Buzzcocks - The Complete History. Tony McGartland
room.’
Oct 26th
Buzzcocks rehearsals move from St Boniface’s Church Hall, Salford, to Lifeline, a drug rehabilitation centre on Lower Mosely Street, Manchester. The centre is not safe enough for the band to leave any gear there, so they set up, rehearse, reload the van and return home. Boon has booked this rehearsal as one of his first jobs as manager.
Nov 8th
Buzzcocks play the Band on the Wall, Manchester, a jazz club in a public house, which the New Manchester Review occasionally use for gigs like this, their second-anniversary celebrations. Devoto introduces the band as ‘Buzzcocks, the best in good food’! Also on the bill are Bob Williamson, the Phantom Band and C. P. Lee of Alberto y Los Trios Paranoias.
During the set, Boon is at the bar when an old flatmate from Reading university, Pete Monks, walks in. Monks asks him what he is doing there. Boon tells him he is managing the band on stage and the two watch the set. Pete Monks later becomes Buzzcocks’ driver and tour manager.
A segment of Buzzcocks’ gig at Band on the Wall is featured in the opening intro of the bootleg album Best in Good Food. The compère’s intro is taken from a flexi-disc given away with Reader’s Digest, featuring the big-band sound of Glenn Miller, but on this bootleg it is cleverly edited with Shelley’s two-note lead solo from ‘Boredom’.
Nov 10th
Buzzcocks play the Electric Circus in Rochdale Road, Collyhurst, Manchester, a heavy-metal venue, with Chelsea supporting. Shelley meets Ian Curtis (later of Joy Division) for the first time. This venue would go on to establish itself as the premier punk club outside London. The Circus was closed down when local fire authorities slapped a restrictive fire-safety limit on it, making it financially unfeasible.
Nov 27th
NME carries a review of the Buzzcocks’ Band on the Wall gig, saying, ‘They’re producing the most significant musical output of any new British rock band. Where they’re going to go next is anyone’s guess!’
Nov 28th
Buzzcocks play Electric Circus again, this time with Slaughter & the Dogs supporting.
Dec 4th
Pete Shelley records a selection of experimental sounds at home on a Bontempi organ. Four years later, in 1980, the New Hormones label plan to release these recordings on an album called Cinema Music and Wallpaper Sounds, which is eventually released in June 2016. Two of these songs, ‘It’s Hard Enough Knowing’ and ‘I Don’t Know What It Is’, appear on Shelley’s 1981 solo album Homosapien.
Dec 9th
Buzzcocks play Electric Circus supporting the Sex Pistols on their infamous Anarchy Tour, replacing the Damned, who have been kicked off the tour. This dismissal has arisen after Derby Borough Council insisted the Pistols perform at a private afternoon meeting in front of the assembled dignitaries to decide whether the band were suitable for the young people of their city to be exposed to. The Pistols don’t turn up, but, as the Damned agree to the council’s terms, Malcolm McLaren decides they no longer have a place on the tour. This gives Buzzcocks a superb opportunity to feature on a classic tour. At this stage, they are clearly a band in the ascendancy, and yet tonight will prove to be the last gig vocalist Howard Devoto ever plays with them.
Dec 10th
Garth Davies’s birthday today – born 1955.
Dec 18th
During rehearsals at Lifeline, each member of the band writes down his own choice of four tracks for the planned debut vinyl, the Spiral Scratch EP. As yet, the band remain unsigned.
Dec 26th
Shelley writes ‘What Do I Get?’.
Dec 28th
Buzzcocks record the chosen four tracks at Indigo Studios, Gartside Street, Manchester, with (soon-to-be) highly renowned producer Martin Hannett (known locally as Martin Zero, who would go on to be responsible for much of Joy Division’s work). They met Hannett through the agency he ran in the same building as the New Hormones office. The tracks are ‘Breakdown’, ‘Time’s Up’, ‘Boredom’ and ‘Friends of Mine’.
Phil Hampson sits in the studio next to Hannett that day. ‘Buzzcocks set up,’ he says, ‘we mic’d up, and started sorting out the sounds. I was used to loud noise – that’s why I’m hearing a little less well now – but this was special. The studio was in the cellar of an old Georgian building – formerly a dosshouse. There were individual rooms rather than one large area, so I could put the bass stack in a room of its own, loud as you like, without affecting anything else. Using the drum booth and trusty screens as well, I was able to get enough separation to make some changes to the individual sounds on the desk, and then set about padding and replacing the mics.
‘Pete Shelley’s dad, who apparently lent the band some money for the session, had dropped in early on to check on his investment. The story goes that the lads had a budget of a borrowed £500 to record and press Spiral Scratch, so time in the studio was limited. Well, we were pretty relaxed about the clock, and, although mixes were done on the day, it seemed the band weren’t totally happy with the end result. So I came back “out of hours” in early January 1977 – and remixed the tracks. I also added some audio effects – particularly compression – and repeat echo at the end of “Boredom” to take it into the final track.’
Dec 29th
Shelley produces his own one-page fanzine called Plaything, written and typed in his bedroom. Fortunately, Shelley’s brother Gary has borrowed a Xerox machine and this proves invaluable for reproducing the fanzine – so invaluable, in fact, that, when Gary returns the copier, the fanzine folds after only two issues.
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