Buzzcocks on how punk went from Glasgow ban to Bellahouston
On Saturday though a star-studded lineup of the scene's progenitors - Stranglers included - will headline Bellahouston Park, capacity circa 35,000.
Buzzcocks were there from the beginning, as Britain's youth turned to spiky hair and safety pins, and they'll be there in Glasgow on Saturday when the combat boots are dusted off by the city's elder punks.
Read More:
Who better, then, to chart the journey from banned to Bellahouston.
Guitarist and last suriving original member Steve Diggle tells The Herald: "We brought the Sex Pistols to Manchester when it (punk) was kind of unknown, really.
"That's where we all met, the next day me, Howard Devoto and Pete Shelley plugged into an amp and a terrible beauty was born, to quote Yates.
"A couple of weeks later we opened for the Pistols in Manchester, we got reviewed and that put it on the map. So we were there right at the beginning.
"We were doing that in Manchester and The Clash and the Pistols in London and we got to know them well, there was a connection between us because all of this was kind of new at the time.
"The landscape was kind of dead, really, you had prog rock bands but they'd run their course and nothing was happening for a few years.
"Suddenly you got this excitement, and everybody came alive."
The Britain into which punk was birthed was one of high inflation and unemployment, of industrial unrest and a shifting political climate.
It was famously referred to as "the sick man of Europe", with unemployment reaching 5.5% in 1978, the year the first Buzzcocks album was released.
Diggle says: "Britain was black and white and grey - it was just boring, you know?
"I was coming up to 20 and you kind of wanted some excitement. I'd been playing guitar since I was 17 and for three years I'd been trying to write songs and all that stuff and then suddenly this punk rock thing happened.
"It hit the country like a carpet bomb, it was an explosion of the imagination - people thought things were possible, including ourselves, it was like an exchange between the bands and the crowd.
"There wasn't any rivalry then, because we all started at the same time so if I run into a member of The Clash, or the Pistols, or The Jam we know where we come from so there isn't any rivalry.
"It was great, we'd put a record out and they'd acknowledge that, then we'd acknowledge theirs.
"It seemed like every week a single from one of those bands was coming out, it was a magical time."
The poster for the punk all dayer (Image: DF Concerts) As punk was booming in the UK a similar thing was happening across the Atlantic with bands like The Ramones, Dead Kennedys and Television.
However, Diggle doesn't feel there was a great deal of cultural overlap.
He says: "The Ramones released their first album just before we released Spiral Scratch (the first Buzzcocks EP) and that was kind of a big influence, that first Ramones album was great.
"I think it inspired The Clash and really everybody, it was fast and furious and straight to the point - all the music was direct in those early days.
"So we had The Ramones and in the past MC5, Iggy Pop, The Suzies and all that stuff, and obviously The Velvet Underground.
"But me and Pete grew up as kids of the 60s really, with The Kinks, The Beatles, The Who.
"So we were aware of the American part but this was more of a British thing, all those bands were very British and thinking about things more over here, the stuff we were all going through at the time.
"Actually when we first went to America, The Ramones came to see us. We got off the stage and they were all there, and they were kind of saying, 'we do that straight ahead stuff but you guys take it somewhere else' so they loved that about the Buzzcocks."
Buzzcocks in 1978 (Image: Newsquest) British punk also carried a more political bent, though Diggle's band were less overt than contemporaries like The Clash.
He says: "The Buzzcocks sang a lot about the human condition, you know?
"There were political ones, Joe Strummer loved my song 'Autonomy' on the first album.
"We had distorted guitars and we had that attitude, we had things like 'Orgasm Addict' (which was banned by the BBC).
"The Clash were a bit more externally political but a lot of my songs are political underneath. Songs like 'Why She's A Girl From A Chain Store', we had a lot of complexity with it as well, we had a bit of existentialism about us.
"It wasn't as simple as going 'the government's wrong', it was dealing with other complexities as well. We knew the government was wrong but it's not a case of thinking the crowd is so simple they don't understand those kind of things.
