Legacy of the Punk Pioneers
Paul Taylor
ONE weekend in 1976, aspiring punks Pete Shelley and Howard Devoto set off to London to persuade the Sex Pistols to play in Manchester. What started as a weekend jaunt became a pivotal moment in Manchester's music history.
The key players in the drama go before an audience in Manchester on Friday to get all misty-eyed about the early days of punk.
It is one of those "what if?" questions beloved of Manchester music obsessives. What if Pete Shelley and Howard Devoto, of Buzzcocks fame, had not persuaded the Sex Pistols to come up to Manchester and play at the Free Trade Hall in 1976? Would Joy Division, The Smiths and a slew of other bands have ever formed?
Would Tony Wilson have been enthused to start Factory Records? Would the Hacienda have existed? And if Morrissey had become, say, a civil servant instead of a superstar, would we have seen that later generation of mad-for-its - the Stone Roses, Happy Mondays, even Oasis?
"Without bigging it up extremely, it was something which brought people together, so they realised something was possible," says Shelley, agreeing that things would have been very different but for the Pistols' arrival in Manchester.
Legend has it that practically every one of the 32 people in the audience for the first of the Pistols gigs at the Free Trade Hall in the blisteringly hot summer of 1976 went away and formed a band of their own.
"It used to be felt that you had to know someone in the music business to get into it. It was not for mere mortals like us," says Shelley. "This enthused people and enfranchised them to become part of culture."
Such thoughts will be flying when Shelley joins Devoto and Buzzcocks' one-time "mismanager", Richard Boon, at Urbis on Friday to talk about their memories of punk's halcyon days, under the guidance of journalist and musician John Robb.
It was in October, 1975, that Devoto put a notice up at Bolton Institute Of Technology, wanting to form a band in the mould of Iggy Pop And The Stooges. Shelley rose to the challenge. Poring over a copy of NME in a coffee bar, they noticed a review of a Sex Pistols gig, saying how the band had played a cover of Iggy's No Fun.
Even at a time before the word "punk" was in common parlance, Shelley and Devoto recognised the Pistols as kindred spirits
"I was involved in the students' union and I had a meeting in London, chaired by the president of the students' union Charles Clarke (now Home Secretary). Howard had no plans for the weekend, so we hatched this plot whereby I took the money for the train fare, but, instead of getting the train, he could borrow a car off a friend, the train fare would pay for petrol and we could stop at his friend Richard's house in Reading," says Shelley. Calling the NME, they were told to look for the Pistols' manager, Malcolm McLaren, at his clothes shop in the Kings Road. Pitching up just as the shop closed, they discovered that the Pistols were playing that night and the following night.
"They weren't headlining. They were third down the bill," says Shelley. "But after you had seen the Sex Pistols,there was no comparison with the bands afterwards. We talked to them and, because Howard used to compile the pub rock column for a magazine called New Manchester Review, he told Malcolm he could get them some gigs in Manchester.
"But no-one was interested in having the band, so we hit on the idea of doing the concert ourselves. It was like in those teen movies in the fifties {hellip}`Let's hold the show right here!'." Shelley recalls Johnny Rotten as "a charming, erudite man" but also "the kind of person who does not suffer fools gladly". The rest is history. The Pistols played the Free Trade Hall, first to just 32 people, then, six weeks later, to a packed house.
The Buzzcocks soldiered on productively until 1981, though Devoto had left four days after their first Spiral Scratch EP had been released to finish his degree. He went on to make more music with Magazine and made an album with Shelley in 2001, but is now a librarian living in London.
Richard Boon went on to work for Rough Trade records, but is now also a librarian living in London. Pete Shelley and Steve Diggle reformed The Buzzcocks in 1989 and have been making music ever since. A new album has just been recorded for release early next year. The band is cited by several latterday punk bands, including Green Day, as being a primary influence.
Shelley, who lives in London, is now 50. "It was just another birthday. I'm looking forward to 60, then 65 when I get a pension," he says chirpily.
Could he see Devoto ever rejoining The Buzzcocks? "Next year will be the 30th anniversary, so there may be something happening," says Shelley. "I'll have to have a word with him on the train up to Manchester{hellip} see if I can get him drunk in the bar."
