Buzzcocks and memories

So as you all know, Pete Shelley died a couple of weeks ago, relatively young and quite unexpected. The Beeb has a good obit, if that's your thing. I held off writing anything about Pete, or Buzzcocks, at the time but here are some random memories about them. Better late than never.

January 2009: I am watching Buzzcocks live in a sweaty, sticky-floored venue and they are ripping up the place. It is fantastic, and I should be loving it. And I sort of am, but only sort of. I bought two tickets, you see, in the hope that someone else would come with me. Purely hope. She stood me up, that night, and however good Pete, Steve and the rest were, there was an unspoken limit on how high my mood could be lifted.

July 2008: Buzzcocks are the surprise set-closer at the Mark Lamarr-curated God's Jukebox event at the Latitude Festival. We are in the front row of The Music and Film tent, which has staged the event, and have sat through perfectly serviceable sets by Pete Molinari, The Heavy, James Hunter and Eli 'Paperboy' Reed & The True Loves. Buzzcocks come on and the place goes berserk for their blistering (and ear-drum popping) greatest hits set. Whilst Steve Diggle still looks a bit angry, Pete Shelley looks like someone's dad (or granddad), but that doesn't matter... as the moshpit chaos testifies, this is awesome. Such is the mosh (and the volume) that my partner bails out but I stay for the duration, and will be a little deafer ever after.

Mid 1990s: looking for a birthday present for The Man Of Cheese, I happen upon a numbered CD reissue of Buzzcocks' Spiral Scratch e.p. It is class, of course, and makes an excellent (and easily wrapped) present. Years later, in a house move, The Man Of Cheese would become separated from many of his CDs, so I doubt he still has this - a shame because it goes for about £15 now, according to discogs.

Most evenings in the early 80s: my brother, a crucial four years older than me but still living in the familial abode, comes home from an evening in the social club somewhat the worse for wear. He takes off his 8-hole DMs and stumbles up stairs to his bedroom, which is directly above the living room. He cues up essential Buzzcocks best-of Singles Going Steady on his frankly shitty Amstrad stereo, lowers the tone arm and we're off into side 1, track 1.... at a volume that is intended to rile the parents below. To their credit, they remain unriled, and this is how I learn Buzzcocks tunes - listening to them through the ceiling. By the time we get to the end of side one the lager has taken hold and my brother is invariably asleep on his bed. It is then my job to tiptoe into his room, the sound of my approach masked by the buzz and hiss of the cheap, amped-up speakers, lift the tone-arm from the vinyl (the auto-return doesn't work) and power off the Amstrad. Out go the cheap LEDs, and out I go, leaving him to sleep it off.

Of all the many, many gigs I have been to, the ones my brother would also have enjoyed are relatively few. Paul Weller, From The Jam, Billy Bragg... and Buzzcocks. So here, for Pete (and my brother) is side 1, track 1 - it's some way from their finest work but it's what I heard first, so it ought to be what I hear last.

Bonus trivia that you probably all know already as well: Jamie Lee Curtis's character in 1991 schmaltz-fest My Girl is called Shelly DeVoto. No prizes for guessing where they came up with that name from...