"When we all started it was all under this umbrella of punk, initially no-one could particularly differentiate between any of them.
"But then as we kept making albums each band got its own identity, so even within that movement we were all different."
Though bands like The Clash and the Sex Pistols had their pop chops too, Buzzcocks were perhaps the most melodic of the first wave bands.
Their influence can be heard in the lineage of punk and its offshoots, from Nirvana and Green Day to Supergrass and the Manic Street Preachers.
L-R. Steve Diggle, Steve Garvey, John Maher, Pete Shelley (Image: Fin Costello/Redferns) Diggle says: "It's quite amazing, at the time you're just making a record you don't think you'll be inspiring other people.
"It's a great compliment, Nicky Wire from the Manic Street Preachers said 'when we started we were playing 'Autonomy'. REM, U2, Pearl Jam, Nirvana and loads of other bands you've probably never heard of will say 'we used to do a Buzzcocks song when we were starting out'.
"You can hear a lot of echoes of Buzzcocks in other people's records, Green Day and people like that, which is not something we ever set out to do."
The group has somewhat come full-circle, and will once again play alongside the Sex Pistols at the 'punk all-dayer' at Glasgow Green on June 21, as will The Stranglers, The Undertones, Skids and The Rezillos.
Punk's not dead, as they say, though admittedly some of those groups' former members are.
Diggle says: "They still do Shakespeare and he's a lot older than us, so we've got time!
"We were supposed to headline Hyde Park twice and were banned because we were a punk band, but we've gone full-circle here.
"It'll be a great day playing with all those bands. It's still alive and well, you know? Still rolling on."
The Punk All Dayer takes place at Bellahouston Park on Saturday, June 21. Tickets are available here.
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The Herald Scotland
3 days ago
- The Herald Scotland
Buzzcocks on how punk went from Glasgow ban to Bellahouston
On Saturday though a star-studded lineup of the scene's progenitors - Stranglers included - will headline Bellahouston Park, capacity circa 35,000. Buzzcocks were there from the beginning, as Britain's youth turned to spiky hair and safety pins, and they'll be there in Glasgow on Saturday when the combat boots are dusted off by the city's elder punks. Read More: Who better, then, to chart the journey from banned to Bellahouston. Guitarist and last suriving original member Steve Diggle tells The Herald: "We brought the Sex Pistols to Manchester when it (punk) was kind of unknown, really. "That's where we all met, the next day me, Howard Devoto and Pete Shelley plugged into an amp and a terrible beauty was born, to quote Yates. "A couple of weeks later we opened for the Pistols in Manchester, we got reviewed and that put it on the map. So we were there right at the beginning. "We were doing that in Manchester and The Clash and the Pistols in London and we got to know them well, there was a connection between us because all of this was kind of new at the time. "The landscape was kind of dead, really, you had prog rock bands but they'd run their course and nothing was happening for a few years. "Suddenly you got this excitement, and everybody came alive." The Britain into which punk was birthed was one of high inflation and unemployment, of industrial unrest and a shifting political climate. It was famously referred to as "the sick man of Europe", with unemployment reaching 5.5% in 1978, the year the first Buzzcocks album was released. Diggle says: "Britain was black and white and grey - it was just boring, you know? "I was coming up to 20 and you kind of wanted some excitement. I'd been playing guitar since I was 17 and for three years I'd been trying to write songs and all that stuff and then suddenly this punk rock thing happened. "It hit the country like a carpet bomb, it was an explosion of the imagination - people thought things were possible, including ourselves, it was like an exchange between the bands and the crowd. "There wasn't any rivalry then, because we all started at the same time so if I run into a member of The Clash, or the Pistols, or The Jam we know where we come from so