Buzzcocks - The Complete History. Tony McGartland
Diggle searches the ‘Musicians Wanted’ section in Melody Maker for a band in need of a guitarist.
Feb 12th
Sex Pistols play support to Eddie and the Hot Rods at the Marquee Club in London. Neil Spencer of New Musical Express is there to review the gig.
Feb 19th
McNeish and Trafford read the review of the Sex Pistols gig in NME. They are impressed because the band play Iggy and the Stooges covers and the review quotes their lead singer Johnny Rotten saying, ‘We’re not into music, we’re into chaos!’
Richard Boon, Trafford’s erstwhile grammar-school collaborator in the Ernest Band, is now studying art at Reading University. He invites both Trafford and McNeish down to London with the offer of accommodation for the weekend to see the Sex Pistols.
Feb 20th
Scanning the pages of Time Out magazine, a London ‘what’s on’ guide, the three friends find no listing for the Sex Pistols. By chance, reading a review of a Thames Television series called Rock Follies – about a female rock group – they stumble upon the headline ‘It’s the buzz, cock!’ Trafford suggests that this phrase, with its hint of aural and sexual irregularity, would make a great name for a band.
That afternoon, a telephone call to the offices of the NME puts them in touch with the Sex Pistols’ manager, Malcolm McLaren, who informs them of gigs that night and the following day. They plan to travel to both. In the evening, the Sex Pistols play High Wycombe College of Further Education. McNeish, Trafford and Boon attend. Devoto remembers in Product how, ‘Rotten was being very abusive and moody, I remember his shoes and a ratty red sweater. We thought they were fantastic.’
Feb 21st
Sex Pistols play Welwyn Garden City. McNeish, Trafford and Boon again attend the gig. Hugely impressed by the band and Johnny Rotten, McNeish and Trafford both decide to change their identities. Peter McNeish becomes Pete Shelley (this would have been his mother’s choice of name had he been born a girl), while Howard Trafford becomes Howard Devoto (the surname of a Cambridge bus driver recounted in a story by a philosophy tutor). They return to Manchester determined to start a band themselves.
Feb 29th
Back in Manchester, Devoto and Shelley team up with former Jets of Air bassist Garth Davies and rehearse for their planned debut gig at Bolton Institute of Technology on 1 April. Although as yet without a drummer, they still manage to put a set together containing a handful of original compositions (one being ‘Time’s Up’) and several covers making up a set of twelve numbers. They also adopt Devoto’s previously suggested moniker of Buzzcocks. While sleeping over at Devoto’s, an eager Shelley asks his friend about his commitment to the proposed band. Devoto replies, ‘Yeah, I’m into living the life.’
Mar 15th
Howard Devoto’s birthday today – born 1952.
Mar 22nd
Pete Shelley is now working as a computer operator at Anderton House, Lowton, near Leigh. The building is owned by the National Coal Board. He leaves the job after a few months.
Apr 1st
Buzzcocks make their debut at a social evening arranged for the textile students of the Bolton Institute of Technology. The line-up consists of Howard Devoto on vocals, Pete Shelley on guitar/vocals, Garth Davies on bass. To complete the line-up, Garth gets Mick Singleton, a drummer from local band Black Cat Bone, to fill in for the night. They open their set with David Bowie’s ‘Diamond Dogs’ followed by the Rolling Stones’ ‘Come On’, ‘I Can’t Control Myself’ by the Troggs and ‘All Day and All of the Night’, which proves to be the last song of the night. The debut performance is so bad that the organisers pull the plugs after the third number. They are still paid their fee of £5.
Garth Davies recalls, ‘Pete and Howard starting writing original songs together for Buzzcocks after the original gig. Some of the songs were to my mind good, but Pete wrote a lot of songs on his own for Jets of Air, and I thought they were better. After rehearsing at Pete’s house in Leigh one evening, Pete, Howard and I caught a number 26 bus, which ran from Leigh to Manchester. Pete was going to stay with Howard that night; I was getting off the bus in Astley, near my home. Pete and Howard were running through their latest song at the time, which was called ‘Oh Shit!’ I thought to myself that this is not the kind of song that’s going to entertain the masses and get us many gigs in the clubs and pubs that we were then aiming for. Naïve or what? Anyway, I decided there and then that the band wasn’t for me, and told Pete a couple of days later.’
Apr 17th
Pete Shelley’s birthday today – born 1955.
Wed 21st
John Maher’s birthday today – born 1960.
May 4th
Shelley and Devoto place an advert in the New Manchester Review for a drummer. Their plan is to have a band together to support the Sex Pistols at the Lesser Free Trade Hall, Manchester (situated above the Free Trade Hall itself), which they book for 4 June at a cost of £32.
May 7th
Steve Diggle’s birthday today – born 1955. Although he was born in St Mary’s Hospital just off the Oxford Road, he lives at Clarence Road, Longsight, Manchester. He later moves to 17 Dewar Street, Bradford, Manchester, attending Openshow High School and Wright Robinson High School.
May 9th
Six weeks before joining Buzzcocks, a sixteen-year-old John Maher is learning to play guitar, but, after scanning the adverts in Melody Maker, he realises that drummers are far more in demand, and promptly decides that this is what he will be.
May 22nd
Pete Shelley moves into a basement flat at 380 Lower Broughton Road, Salford. Although he has been living at his parents’ home in Leigh, he is increasingly spending weekends at Devoto’s flat at 364 Lower Broughton Road. Devoto has been renting a room there from a philosophy lecturer at his college for some time. Among the others sharing the flat are Richard Boon, Sue Cooper (New Hormones secretary) and Mark Roberts (who filmed their first gig at the Lesser Free Trade Hall, Manchester).
May 30th
Sex Pistols play Reading University Art Department. The gig is booked and paid for by Boon, who soon withdraws from the musical side completely and later in the year goes on to manage Buzzcocks.
Jun 4th
Sex Pistols play Lesser Free Trade Hall, Manchester. Without either a bass player or a drummer, Buzzcocks are unable to make their planned debut. Their place is quickly filled by the Mandala Band from Blackburn, and the show plays to a hundred people, each paying 50p. Instead, Diggle has arranged to meet a guitarist outside the venue, totally unaware of what is happening inside. Sex Pistols manager Malcolm McLaren is hustling kids inside, including Diggle. Pete Shelley is doorman for the evening and, when Diggle introduces himself as a bass player wanting to form a band, Shelley quickly introduces him to Devoto.
Jun 5th
Devoto calls Diggle and asks him to attend a rehearsal the following day.
Jun 6th
Howard