Secret History of Rock. The Most Influential Bands You've Never Heard (48 page)

BUZZCOCKS

King Coffey, the Butthole Surfers:

The Buzzcocks were better than overrated acts like the Beatles, and
Singles Going Steady
is one of the best pop albums ever. It was catchy, and best of alt, it was punk! The Buttholes, at heart, are an experimental punk band that write pop songs (if covered in layers of absurdity). Bands like the Buzzcocks proved that you could write catchy songs and still be punk about it. Bands like Green Day were probably inspired by the Buzzcocks, but the Buzzcocks were there 20 years earlier and did it right the first time.

While the first wave of English punk rockers purported to completely wipe away the accepted musical conventions of the past, some musical traditions proved too enduring to stay away long. By incorporating classic pop song structure and melody into punk, bands like the Buzzcocks made clear just how much their music was part of a British pop continuum that stretched back at least as far as the Beatles and Kinks, and almost certainly even further.

Though they formed a short time after the classic English punk bands – the Sex Pistols, Clash, Damned – the Buzzcocks’ embrace of pop and distance from punk polemics make them distinctly post-punk. And 15 years later, when bands like Green Day introduced punk to the American pop charts, their hard-driving but melodic sound and relatively low anger-and-angst quotient, could be traced directly back to the Buzzcocks.

Page Hamilton, Helmet:

The Buzzcocks are just pure unadulterated punk rock, writing pop songs that completely cut the bullshit. Hearing that was so fresh for me, having grown up in the ‘70s overblown, pompous horseshit era of music.

Manchester University schoolmates Howard Trafford and Peter McNeish were so thrilled after seeing the Sex Pistols perform in London they not only organized a concert to bring the Sex Pistols up to their home town, 150 miles north, but also decided to start a band of their own. Renaming themselves Howard Devoto and Pete Shelley, and assuming the roles of vocalist and guitarist, the two recruited drummer John Maher and bassist Steve Diggle to round out their new band, the Buzzcocks.

Bob Mould, Sugar /
Hüsker Dü
:

In that first wave of punk bands there was the Sex Pistols, the Clash, the more spitting, safety-pin type bands. The Buzzcocks were very different. They had a much better knack for classic pop songwriting, but all the energy of a punk band. That left a pretty good impression on me. I liked punk rock but a lot of it seemed a little too simplistic, whereas the Buzzcocks’ song-writing is more sophisticated.

Removed from London, the center of British punk sounds and styles, the Buzzcocks were less influenced by fashion trends and free to develop their own personality. Instead of expressing political and socioeconomic frustrations, the Buzzcocks turned to more traditional subjects for their songs: love, sex, teen alienation. Still, Maher’s high-energy precision drumming and the slashing guitars of Shelley and Diggle asserted the Buzzcocks’ punk heritage.

Within months of forming, the Buzzcocks had developed a reputation in both Manchester and London as one of the best bands to emerge from the punk scene. By December of 1976 the group had formed its own label – appropriately called New Hormones for the sexual tension in many of the band’s songs – and released an EP,
Spiral Scratch
. Recognized as the first notable indie punk record in the U.K., the record was to be the original lineup’s only enduring document. One month after its release, singer Devoto quit the group to return to school (though he would soon form the adventurous post-punk group Magazine).

In his absence, the creative control that Devoto and Shelley had shared fell almost entirely on Shelley. Shelley became the group’s main singer and songwriter. Steve Diggle switched from bass to guitar, and bassist Steve Garvey joined (after a brief stint by Garth Smith), securing a lineup that remained intact until the end.

In true British pop tradition, the Buzzcocks made a name for themselves on the basis of great singles. The band signed a contract with United Artists in late 1977 and released their first and perhaps most memorable single, a hilarious Shelley/Devoto holdover dedicated to compulsive masturbation called
Orgasm Addict
. Despite being too dirty for radio airplay, the song caused a huge stir through more underground channels and began a chain of memorable 45s that included
What Do I Get?
,
Everbody’s Happy Nowadays
, and
Ever Fallen in Love?
(later covered by the Fine Young Cannibals).

