#360 - Buzzcocks - Singles Going Steady (1979)
MUSIC HISTORY WRITTEN BY HEAD WRITER DJ MORTY COYLE:
Released on September 25th of 1979 on I.R.S. and United Artists Records and produced by Martin Rushent and Martin Hannett this is a U.S. compilation album by the British, Punk, Pop, Rock band.
In Manchester, England in the mid ‘70s Bolton Institute of Technology student and singer/songwriter Howard Trafford put an ad in the college paper looking for musicians who also liked The Velvet Underground's song "Sister Ray". It was replied to by guitarist and fellow student Peter McNeish. Trafford came from the world of electronic music while McNeish had previously played Rock.
By late 1975 they started a band with a bassist and drummer that coalesced into Buzzcocks in early 1976 at about the same time that Trafford became Howard Devoto and McNeish became Pete Shelley.
That was also when Devoto and Shelley went to London to see an early show by the Sex Pistols, loved it, and arranged for them to play two gigs with Buzzcocks opening. The first was at the Lesser Free Trade Hall in Manchester later that June.
However when the show arrived the rest of the band dropped out so Howard and Pete had to just watch what turned out to be ground zero for the Punk and Post-Punk scenes in Manchester as you’ll remember from the New Order episode.
They soon got bassist Steve Diggle and drummer John Maher and debuted this line up opening for the Sex Pistols’ second Manchester show in July.
In September of 1976 the band performed at the equally famous, Sex Pistols manager: Malcolm McLaren-produced, 100 Club Punk Festival in London with the Sex Pistols and other soon-to-be legendary artists like The Clash, The Damned, and Siouxsie and the Banshees.
By the end of the year they did what was almost unheard of then, well before the DIY ethos years later, and started their own independent record label to record and released a four-track EP called “Spiral Scratch.”
The songs were rough, raw, repetitive, and snarling.
But Devoto quickly lost interest as Punk’s freshness became stale, unoriginal, and commonplace so he quit and soon formed the Post-Punk band, Magazine.
Shelley took over as lead vocalist and main songwriter, bassist Steve Diggle switched to lead guitar, and they acquired first Garth Smith and then Steve Garvey on bass.
In contrast to Devoto’s obvious, sneering, Punk, voice Shelley had a youthful and chirpy presence that seemed to usher in a fresher and friendlier era.
The songs still had manic Punk energy and expressed anger, dissatisfaction, unrequited love, and unsatisfied desires but the songwriting had classic Pop construction.
They were soon signed to a major label (on August 16th, 1977) and started releasing comparatively quirky and popular singles around two studio albums.
Meanwhile other Manchester bands they influenced like The Fall and Joy Division, and then New Order, had evolved into pioneering Post-Punks.
Then they released this retrospective collection.
It assembled the A-sides of their first 8 singles in order on side 1 and all the B-sides on side 2 and was originally intended to introduce them to the U.S. ahead of a tour there.
While it wasn’t even released in the UK until the band was about to break up a couple years later and didn’t chart in either country it’s since been heralded as a Punk masterpiece.
The band broke up in 1981 following a dispute with their record label and all the members pursued solo and band projects before reuniting in 1989 and eventually releasing six more records and continuing to tour.
Tragically Pete Shelley died in 2018 but Steve Diggle took over lead vocals and with a new guitarist keeps the band active and still drawing huge crowds.