Buzzcocks
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| image credit - Adrian Boot / urbanimage.tv |
Memories of a fan & a look at a new book
article first published in STAT - ISSUE 06
words by Andrew Bromelow
Pete Shelley (born Peter Campbell McNeish, Leigh, 1955) was, as well as being a successful solo artist, the lead singer and guitarist in a band called ‘Buzzcocks'.
Not 'The Buzzcocks' please, just ‘Buzzcocks'. Thank you.
The importance of Buzzcocks' formation can't be overemphasised: It was purely down to that single creative decision, to form a group, and to invite the band (banned) Sex Pistols to venture up North for the first time, in June 1976, to play a gig at The Lesser Free Trade Hall in Manchester. That single event was the catalyst, transforming 'punk rock' from a London-based music and fashion revolt, to something far more culturally and geographically wide ranging. From that one night alone, punk immediately took root in Manchester and then, soon after, the whole of the UK, and beyond...
In the audience of that, now almost legendary, evening, were members of soon-to-be-formed bands, including The Fall, Joy Division, The Smiths, and also the Granada TV presenter Tony Wilson, soon to be founder of highly regarded Factory Records, and the legendary Haçienda nightclub.
Please forgive me if you already know all this Manchester music history: I'm now a man in my mid- fifties, who first heard Buzzcocks in 1978, subsequently buying all the singles in their distinctive Malcolm Garrett designed picture covers, and the accompanying albums too. Yes, obviously, I know this stuff, but many readers here will still be blessed with the sweet gift of youth, and clearly couldn't have been there at the time...
In January 1977, Buzzcocks next went on to release the first independently released punk record, the 'Spiral Scratch' four track EP, recorded in a small studio, on Gartside Street in the centre of Manchester, just over the River Irwell from Salford, and a stone's throw from the aforementioned Granada Studios.
Some thirty years later, I'd find myself gazing down upon that street from the enormous 7th floor window of my then workplace. It actually brought me some comfort, during, appropriately enough, the 'boredom' that frequently accompanied my office job, knowing that a small explosive piece of music history was recorded right there.
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| Buzzcocks on Lever Street, Manchester. 1979. Adrian Boot / urbanimage.tv |
I think I probably first heard Buzzcocks in early 1978, when they were performing 'I Don't Mind' on Top Of The Pops. The singer didn't look like one of those new punk rockers (that I soon became), all safety pins and ripped clothing, he just looked like one of your older brother's friends. The guitarist had longish hair, the bassist was slightly redolent of the young Richard Beckinsale, and the laid- back drummer could easily have been at home in the group ‘Blondie’.
Within weeks I'd be hearing Noel Edmonds begrudgingly playing their singles in the mornings on Radio 1, before setting off for another fun day of getting battered (me, not Noel Edmonds) at the school where, a few years later, I'd leave the trademark, elongated, nested, double 'Z' of the band's logo, on a number of desks, walls, and lockers, nervously, yet meticulously rendered, in thick, black marker pen, in an act of, what I saw as payback for my five years at that miserable Victorian workhouse, and publicity for one of my favourite groups to those in the know.
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| Buzzcocks' double 'Z' |
When Pete, sadly, left us far too early in 2018, one of the many questions I had about the band was finally answered: The other lads in the band had Manchester accents like me, (I moved to Lowton from North Manchester twenty years ago), so I could never quite understand why Pete had, what sounded to me, like a Lancashire accent. It was only then that I learned that he was born and raised just down the road from where I live now, Pennington, in fact, which for all that time I hadn't actually previously known. Incidentally, until reading this book, I had no idea that Pete's first job was right here, in Lowton, at Anderton House, a huge modernist building belonging to the National Coal Board, now long since demolished, home to a housing estate off Newton Road.
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what book?
Ever Fallen in Love:
The Lost Buzzcocks Tapes
Pete Shelley w/ Louie Shelley (2021)
'Ever Fallen In Love' by Louis Shelley is a new book, just out, compiled from conversations between Pete and the author.
What Louie Shelley (no relation), a huge fan of the band, and Manchester journalist, does, very accurately, is to set the scene of life in the city in the 1970s, after taking us on a brief journey from Pete's childhood, the influence of music and records on him, the first concert he attended, the first festival he went to at Bickershaw Colliery, where many major bands played in the 1970s, believe it or not: "The Woodstock Of Wigan!" to quote Mr Shelley himself. Then we come to band's formation, that first historic EP, through the three albums, right up to the last single by the original line- up, before the band initially split in 1981, comprehensively, interestingly, but never overwhelmingly. Every song recorded in that classic line-up from 1977 to 1981 is covered, in, just the right level of detail, certainly for me, as a non- musician. It's the result of many recorded conversations between Louie and Pete from a few years ago, which have now been affectionately, meticulously, transcribed by the author.
If you have any interest in Buzzcocks, as a band or as an essential part of our musical heritage, then this book is possibly for you.
If you're a serious fan of the band, then this book is little short of an essential read. I hope that Louie is rightfully proud of her book, a testament to her friendship with Pete, and a fine commemoration it is too. I would urge you to buy or borrow it.
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Subsequently, Pete successfully went solo in the early 80s, prior to the 1989 band reformation, which I had the greatest pleasure in seeing them perform. The Apollo Theatre in Manchester Friday 8 December (I still have the ticket), as, almost certainly, did the book's author.
The next time I saw Buzzcocks playing live, was supporting Sex Pistols for their own reformation tour in 1994, at Finsbury Park, in 'that there' London, and I do wonder if this was a nod back to Buzzcocks inviting the Pistols up to Manchester in '76?
Back in the 1980s, I actually had the pleasure of bumping into Pete, one evening in Corbieres bar, Manchester.
He came across as shy and polite. Despite me being quite a bit taller than him, I was somewhat overawed by the presence of this man who helped soundtrack my adolescent and teenage years, and I struggled to speak:
"Excuse me, but are you Pete Shelley?"
"I am!" he smiled coyly.
"Pete, I, I, I just wanted to say thank you, for the music." I nervously ventured.
"You're welcome!"
A kind, generous grin, and off he merged, into the crowd, the dim lighting and thick clouds of cigarette smoke that were all an unavoidable part of the 'going out' experience back then.
I'd just met one of my punk heroes and all I could do was nervously and completely unintentionally drop the title of an ABBA song... I think he probably quite liked that, actually.
One question remains. On holiday in Tallinn five years ago, I spotted a badge with the heart from the cover of the 'Ever Fallen in Love (With Someone You Shouldn't've)' single on it. No writing, just the picture. Obviously it leapt out at me and I wondered what it was doing in the window of a second-hand shop in Estonia. The shop was closed at the time, and I never found it again. Again, with Pete's passing, I found out that he moved to Tallinn about ten years ago. Was it his badge? I'll never know.
Back, finally, to the present.
The Pete Shelley Memorial Campaign has raised nearly £15,000 towards the creation of a permanent memorial to Pete Shelley in his hometown of Leigh. I hope that it comes to fruition.
Oh, and by the way, if the Buzzcocks exhibition ever returns to our beautiful, brutalist, Turnpike Gallery in sunny Leigh, I can strongly recommend a visit.
Anyway 'Time's Up!’
Ever Fallen in Love: The Lost Buzzcocks Tapes
is available at bookshops & can be borrowed from Leigh Library.
Proceeds from sold copies go toward the Pete Shelley Memorial Campaign.
words
Andrew Bromelow