The 500 - #360 - Singles Going Steady - Buzzcocks

I was inspired by a podcast called The 500 hosted by Los Angeles-based comedian Josh Adam Meyers. His goal, and mine, is to explore Rolling Stone Magazine's 2012 edition of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. 

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Album: # 360

Album Title: Singles Going Steady

Artist: Buzzcocks

Genre: Punk, Pop-Punk

Recorded: Various Studios

Released: September, 1979

My age at release: 14

How familiar was I with it before this week: One Song

Song I am putting on my Spotify Playlist: Ever Fallen in Love?

Buzzcocks, an English pop-punk band formed at the Bolton Institute of Technology in 1976 when Howard Trafford placed a notice on the college bulletin board looking for musicians who liked the song Sister Ray by The Velvet Underground.

The Velvet Underground - Sister Ray

Trafford soon recruited Peter McNeish and the pair took the stage names Howard Devoto and Pete Shelley. “Devoto” was borrowed from the Spanish word for “devoted”. McNeish’s pseudonym was inspired by his favourite Romantic poet, Percy Bysshe Shelley, husband of the “Frankenstein” author Mary Wollstonecraft.

Percy Bysshe Shelley

Despite forming the band, Devoto left one year later, in 1977, after the release of Buzzcocks’ first record, Spiral Scratch, Devoto remained an important figure in the punk movement, forming the group Magazine. Former partner Shelley kept the name Buzzcocks and recruited new members, including guitarist Steve Dingle. There have been many line-up changes throughout the 45-year history with only Dingle and Shelley as constants.

Buzzcocks (1979)

Although it may seem so, the name is not vulgar. It was taken from a magazine reviewing the British television series Rock Follies. The headline read; “It’s the buzz, cock”. “Buzz” was a colloquialism for a feeling of exhilaration or excitement and “cock” was slang specific to Northern England, meaning “friend”.

PERSONAL CONNECTION

The city of Bolton is part of the Greater Manchester area and Buzzcocks are the fifth of six bands from the region with albums on The 500 list. I have already written about The Stone Roses, Oasis, New Order and The Smiths twice. Two additional Smiths’ records are coming up, as well as Closer by Joy Division. That’s eight culturally-significant records from an area smaller than 500 square miles -- pretty impressive.

Greater Manchester, centrally located in the northern English moorlands, has a special significance for me. Both my parents were born and raised there. My father, from a large, working-class town called Rochdale and my mother from Littleborough, an adjacent village. I was born in Canada, but returned to live in Littleborough through my pre-school years, and my brother and sister, twins, were born there.

I haven’t been there since 1977, so my memory is somewhat fanciful -- scattered romanticized images in my head. I remember windswept moorlands straight out of a Bronte novel, a few miles farther to the east, as well as emerald fields dotted with sheep. Each farm, a veritable postcard picture, seemingly captured by low, stone walls that date back to the 13th century. Train engineers blasting their whistles to announce their sojourn through valleys that meander across the landscape. Among them, a tunnel that was the longest in the world when it was built during the industrial revolution.

Then there are the busier cities and milltowns, like Rochdale, once teeming with factories and hundred-foot-smokestacks that dominated a smoky skyline. The residential streets had a perpetual sameness of row-houses, occasionally with small front yards sporting rose bushes. Behind each row, alleyways, hemmed in with stone walls and blackened by centuries of chimney smoke, resembled a scene from a musical number in Monty Python's Meaning Of Life.

Monty Python's Meaning Of Life

As I’ve made the journey through the first 140 records, I’ve felt a strange jolt of pride when an artist from the Manchester area appears on the list. It’s the same feeling I get when a citizen from my actual hometown (London, Ontario) makes it big in the world of sports or film. Even Justin Bieber, although many Londoners quickly clarify that he is actually from the town of Stratford, 40 kilometers away.

Plaque in Stratford, Ontario celebrating Justin Bieber

This got me thinking. Why do we take pride in accomplishments that are not our own, but tangentially connected to us by a geographic fluke? It’s easier to understand pride in your local sports team. Then, as a supporter, you are part of the shared experience of victory and defeat. However, I had nothing to do with the success of Buzzcocks or any other Manchester band. Despite this, I feel a connection, knowing that we were knocking about the same Lancashire streets in the mid-seventies, or perhaps Noel Gallagher of Oasis, who is of a similar age, was on a bus with me in the summer of 1977.

Noel Gallagher at Manchester City stadium

Common experiences, specific locations and cultural markers create a feeling of community, a collective kinship. Humans love order and patterns and will seek out the familiar with strangers. If I were to meet a member of The Smiths, New Order, or this week’s artist, Buzzcocks, I know my time in Manchester would be mentioned shortly into our conversation, despite the fact that I really don’t know that region at all.

SINGLES GOING STEADY

Singles Going Steady is a compilation record by Buzzcocks. It features their eight U.K. single releases and eight additional “B-side” songs in chronological order. It was intended to be the band’s introduction to the U.S. market. Though well received by critics, it failed to chart in North America. Nonetheless, it has sold well and is highly regarded by music historians as a seminal record in the punk-ethos.

Devoto and Shelley - reunited in 2018

Founding member Shelley, who remained with the group through all incarnations, died in December, 2018, aged 63, after retiring to Estonia with his second wife, Greta. Fortunately, he was present at a reunion concert, that included Devoto, in 2012. The remaining “original” member, Steve Dingle, has confirmed that Buzzcocks will continue with a “post-Shelley” line-up to begin a new era.