there isn't any rivalry. "It was great, we'd put a record out and they'd acknowledge that, then we'd acknowledge theirs. "It seemed like every week a single from one of those bands was coming out, it was a magical time." The poster for the punk all dayer (Image: DF Concerts) As punk was booming in the UK a similar thing was happening across the Atlantic with bands like The Ramones, Dead Kennedys and Television. However, Diggle doesn't feel there was a great deal of cultural overlap. He says: "The Ramones released their first album just before we released Spiral Scratch (the first Buzzcocks EP) and that was kind of a big influence, that first Ramones album was great. "I think it inspired The Clash and really everybody, it was fast and furious and straight to the point - all the music was direct in those early days. "So we had The Ramones and in the past MC5, Iggy Pop, The Suzies and all that stuff, and obviously The Velvet Underground. "But me and Pete grew up as kids of the 60s really, with The Kinks, The Beatles, The Who. "So we were aware of the American part but this was more of a British thing, all those bands were very British and thinking about things more over here, the stuff we were all going through at the time. "Actually when we first went to America, The Ramones came to see us. We got off the stage and they were all there, and they were kind of saying, 'we do that straight ahead stuff but you guys take it somewhere else' so they loved that about the Buzzcocks." Buzzcocks in 1978 (Image: Newsquest) British punk also carried a more political bent, though Diggle's band were less overt than contemporaries like The Clash. He says: "The Buzzcocks sang a lot about the human condition, you know? "There were political ones, Joe Strummer loved my song 'Autonomy' on the first album. "We had distorted guitars and we had that attitude, we had things like 'Orgasm Addict' (which was banned by the BBC). "The Clash were a bit more externally political but a lot of my songs are political underneath. Songs like 'Why She's A Girl From A Chain Store', we had a lot of complexity with it as well, we had a bit of existentialism about us. "It wasn't as simple as going 'the government's wrong', it was dealing with other complexities as well. We knew the government was wrong but it's not a case of thinking the crowd is so simple they don't understand those kind of things. "When we all started it was all under this umbrella of punk, initially no-one could particularly differentiate between any of them. "But then as we kept making albums each band got its own identity, so even within that movement we were all different." Though bands like The Clash and the Sex Pistols had their pop chops too, Buzzcocks were perhaps the most melodic of the first wave bands. Their influence can be heard in the lineage of punk and its offshoots, from Nirvana and Green Day to Supergrass and the Manic Street Preachers. L-R. Steve Diggle, Steve Garvey, John Maher, Pete Shelley (Image: Fin Costello/Redferns) Diggle says: "It's quite amazing, at the time you're just making a record you don't think you'll be inspiring other people. "It's a great compliment, Nicky Wire from the Manic Street Preachers said 'when we started we were playing 'Autonomy'. REM, U2, Pearl Jam, Nirvana and loads of other bands you've probably never heard of will say 'we used to do a Buzzcocks song when we were starting out'. "You can hear a lot of echoes of Buzzcocks in other people's records, Green Day and people like that, which is not something we ever set out to do." The group has somewhat come full-circle, and will once again play alongside the Sex Pistols at the 'punk all-dayer' at Glasgow Green on June 21, as will The Stranglers, The Undertones, Skids and The Rezillos. Punk's not dead, as they say, though admittedly some of those groups' former members are. Diggle says: "They still do Shakespeare and he's a lot older than us, so we've got time! "We were supposed to headline Hyde Park twice and were banned because we were a punk band, but we've gone full-circle here. "It'll be a great day playing with all those bands. It's still alive and well, you know? Still rolling on." The Punk All Dayer takes place at Bellahouston Park on Saturday, June 21. Tickets are available here.
