3xMAGAZINE

Rip It Up, Issue 37, 1 August 1980, Page 8

3xMAGAZINE

Mairi Gunn

By the time I'd found Magazine’s rehearsal studios in the maze of Chelsea backstreets, I was a pack of nerves. Just how do you approach aband fronted by the man described by Virgin Records as "one of the more ... enigmatically fascinating figures of the new wave”? I pushed open the studio door and muttered something about an interview. They reacted as if to a roll call, all squashing onto one couch along the studio wall. Howard Devoto was absent. “This is quite a scoop innit... really?” It was the first interview Robin Simon has given as the replacement for guitarist John McGeoch who has decided to pursue other projects, according to the press statement released that day. John’s activities outside the band have included work with the Banshees after Siouxie’s original guitarist left her in the lurch last year. The line-up I am facing now is Robin Simon, drummer John Doyle, keyboard player Dave Formula, and Barry Adamson, the bassist. There is speculation that John McGeoch will join the Banshees. The possibility is not denied. DF That's up to them. I think they’ve got three people to decide between. John left within months of Magazine's American and Australasian tours. Hadn’t his decision come as a surprise? DF It wasn’t a day (he snaps his fingers), then (snap) another day. There wasn’t really any horribleness and I’m not being diplomatic. Robin Simon played on Ultravox’s Systems of Romance before going to the States where he married, and played with David Johannsen (among others). He returned to England and joined Magazine in late June. How did Jie come to join the group? JD Sneakily. RS I knew Raf (Magazine’s manager) from two years ago, but I hadn’t met any of the others. JD Bui now we’re one big happy family. DF We like what we heard on the Ultravox album, and we've also got various bootleg tapes of him that he doesn't know about. Some time after Secondhand Daylight had been delivered, Magazine came out with a round of releases three singles; “A Song From Under the Floorboards”/“Twenty Years Ago”, Sly Stone's "Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)”/“The Book” and "Sweetheart Contract'VFeed The Enemy”. They topped these with their most impressive album to date, The Correct Use of Soap. BA There’s something our manager said to us. We rehearse, get a song together... DF Then our alter egos come down on a

spacecraft and start working on what we’ve done. BA "Are you sure that’s what you want to play?” We were trying really hard with the third album to knock down those barriers. They even went so far as to record in the rehearsal studio. "Twenty Years Ago” is perhaps the furtherest they’ve gone towards what Howard calls the "Five-Minute Snapshot". It has been described as funk, and I likened it to "Contort Yourself" by James White and the Blacks. BA The contivance! Funk’s a term that I totally disagree with that has been applied to a series of notes, a rhythmic style. "Twenty Years Ago" is just a basic groove a Magazine dance number with free-form icing. It turned out to be an experiment in spontaneous playing. Just going for it. DF It was destructured. JD And the same goes for the lyrics. There was no premeditation. I don’t know the meaning of hegemony and who is Raskolnikov? Is Howard writing for some elite? DF Oh no. You mean you've never heard words that you’ve not understood but you’ve thought, "Wow ... that’s a good word. That sounds really good"? It’s all music. Us talking is music we’re pitching and modulating. Using difficult words is like using an elaborate chord. Sometimes it works and someone who’s just starting to play might think, "What’s that? Perhaps I'll try to work it out." Everyone knows “Saw my baby on the corner ... she really wiped me out." Howard owns the saxophone that John McGeoch used to play. Now he’s gone, Howard's been applying the spontaneity theory.

BA He says "OK Mf it just happens. I was struck by the bass line on “A Song From Under the Floorboards” when - I first heard the song. On subsequent listenings I was convinced the song would be a hit it wasn’t. I wondered if Virgin had given them enough Pu^icityJHfaflMßßpPßk BA No. A quarter-page advert in a music paper. You can just skip over them.' DF We got a full page in Motorbike Weekly but that didn’t seem to help. Virgin’ were quite surprised that "Floorboards” got as much attention as it did. Probably if they'd cottoned on sooner,-they may have put more into it. It’s nothing. personal. We’re not considered an overtly commercial proposition. ’ Robin denies that they are anti-commercial-RS It’s selfish to say "We play music for ourselves.” BA Another thing is that we don’t get enough airplay. The rush of Magazine material is the result of their fruitful relationship with a producer who has been in the studio with Factory acts, Joy Division and A Certain Ratio', and many others (including John Cooper Clarke and Orchestral Manouevres in the Dark). Martin-Hannett was also the whizz-kid producer of the Buzzcock’s classic Spiral Scratch EP. JwHf ■hf Martin was much more in tune with . what we were doing than our other two producers. What was working with him like? . .91 DF He’s got that spontaneity that we were sympathetic to. BA When you get to the fifth -night without sleep you start to wonder... JD A competition goes on. Who can stay up ■HtheJongest?^oOTpßßVvMM ■ All those sleepless nights seem to have got the better of John he ducks out while the rest of us opt for a drink in the local. Sitting around a table we divide a little. The other two talk to. each other while I find outabout: Barry's musical tastes. He likes jazz Coltrane, Davis and Parker. Do the others have any favourites?|BKSpoMflH|MQßEflM| DF Well,. yeah ... the best one is listening to &23him? listening to jazf)nBBHBM9 It's obvious I’m not . going to get a straight answer to this one, but try againnHQDjßH R listen to Capital Radio. I don’t buy albums, or very rarely. I have got. a large jazz collection. RS Have you really? DF I whip one out every now and then ... BA ... to lend to me. (Laughter all around). DF Honest to God. Don’t you know that's the

worst question you can ask? Why do you want to know ... so you can go out and buy them? A dog is sniffing around Dave’s feet, as he suggests I write an article on Magazine and animals. Things are more relaxed, though Simon gets quieter. I don't think he likes me. DF I was saying to Barry, had he read the Malcolm McLaren article in Sounds? He maintains that the emphasis is going to shift from the album to the cassette because of all the things you can do with it. But the medium is going to be live performances which will be great for us. BA People say, “I never realised quite what Maqazine were all about until I saw them live.” Their last London show was at the Lyceum on May 1.1 remember wondering if the fact that Howard and Dave had the same haircut meant there was a new trend on the way in. I now realised that the style was dictated by the receeding hairline common to them both. Simple as it was, the use of backdrop and lighting was as creative as any I’d seen. DF We try to use lights to complement what we’re doing not to be flash or anything. RS In the eighties it is going to be video discs visual as well as aural. Movies are a major influence for us, I think. DF Some of us are interested in film music. Something came up a film of Samuel Delaney’s “Dhalgren”, a science fiction book about the apocalypse. The new status quo or un-status quo. Mention of the end of the world leads us inevitably to the Thatcher government. DF The present government worries me a lot. I’ve always been very anti-discipline, very anti-authority. Punk pre-dated the extreme right-wing government we’ve got at present. I wish it’d, happen now. Often, it seems, those who share Dave’s views on authority choose a stance which is just as authoritative. Rock music is not free of these dogmatists. It strikes me that what has been criticised as ambiguity in Magazine s lyrics may simply be an evasion of dogmatism. DF Overt stances have never been for us. I think I can do best by displaying and improving my talents as a musician. I've got to reconcile my own survival with the idea of trying to provide something for my fellow man. It’s very idealistic, but I’m a romantic. If I was stronger, or brought up on a different level, I might have been an activist of some sort in a different way. I’ve chosen music because that's what I'm best at.