Buzzcocks

Buzzcocks have a claim to being the most important band in Manchester’s history, and it’s got nothing to do with sales figures. Howard Devoto and Pete Shelley organised the second Sex Pistols gig at the Lesser Free Trade Hall on 20th July 1976 – the one that actually had an audience. That single act of putting on a show set off a chain reaction: Joy Division, The Smiths, The Fall, everything that followed. Without Buzzcocks doing the legwork, the timeline looks very different.

Devoto left early and formed Magazine. Shelley took over and turned Buzzcocks into something special – punk with melodies, three-minute songs about love and confusion that hit harder than they had any right to. Spiral Scratch, their self-released EP from 1977, was one of the first independent punk releases in the UK. Ever Fallen in Love (With Someone You Shouldn’t’ve) is a perfect single. What Do I Get?, Orgasm Addict, Promises – Shelley had an ear for hooks that most punk bands couldn’t touch.

They were a Bolton and Manchester band – Shelley from Leigh, Devoto from Bolton, but they made their name in the city centre. The Lesser Free Trade Hall gig is the origin story, but they played every venue going: the Electric Circus, Rafters, the Apollo. They split in 1981, reformed in 1989, and kept going until Shelley died in December 2018.

There’s a plaque at the Free Trade Hall site – now the Radisson Hotel on Peter Street. Buzzcocks never got the fame of the bands they inspired, which is the way it goes sometimes. But everyone who matters knows where it started.