Magazine - Real Life (1978)

There's not a hell of a lot of footage of the pre-John Doyle line-up, but this is a great clip of the band playing 'Burst'.

 

And another great three song set from Paris in 1978, Martin Jackson still in the band.

 

My moniker on Twitter is Shot By Both Sides so if they were named after guns it would be apt.

 

John McGeoch was a brilliant guitarist, saw him with Magazine in 1980 as mentioned above, and also saw him with Siouxsie and the Banshees the following year at Gloucester Leisure Centre. A big loss to music.
Agreed about Robin Simon, he did a great job on Play, must re-read my Magazine biography by Helen Chase again, it's a good read.

 

I had no idea there was a biography so thanks. Re the catalogue it would appear to be completely out of print with a lot of very high prices for recent cds and vinyl (post 2000). That means no one from/in/part of Magazine is getting any benefit from sales as they all appear via the secondary market. Maybe it is right to be nervous now.

 

Real Life and The Correct Use Of Soap were reissued on vinyl by Universal in 2018 and Secondhand Daylight by Music On Vinyl in 2016.

 

I think it is so sad that a band of Magazine's standing do not have the most recent CD's still available to purchase. It's certainly appears to be getting harder to buy some artists back catalogue on CD these days.

I listened to the Rays and Hail CD compilation yesterday and sonically that sounded very good by the way.

 

All now OOP

 

Not to mention, I keep seeing people on this forum ask about how they sound, and no one seems to have heard them.

FWIW, I only ever saw the Real Life vinyl reissue in shops around here, and it was pretty expensive.

 

I'm not waiting for feedback. At this rate I'll be too old to care anymore by the time sometime puts their head over the parapet.

I've just ordered Real Life on new vinyl pressing, still sealed from a Discogs seller. I really wanted the CD but not at current prices.

I've ordered TCUOS too but the seller isn't filling me with confidence. I've got to wait a week for her to tell me the shipping cost for one LP in the UK.

Somewhat annoyingly an online seller also has it for £3 cheaper. It might disappear whilst the Discogs seller is still deciding if they have it or not! What to do....

 

Were OOP from the moment they were released as there was only one pressing, which is pretty much the case with almost every single reissue these days.

 

I have all 3, but only have them as collection pieces as I also have early pressings of all the albums.

 

Kind of like 3D stamp collecting?

 

I have also ordered the 2018 press. I will report back.

 

Shot by both sides was co-written by Pete Shelley from The Buzzcocks which was probably what gave it that slight push forward, he steals the main riff back on a track called Lipstick which is the bside of promises. I’m not sure what the sentiment was behind it, both never really spoke about each other

 

Howerd Devoto lives in Thailand now, it might be worth getting. It’s a pretty random place to find a magazine single... I just checked it out and the first half of the sellers name is flavio.. there is a football player called flavio devoto. That’s a bit curious

 

Shot By Both Sides was released in January 1978, Promises was released In November 1978!!!

So he hardly ripped off a riff from a track that was probably originally written in the early days of Buzzcocks.

 

Off the top of my head I think I recall Pete Shelley wrote the riff that is used on Shot by Both Sides and Lipstick and he said Howard could have it. The lyric of Shot by Both Sides is (I think I have read) a reaction based on experiencing the sameness of many punk bands in later 1977. I do remember one slightly excitable scribe for one of the weekly music papers describing Devoto/Shelley as the new Lennon/McCartney songwriting team (a similar view seemed to suggest Strummer/Jones were as well!). (All 3 acts, Buzzcocks, Magazine and The Clash were/are great and I was lucky to be around during their creative periods).

A simplistic view of this great song is that if you learn to play your guitar the punk gang will shout sellout and if you don't the prog/art gang will say you are rubbish. Like Lennon sang "They hate you if you're clever and they despise a fool".

 

No one was stealing riffs, it has been documented that Pete Shelley gifted Devoto and McGeoch with the riffs for 'Shot By Both Sides' and 'The Light Pours Out of Me' when Devoto left to form Magazine. I believe Devoto may have had a hand in the writing of those riffs from his time in Buzzcocks.

 

Also New Wave perhaps?

 

I have early pressings of all the albums too, though a nicer pressing of Real Life would be nice to have. Have you listened to the new pressings? If so, how is the sound and pressing quality?

 

Blimey, if you keep whingeing enough I might just fling mine on the back of a truck and send them down the M6!

 

John McGeoch and Stuart Adamson: the 2 best (British) guitarists of the punk / new wave era. Both Scottish. Both played Yamahas. Both died way too young.

(I put British as I agree with whatever praise people will have for Verlaine and Lloyd.)

 

With regard to the meaning of Shot By Both Sides, Simon Reynolds in Rip It Up And Start Again writes: "The genesis of the lyrics for "Shot" came from a heated argument between Devoto and a socialist girlfriend a few years earlier. "I was playing my devil's advocate role, saying "Yes, but..." recalls Devoto. In the end, exasperated, the girl declared "Oh, you'll end up shot by both sides". The phrase stuck in Devoto's head and came to encapsulate his emerging ideal: the truly heroic life based on not making your mind up." Nothing to do with Kennedy. The Motorcade is a reference to a Latin American dictator who used to throw dollar bills out of his limousine window to the adoring peasants lining the route of said motorcade, IIRC. Again, nothing to do with Kennedy.

Great album, I need to dig out my CD.

 

I don't know the Real Life new pressing. I bought the third album new edition last year. Disappointing in my opinion. I came back to my old copy.