We're un-American band

Pete Shelley's Buzzcocks are working-class legends

by John O'Neill

Pete Shelley should be proud. In 23 years, he's released six full-length albums and been on innumerable tours. He has reams of testimony hailing Manchester's Buzzcocks as one of the most influential and revered bands to emerge from the '70s-Brit-music explosion. Everyone from R.E.M. to Radiohead credit the foursome's joyful noise for shaping their respective outfits. There's a Toyota commercial that features their song "What Do I Get," and there's even a quiz show on BBC2 called Never Mind the Buzzcocks. Still, Pete Shelley can't buy the time of day in jolly ol' London. The 44-year-old, articulate, reasonably good-looking founding father of pop-punk says, "I can walk around London and nobody will recognize me.

"In England, people are more likely to be swayed by the media. You can be in the spotlight, but then the spotlight is handed over. In America, people make up their own mind of what they want to listen to. They are more focused on a particular style."

Which is, in part, what brings the Buzzcocks back to our slimy clime. Currently hawking their brandy-new studio album, Modern (Go Kart), the band are embarking on yet another US tour -- this time facing down a country that has been Godsmacked and Korn-holed Limp for the better part of two years. The stench has gotten much worse since they were first rejected by America some 20 years ago for being "too punk" (meanwhile, back across the pond, they were sniffed at by the lager-swilling, safety-pinned, punk purists for being, naturally, "too pop"). But the Buzzcocks won't give up. Granted this tour will be a smaller-caliber club/college-variety trek (which rolls through Clark University this Monday), but then this is a band who are still thought by many to be on the "comeback" trail, even though the line-up has been together for 10 years.

"It's been the same in the UK, `Why did you get back together . . .?' I was just asked that by BBC radio," says Shelley with a chuckle. It should also be noted that he appears to hold no ill feeling toward this collective amnesia.

But though everyone readily agrees the Buzzcocks were instrumental in kick-starting the punk movement, no one seems to recall them standing on the side of the road while the subsequent gaggle of Next Big Thing short-timers (see "spotlight" paragraph one, a/k/a the Oasis Theory) drove by waving the finger. See, it all began in early '76 with a bunch of bored teenagers caught in the glare of punk rock's promise. Within a year the young Buzzcocks would land a spot on the infamous "Anarchy" tour with the Sex Pistols and the Damned and would release a self-financed EP, Spiral Scratch, that hinted at the band's tuneful ear. By 1979, the group would produce three albums' worth of the finest songs of the era. An armload of singles, captured Stateside on 1979's seminal Singles Going Steady, is, if not the greatest singles compilation ever, certainly ground zero for what would be called pop-punk, and later indie-pop.

The writing tandem of Shelley and Steve Diggle churned out punchy, amped up, tuneful numbers that dealt with love, heartache, and teen angst -- a far cry from the politically charged we're-so-bored policy adopted by most of their peers. While it was enough to break them out of the punk pack -- after nearly five years of non-stop touring, and the disillusionment that comes with falling on deaf ears and piling up dirty laundry -- it wouldn't be enough. Shelley pulled the plug in 1980 and split for a fairly successful solo career.

Which might be the end of the story, except that Shelley and Diggle decided to reunite (with a new rhythm section) in 1989 and again in 1990. This led to '93's first major tour since the break-up and to their fabulous album, Test Trade Transmissions. And, though it's been a mostly on-again affair, the Buzzcocks have spent the better part of 10 years convincing people that they are, indeed, a working band. The culmination of the project comes by-way-of Modern (released in Europe as an enhanced CD with video and back catalogue cuts as A Different Kind of Product). It is a contemporary-sounding work that places somewhere between Blur and Elastica, while still fitting the classic Buzzcock continuum. Hearts still cheat, uncertainty lingers, and esteem gets pancaked -- not to mention guitars buzz drums crack and harmonies are tightly packed. While there are some technological gimmickry (keyboard, guitar synths, dub-sampling vocals), Modern is an album that finds the Buzzcocks in the same fine form as 20 years ago, only now if the world isn't quite ready, Shelley won't mind as much.

"We never had a plan for world domination, but then nobody stopped us from doing what we wanted," he says of the band's status as artists-on-the-cusp. "But fate sometimes conspires too, and we've found our way around it. It's easier to take in stride [this time around] because of our initial success. There are highs and lows that are a necessary part of the game. Instead of freaking out, we know it's a natural occurrence.

"Playing now is [more] the fact of how much we've achieved. I can go around the world and play music and meet those people who like it. And there are really unbelievably sweet people. A woman came to the show [two nights previously]. She was a pastry chef and she brought a little parcel of cookies! See, if I wasn't in a band I'd have a normal job. I'm shy, and I wouldn't go out much. In a band I get to talk to people . . . and they buy you drinks!"

Which brings us to BBC2's Never Mind the Buzzcocks. While the band can walk the street without fear of creating a riot, surely, having a show named after you must pay some dividend, if not afford instant household name recognition?

"Actually, I was in an airport [in England] and a women saw a guitar case with Buzzcocks on it. She asked me `is it a band?' and I said `yes we're the Buzzcocks,' She said, `I've seen the program, what's the connection?'" Shelley laughs. "It was somebody's idea to play on the Sex Pistols thing. Unfortunately, nobody gets the joke. All the people on the panel, I know reasonably well. They're always saying `We must have you on sometime.' I'm still waiting for the call!!"