Dave Dederer, Presidents of the United States of America:

I remember in 10
^th
-grade, going into this music store and putting on the turntable the U.S. single version of
Why Can’t I Touch It?
and
Everybody’s Happy Nowadays
. It just completely blew my mind, the energy and intensity of it. It opened up a whole new world of music for me.

A debut album called
Another Music in a Different Kitchen
– which in true punk fashion originally came in a bag labeled “Product” – came at the start of 1978, and a second LP called
Love Bites
was released by the end of that year. While the first record reinforced the perfectly crafted pop-punk style of the early singles, the second showed the group maturing quickly. Written by both Shelley and Diggle, the songs were longer and incorporated influences beyond straight pop and punk, including psychedelia. Outside the band, Shelley was already experimenting with electronic sounds, using tape loops and drum machines in his early solo work.

By 1979 it became clear the burst of energy that marked the Buzzcocks’ early singles had faded.
A Different Kind of Tension
, a third album released late in the year, was not very well received. An American tour in 1980 failed to revive interest in the Buzzcocks, either from fans or the band itself, and before the end of the year the group had called it quits. In less than four years, they had inspired new generations of punk, particularly in the American hardcore tradition that stretches from
Hüsker Dü
to Superchunk and Nirvana. The band also created a legacy of great punk song-writing that impacts rock music today, perhaps more than ever.

Mac McCaughan, Superchunk:

I listened to the Buzzcocks so much. They were the perfect combination of what I wanted to hear, being catchy and poppy but really loud and fast. The first album and
Singles Going Steady
have all the catchiest songs and no fat, but
Love Bites
is probably my favorite; it had all that but was also a bit weirder. We got from them the combination of being loud and fast but really catchy at the same time.

With the Buzzcocks’ demise, Shelley launched straightaway into a solo career that explored more synth-oriented pop, such as his hit “Homosapien.” Devoto, too, pursued a solo career once Magazine had run its course, while Diggle and Maher collaborated in a new band, Flag of Convenience. A 1989 Buzzcocks’ box set called
Product
revived interest in the band and led to a reunion tour that featured the band’s classic lineup of Shelley, Diggle, Garvey, and Maher.

Though Garvey and Maher soon departed, Shelley and Diggle continued and recorded new material. Following a four-song EP in 1991, the Buzzcocks released
Trade Test Transmissions
in ‘93. Tame by current standards and lacking the spark that made the band special a decade earlier, the record nevertheless proved they were able to compete with the younger groups that had taken a cue from their marriage of mannered pop and punk riffing. A second postreunion album, 1996’s
All Set
, was less successful and the future of the Buzzcocks remains uncertain.

DISCOGRAPHY

Spiral Scratch
EP
(New Hormones, 1977; Document, 1991)
; a rare first release, the only recording that features original vocalist Howard Devoto.

Another Music in a Different Kitchen
(United Artists, 1978)
; the band’s classic debut, full of energy and unforgettable pop-punk songs.

Love Bites
(United Artists, 1978)
; a second record that branches out stylistically but remains catchy.

A Different Kind of Tension
(United Artists, 1979; IRS, 1989)
; the band’s final studio release, which shows the band’s fatigue but still offers a set of terrific songs.

Singles Going Steady
(IRS, 1979)
; the essential release, a definitive collection of their great singles and B sides (many not available on the three studio albums).

Lest We Forget
(ROIR cassette, 1988)
; live recordings taken from 1979 and ‘80.

Live at the Roxy Club April 77
(Absolutely Free, 1989; Receiver, 1990)
; more live recordings, not available domestically in the U.S.

Product
(Restless Retro, 1989)
; a box set featuring the original albums and singles (though not
Spiral Scratch
), which sparked new interest in the band and led to the reunion.

The Peel Sessions Album
(Strange Fruit, 1989; Strange Fruit / Dutch East India Trading, 1991)
; an extended version of the original EP from 1988.

Operators Manual: Buzzcocks Best
(IRS, 1991)
.

