Buzzcocks - The Complete History. Tony McGartland
Buzzcocks classics. After playing one gig, they change their name to Jets of Air. McNeish takes the name from a phrase he heard in a physics lecture. Steve Christie leaves and a friend of Garth’s called Keith Jones replaces him as drummer. Ex-Kogg lead guitarist Tony Wall joins, later to be replaced by Russell Ashby. The band don’t have a lot of equipment. They have their own back-line amps, speakers and drums. The PA system is a spare guitar amp and a couple of speakers.
Jul 9th
McNeish gets a summer job as an exhaust fitter but gives up after two weeks.
Sep 5th
One Sunday afternoon, Davies brings his reel-to-reel recorder to Naylor’s Farm and Jets of Air tape themselves during rehearsal. ‘Pete and I had to carry it up the track to the farm, and then up the barn stairs to our HQ.’
Tracks recorded include cover versions of the Beatles’ ‘Back in the USSR’, Roxy Music’s ‘Editions of You’ and ‘Re-make/Remodel’, Velvet Underground’s ‘White Light/White Heat’ and several Bowie numbers: ‘Hang on to Yourself’, ‘Jean Jeanie’, ‘John, I’m Only Dancing’, ‘Queen Bitch’ and ‘Suffragette City’. Using his twelve-string acoustic guitar fitted with a pickup, they also record two of McNeish’s own compositions: ‘Telephone Operator’ and ‘I Just Can’t Live’. McNeish suggests they record another track called ‘Paradise’, but they don’t. Instead, this track finds its way onto their third album A Different Kind of Tension.
During a break between numbers, McNeish offers a few lines from ‘Yesterday Night’, the first song he ever wrote.
Oct 3rd
Peter McNeish fails his driving test.
Oct 20th
Jets of Air play a gig in Newchurch Parish Hall, Culcheth, which they promote themselves. The line-up consists of Pete on guitar and vocals, Tony Wall on lead guitar, Garth on bass and Keith Jones on drums. They record themselves on a cassette tape. A friend of Garth’s, Steve Unsworth, takes a number of photos of the band’s performance and he develops them in the school darkroom.
Although only soft drinks are sold at the venue, the band spend some time, pre-gig, at the nearby Cherry Tree pub and buy some off-sales as well. By the end of the gig, they are all too drunk to return to Leigh, so they stay overnight at the venue. After all the booze is drunk, Tony Wall and Keith Wilde go out in search of more. They return, some time later, with a bottle of whisky!
On the strength of tonight’s recording, they secure a gig at Bolton School for Girls’ Christmas social.
Dec 7th
Jets of Air play that Christmas social. The line-up consists of Pete, Tony Wall on lead guitar, Garth on bass and Keith Jones on drums. The venue is a large common room in the school and the audience consists of sixth-form boys and girls. The set includes ‘John, I’m Only Dancing’, ‘Queen Bitch’, ‘Suffragette City’, ‘Watch That Man’ and ‘Jean Jeanie’ (Bowie covers), ‘Waiting For My Man’ (Velvet Underground), ‘Badge’ (Cream), ‘Street Life’ and ‘Pictures of You’ (Roxy Music) and ‘Telephone Operator’ and ‘Paradise’ (Pete originals). Keith Wilde, who played with McNeish in Kogg, is in the audience. Tickets are priced at 10p and refreshments are available.
Garth recalls the gig: ‘We were quite a colourful band. I wore a white full-length Afghan coat with two-tone flares and a colourful T-shirt. The other members of the band were dressed just as flamboyantly. Pete and I also wore glittery face makeup and nail polish. Our changing room for the night was the science room, on the floor above the common room.’
1974
Feb
Steve records demos on a reel-to-reel in his bedroom. The tracks are ‘Fast Cars’, ‘Promises’ and the opening riff for ‘Autonomy’. The songs were intended for another band he was thinking of joining.
Mar 2nd
McNeish records various electronic sounds in the front room of his home. These recordings are later used on Sky Yen, released through his own Groovy Records label in 1980.
Apr 10th–12th
McNeish writes ‘Pusher Man’, ‘Just One of Those Affairs’, ‘Keats’ Song’, and ‘Yesterday’s Not Here’. These tracks will be eventually released seven years later on his solo album Homosapien.
Aug 19th
Trafford buys as many Velvet Underground albums as he can find in a second-hand record stall.
Sep 4th
Malcolm Garrett begins at Reading University, where he is studying typography, psychology and the humanities.
Sep 6th
With Jets of Air playing fewer gigs, Garth is also playing with jazz/blues band Hobbit II. Having played their debut gig in nearby Walkden some weeks earlier, they quickly organise another.
Hobbit II play Formby Hall, Atherton. Admission is 35p; with ticket, 30p. The supporting band on the night are Black Cat Bone with Mick Singleton on drums. Singleton would later stand in as drummer for Buzzcocks’ first ever gig at Bolton Institute of Technology.
1975
Jan 4th
McNeish writes ‘Love You More’, which is about a girl he is going out with who works at Woolworth’s in Bolton. She lives in nearby Atherton.
McNeish goes to the Bolton Institute of Technology on an HND course in electronics. Howard Trafford requires electronic music for a video project he is working on and, through the music society that Shelley has set up (to enable him to listen to more Kraftwerk), they meet up. Trafford and McNeish were previously only vague acquaintances, with Trafford not even being aware that McNeish played music.
Meanwhile, Garth starts work as a local company as a trainee computer programmer. He stays with them up until he joins Buzzcocks.
Mar 3rd
Fifteen-year-old schoolboy John Maher wins a competition to meet his favourite band Slade and get a copy of their new album, Slade in Flame, signed by the band. They send a taxi to pick him up from school for the publicity photograph and he is brought back to school afterwards.
March 8th
Jets of Air play All Saints’ Church Hall in Leigh. The gig is advertised with flyers and Garth has the job of selling tickets to his schoolmates. Both Pete and Garth spend a night pasting the flyers around Leigh.
Finding it increasingly difficult to get concerts, and after repeated attempts to run more gigs prove unsuccessful, the band split up. However, Garth insists, ‘The Jets of Air never really split – we had personnel changes, so Pete and I came to the conclusion that we two were the Jets of Air, and that other members could come and go.’
At this stage their set includes original songs ‘Love You More’, ‘Homosapien’, ‘I Don’t Know What It Is’, ‘Just One of Those Affairs’, ‘Telephone Operator’, ‘Nostalgia’ and ‘Sixteen Again’.
Sep 9th
Malcolm Garrett moves from Reading University to Manchester Polytechnic to start a three-year course in graphic design. Here he meets Linder Sterling, who is one year above him and later moves in with Trafford.
Later