Howard Devoto
b. Howard Trotter. After leaving the Buzzcocks just as they were becoming massive, Manchester student Howard Devoto formed the altogether more sober Magazine. After widespread critical acclaim, the band split in the early '80s, and Devoto, briefly embarked on a straightforward solo career with 1983's JERKY VISIONS OF THE DREAM. But despite two singles (Rainy Season and Cold Imagination), the album failed to achieve the impact that Magazine had attained. Devoto approached later work using various disguises, such as Luxuria. Highly-influential during the punk era, Devoto's role as a much-quoted spokesperson and innovator declined in the '80s. One writer perceptively dubbed the bespectacled new wave intellectual as ‘the Orson Welles of punk’.