Alive Tonight
EP
(Planet Pacific, 1991)
; a reunion release that revealed the potential for starting up again.

Entertaining Friends: Live at the Hammersmith Odeon March 1979
(IRS, 1992)
; a previously unreleased live recording.

Trade Test Transmissions
(Castle Communications / Caroline, 1993)
; a promising return; the first new Buzzcocks album in 13 years.

French
(IRS, 1996)
; a live album taken from a post-reunion tour.

All Set
(IRS, 1996)
; a second post-reunion studio album.

TRIBUTE:
Something’s Gone Wrong Again: The Buzzcocks’ Covers Compilation
(C/Z, 1992)
; featuring covers by Alice Donut, Porn Orchard, Naked Raygun, Lunachicks, and others.

THE FALL

Carla Bozulich, Geraldine Fibbers:

The thing that blew me away about the Fall was there didn’t seem to be any rules or formulas. Random mishaps that could occur during the songs were okay, sort of expected as part of the music. Mark E. Smith cracks me up because he’s such a raw nerve, a spoiled pudding. A bratty, upset person; it’s wonderful. I interviewed him once for Ben [of Dead Lime], and the interview went so poorly we didn’t print it. My friend who was with me asked if he was aware of Pavement, and if he felt they were knocking him off. And he got really angry about it; he said something like, yeah, these scags go around just blatantly ripping me off year after year!’ Total bitter tirade. He’s right, but I think they mean it as a complete tribute.

The
Buzzcocks
were the first major band of the punk era to emerge from the northern industrial city of Manchester, but the Fall were the true forerunners of Mancunian rock music of the ‘80s and U ‘90s. Proudly regional in a way that indie rockers would later become, the Fall created a twangy post-punk sound it called “Mancabilly.” It’s even rumored that one of the best known Manchester groups, the Smiths, took their name in tribute to a local hero, the Fall’s irascible leader Mark E. Smith. The Fall’s influence stretches far beyond its hometown. By drawing as much on German bands like
Can
and
Faust
as on punk rock, the Fall provided a blueprint for the most significant indie rock bands of the ‘80s and ‘90s, including Sonic Youth and Pavement. Their love of obscure references, peculiarly detailed lyrics, odd song titles, ramshackle collage album art, deadpan singing, and jagged guitar work all show up in countless groups who came later. With Fall leader Mark E. Smith’s patented smarter-than-thou indie attitude, the Fall may be the first distinctly post-punk college rock band.

Steve Wynn, Dream Syndicate:

We were ripping off the Fall as much or more than the Velvets. People were less familiar with the Fall and didn’t catch that as much. A lot of things on [the Dream Syndicate’s] Days of Wine And Roses I was trying to make sound like
Hex Induction Hour
,
Slates
and stuff like that. We were really into the way they would just find a groove and stay on it forever. We liked doing that too.

Over the band’s 20-year (and ongoing) career, members have joined, quit, been fired, returned, and left again. The one constant has been Smith, the group’s founder and vocalist. In 1977, 30-year-old Smith quit his office job to explore his musical fascination with krautrock, rockabilly, and, of course, punk. Taking an unapologetically intellectual perspective, he named his band after a favorite existential novel by Albert Camus. The Fall’s original lineup included guitarist Martin Bramah and drummer Karl Burns, though within two years, more than 10 instrumentalists had come and gone, leaving Smith the only original member. Smith, a curmudgeon with a sullen (if darkly humorous) take on life, was not easy to get along with.

Despite the revolving-door membership, the Fall developed quickly and earned the attention of Mark Perry, leader of the cult punk group Alternative Television, who signed them to his Step Forward label. Both the three-song debut EP
Bingo Master’s Breakout
and the first album
Live at the Witch Trials
revealed a band with much more to offer than three-chord punk rock. The music was bleak and minimal, and drew on everything from British skiffle bands to the Velvets to Teutonic art rock of the ‘70s. The ambitious
Witch Trials
, which the band recorded in one day in 1978, was an early indication of how much further punk could be stretched when freed of the limited style that had defined it.