Buzzcocks

Bolton and Manchester

Pete Shelley and Howard Devoto formed Buzzcocks in Bolton in 1976. They met at Bolton Institute of Technology, where Devoto put up a notice looking for musicians to play the Velvet Underground's Sister Ray and Shelley, then Peter McNeish, answered it. The name came from the headline "It's the Buzz, Cock!" over a Time Out review of the television series Rock Follies. After seeing the Sex Pistols in High Wycombe, the pair arranged the Pistols' first Manchester show at the Lesser Free Trade Hall on 4 June 1976. They had no bassist or drummer and could not play it themselves. Steve Diggle turned up that night after answering a newspaper advert, and Malcolm McLaren took him for the band's new bass player. With John Maher on drums, Buzzcocks made their debut on 20 July 1976, supporting the Pistols at the same hall.

They recorded the Spiral Scratch EP on 28 December 1976 at Indigo Sound Studios in Manchester, with Martin Hannett producing under the name Martin Zero. The band borrowed about 750 pounds from friends and family and released it on their own label, New Hormones. The first 1,000 copies sold out. Devoto left in March 1977 and formed Magazine, saying he did not like movements. Shelley took over the singing.

Singles and three albums

Buzzcocks signed to United Artists at the Electric Circus in Manchester on 16 August 1977. The first single, Orgasm Addict, began a partnership with the producer Martin Rushent that lasted to the end of the decade. What Do I Get? gave them their first chart entry at number 37 in February 1978. Another Music in a Different Kitchen followed in March and reached number 15. Its songs include Fast Cars, I Don't Mind and Diggle's Autonomy.

Love Bites was made in two and a half weeks in July and August 1978 and came out on 22 September. It reached number 13, their highest-charting album. The single Ever Fallen in Love (With Someone You Shouldn't've) reached number 12, and Promises reached number 20 that December. A Different Kind of Tension appeared in September 1979 at number 26. The same month I.R.S. put out Singles Going Steady in the United States, collecting the eight United Artists singles and their B-sides. It reached the UK in 1981 and charted in neither country.

Break-up and return

The last charting single, in September 1980, reached number 61. The band split in 1981 after recording demos for a fourth album. Reissues of the catalogue in 1988 and 1989 prompted the original line-up to reunite for a world tour in 1989. Tony Barber and Phil Barker joined in 1992, and in 1994 the band toured with Nirvana. They released new albums through the 1990s and 2000s and, in 2005, Shelley re-recorded Ever Fallen in Love with Roger Daltrey, David Gilmour, Peter Hook, Elton John, Robert Plant and others as a tribute single to the radio DJ John Peel, with proceeds going to Amnesty International. In May 2012 the original line-up, Devoto included, played in Manchester and Brixton.

Pete Shelley died on 6 December 2018. Diggle kept the band going and sang every track on Sonics in the Soul in September 2022, the first album without Shelley.

Legacy

Johnny Marr said the Smiths took a Mancunian DIY ethic from Buzzcocks in how they approached sleeves and an independent label. Pitchfork's Jason Heller wrote that pop-punk and indie rock would not sound remotely the same without them. Their name was combined with Never Mind the Bollocks to give the television panel show Never Mind the Buzzcocks its title. Shelley said there was a lingering misconception that they were only a singles band, when their albums held much more than three-minute love songs, and quoted Diggle's line that they were punks with library cards.

I never knew there was a law against sounding vulnerable.

Pete Shelley