Released : 1978
Many people have claimed to have attended one or both of the Sex Pistols’ gigs at Manchester’s Free Trade Hall in 1976, but Howard Devoto’s retort was that he’d actually promoted them. His resignation from The Buzzocks before their debut EP Spiral Scratch was even released then created waves that would spread far beyond the punk, such that his next venture Magazine were feted before they’d struck a note in anger.
Devoto’s friend and former bandmate Pete Shelley had come up with the riff for Shot By Both Sides, a song which Devoto used to announce a change in course and which fired the band he’d assembled via an advert placed in Virgin Records Manchester store into such a position that by the end of 1977 the NME had hailed him as the “Most Important Man Alive.”
If so, he was determined not to court popularity. The song handled remaining distinct in the febrile atmosphere created by the political conflict between the right and left, kicking over punk’s statues as it went. Unapologetic, Devoto felt some of his former contemporaries were merely thespians, and as if to highlight their false equivalence he chose to accommodate, if not embrace, it’s relative success. In doing so he came within a hair’s breadth of finishing what he’d started.
The Voice Of Unreason 