Daily Mail
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The Clash drummer Terry Chimes reveals why he ditched showbusiness for very surprising career change
Terry Chimes has revealed how he gave up the 'craziness' of the music industry to beome a chiropractor. The musician, 68, is best known for being the drummer for The Clash from the late 1970s to the early 1980s when he was replaced by Topper Headon. After he left The Clash for the final time in 1982, Terry drummed for some other bands before opening a chiropractic clinic in 1994. Speaing about the surprising career change on The Chris Moyles Show on Radio X, Terry admitted he thinks he's the only 'normal' person in the music industry. He said: 'When I was a kid, I loved health and disease. I wanted to be a vet, actually, and three things put me off. 'One, that the patients bite you. Two, you spend all day killing animals. And three, they've got one of the highest suicide rates. So, I thought, 'Well, I'll stay away from that.' 'I thought about medicine, went for an interview at medical schools, but it just didn't seem right for me. And then I looked at The Rolling Stones, and thought, 'You know, those guys must be having the most fun it's possible to have.' 'So I thought, 'I'll just do that then.' So I joined a band, which in time became The Clash. We did very well and played with lots of other bands as well.' The drummer eventually grew tired of life on the road and wanted to settle down and live a healthier lifestyle. He said: 'But after 15 years of that, I kind of had enough of being on the road and travelling and all the craziness. 'It's full of crazy people, the music business – I was the only normal person there! 'And when it came to having a new career, by then, I was a non-drug taking, non-smoking, non-drinking, vegetarian, health nut. So, chiropractic made much more sense. Healthy. So, I went that way.' Surprised to hear of the career change, host Chris said he wasn't sure if he could give up the rock star lifestyle if it had been him. Well, fame is a drug,' Terry replied. 'And you obviously are addicted to that drug. But fame is a drug. It's very hard to walk away from it. 'But the funny thing is, if you walk away, it'll come running after you. If you chase it, it runs away. 'It's a pretty strange thing; a bit like gambling. If you're desperate to win, you won't win. If you don't care if you win, you'll win.' The Clash performed from 1976 to 1986 and released six studio albums. They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2003.
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6 days ago
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In April 1976 a writer on Sounds magazine, reviewing a concert at London's El Paradise Club, wrote: 'If you hate Patti Smith for all that noise and rock and roll energy at the expense of technique and sounding pretty, then you'll really hate the Sex Pistols. "Their aesthetic is Shepherd's Bush-Who and speed-era Small Faces — they play it fast and they play it loud. The guitarist doesn't bother too much with solos, just powering his way through whatever passes as a middle eight. But this isn't to say they're sloppy, far from it. The rhythm section is quite tight, and the drummer very listenable'. Two months later came an incendiary gig at Manchester's Lesser Free Trade Hall – an event subsequently billed by the NME as the most important concert of all time, even though just 28 tickets were sold, according to a book, I Swear I Was There, by David Nolan. In the audience was Peter Hook, who would go on to play bass guitar in Joy Division and New Order. 'It was absolutely bizarre', he told Nolan. 'It was the most shocking thing I've ever seen in my life, it was just unbelievable... It was so ... alien to everything'. As Nolan writes, that Pistols gig on June 4, and another at the same venue on July 20, 'changed the world'. The audience reaction at the first one, he suggests, 'would spark a series of musical and pop-culture detonations that are still delighting and annoying people in equal measure today'. As newspapers began alerting their readers to the punk phenomenon, the Pistols – Rotten, Steve Jones, Glen Matlock and Steve Cook – continued to travel up and down the country and even played Dundee's College of Technology on October 12. An incendiary single, Anarchy in the UK, was released on the EMI label on November 19. Then came the Grundy moment. On December 1 the band and various friends appeared at short notice on LWT's Today programme, presented by Bill Grundy. Goaded by Grundy to say something outrageous, Steve Jones duly obliged. The tea-time audience was astounded. "The FILTH and the FURY!", shrieked a Daily Mirror splash headline. The same paper explained that punk rock groups and their fans "despite 'establishment' pop stars and specialise in songs that preach destruction'." And EMI, outraged, would soon fire the band. The Anarchy in the UK tour was announced: the Pistols headlining, and supported by The Damned, The Clash, and Johnny Thunders & the Heartbreakers. But tabloid stories about 'foul-mouthed yobs' and Moral Majority protests forced local authorities and university bosses to pull the plug: most of the gigs were cancelled. Glasgow was a case in point. The tour would have graced the Apollo stage on December 15 but for the District Council's licensing committee suspending the venue's license for that one night. 