is-amazing.com/files/covers/magazine.jpg
― nostormo, Thursday, 6 October 2011 15:31 (twelve years ago) link
No Barry Adamson on this...apparently?
― kwhitehead, Thursday, 6 October 2011 17:19 (twelve years ago) link
I wanted to quote a strange aside from another thread, talking about the old Rolling Stone Record Guides:
Magazine seemd very harshly dismissed for instance, a 4 line paragraph and each album three stars, but "Philadelphia" was identified as their best song which cannily seems to be the consensus now
Did I miss the news that there's a "consensus" that "Philadelphia" from The Correct Use of Soap is their best song? I'd personally rank it 5th or 6th on that album alone. I don't think it's even made it to any of their compilations.
Meanwhile, No Thyself is one of those albums I keep meaning to get hold of.
― Halfway there but for you, Thursday, 10 March 2022 03:12 (two years ago) link
Third week bingeing on whatever Magazine I can find.
― SQUIRREL MEAT!! (Capitaine Jay Vee), Tuesday, 10 May 2022 12:34 (two years ago) link
How do you rate them? I never connected with the reunion album.
Of the subsequent non-Magazine stuff that Howard did, there's good bits on his solo "Jerky Versions Of The Dream" and the two Luxuria albums but none of them are consistent enough for me to enjoy fully.
― Gerald McBoing-Boing, Tuesday, 10 May 2022 12:44 (two years ago) link
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2022/may/04/post-punk-guitarist-john-mcgeoch-magazine-siouxsie-sioux
― curmudgeon, Tuesday, 10 May 2022 13:43 (two years ago) link
Anybody get this yet?
The Light Pours Out of Me: The Authorised Biography of John McGeochRory Sullivan-Burke
John McGeoch was the unsung hero of the post-punk era. Blazing a trail with some of Britain’s biggest bands and most revered artists – Magazine, Siouxsie and the Banshees, The Armoury Show and Public Image Ltd. – John left an undeniable and indelible mark on music.
The Light Pours Out of Me examines John’s life and legacy, drawing on original interviews with the likes of Siouxsie Sioux, Howard Devoto, Johnny Marr, Billy Idol, John Frusciante, Keith Levene, Jonny Greenwood, Nick Launay, Ed O’Brien, Peter ‘Hooky’ Hook and many others.
― curmudgeon, Tuesday, 10 May 2022 13:47 (two years ago) link
xxpost I haven't heard the reunion album but love the first three very much. Digging on older live sessions I can find, too.
― SQUIRREL MEAT!! (Capitaine Jay Vee), Tuesday, 10 May 2022 17:43 (two years ago) link
I really don't think that the fourth album has any bad songs, but the sound is often very harsh.
I think Luxuria's Beast Box is his best non-Magazine release. I saw the video for "The Beast Box is Dreaming" when it came out, but couldn't get into the record at the time. Now I particularly like the "torch songs" or ballads; Devoto is not as tormented as he was in the Magazine days, but there's just as much wit and perception in the lyrics and singing.
― Halfway there but for you, Wednesday, 11 May 2022 11:54 (two years ago) link
magic murder and the weather may actually be my secret favourite, tho i haven't revisited any of them for a long while
i used slightly to know ben mandelson, mcgeoch's replacement -- he co-ran a record company whose records i often reviewed, and he was both a nice person and a very folk-scholarly person, which was probably not quite the right vibe for magazine but i liked it myself
― mark s, Wednesday, 11 May 2022 12:25 (two years ago) link
awake much of the night with truly astonishing dental pain (on antibiotics, direct to root canal when I get home from work but work mean travel and I've got several days yet to go) and the music of magazine specifically the secondhand daylight album is helping. ty magazine, top group
― J Edgar Noothgrush (Joan Crawford Loves Chachi), Friday, 20 January 2023 11:45 (one year ago) link
Check out "Seconds to Last" by Colin Newman for more explicitly dental-themed post-punk:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fME8qjXbV1I
― Halfway there but for you, Friday, 20 January 2023 16:38 (one year ago) link