'This group has been attracting an undesirable element among young people', said the committee's chairman. 'We have enough problems in Glasgow without creating trouble by yobbos'. The Apollo Centre manager, Jan Tomasik, observed that the City Fathers seemed to have judged the Pistols without actually seeing them. 'It would appear that the Lord Provost has no faith in the moral values of our city's fine youngsters, he added. One fan who was disappointed by the councillors' decision was Bill Hamilton. Bill, who was 22 at the time and is now 71, had first encountered the Pistols on a TV music show, So It Goes, which was presented by Tony Wilson and often featured punk groups. 'I remember trying to see The Jam in 1976, when they came to a tiny little disco in St Enoch Square', said Bill. 'It only had a capacity of about one hundred but I couldn't get in. But a friend of mine who worked in a record shop in Battlefield got tickets. I got a ticket and a poster, and a great big Jam badge. 'I worked for Glasgow's planning department at the time – it was my first job after university – and I put the Jam badge and the poster up on the wall. 'When the Sex Pistols tickets went on sale I was lucky enough to get one. But when they appeared on the Bill Grundy show, councils up and down the country decided that these punk boys weren't good for our young people. '[After the Apollo gig was cancelled] I stuck my ticket up on the wall in my office. I don't have it now, unfortunately: it's maybe worth some money'. On the Glasgow Apollo's Facebook page, other would-be attendees recall the fate of their £1.75 tickets. 'I had a ticket but took it back for the refund', says Gavin Paterson. Phil Kean adds: 'I had a ticket but my mum ripped it up along with others into little pieces because I left home to stay with my bird at the time'. Bill moved to London in 1978 and never managed to see the Pistols at their peak. Is that a source of regret for him? 'Huge regret', he acknowledges. 'They were such cultural icons, and I loved that whole punk-rock scene. I thought it was brilliant if that you had three chords, a cheap guitar and an amplifier, you could get up there and make music.'. He shares the view that when the Glasgow date, and others on the Anarchy tour were cancelled, this was a cased of the establishment cracking down on working-class youth. Read more: Like many others of a similar age, Bill was struck at the time by the sharp difference between punk music in 1976 and the music, particularly prog rock, heavy metal and US west-coast bands, that was in vogue at the time. The Old Grey Whistle Test, which was aimed at the discriminating fan, found no favour with the adherents of punk and its DIY aesthetic. Glen Matlock, who co-wrote much of the Pistols' 1977 album, Never Mind the Bollocks – Here's the Sex Pistols, told Mojo magazine in 2017: 'I think we were fighting against apathy. Old fuddy-duddies. Boring music that didn't speak to kids', The song Pretty Vacant was, he added, 'not a political song, it's not a love song, it's a primal scream. Reflecting what was going on in mid-70s London. For good and bad, punk made a big chink in the age of deference ... We did change the world. It's something that I'm proud of'. Ahead of the Pistols in 1977 lay that controversial debut album and the single, God Save the Queen, and, in Nottingham Magistrates Court in November, a hearing into whether the record's title was indecent; the manager of a Virgin record store in the city had been accused of contravening an 1889 Indecent Advertisement Act by displaying the front cover. After a trial he was found not guilty. The album remains famous. As Mojo's writer remarked in 2017, as a cultural artefact it instantly attained a status on a par with Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band and Bill Haley's Rock Around the Clock, and arguably remains punk's most powerful statement. Bill Hamilton still has fond memories of those heady days. 'The Pistols, The Clash and The Jam – they spoke to me when I was in my early twenties', he says. 'I thought, they're saying things that I think are meaningful and important to me'. As for John Lydon - Johnny Rotten of old - he still adores the album. "That album cuts through so poignantly", he told Record Collector magazine earlier this year. "It's a powerful, powerful piece of music we put there together ... I'm amazed it's not accoladed more highly. It's a masterful record done accidentally. Creativity by misappropriation. When you don't quite know what you're doing you get closer to the truth of the thing. God, I love the venom I could deliver the lines with ..." * Sex Pistols (Steve Jones, Paul Cook, Glen Matlock) Featuring Frank Carter headline a Glasgow Summer Sessions Punk All-Dayer at Bellahouston Park, June 21. R
