Читать книгу Buzzcocks - The Complete History - Tony McGartland - Страница 53

Buzzcocks make their debut at a social evening arranged for the textile students of the Bolton Institute of Technology. The line-up consists of Howard Devoto on vocals, Pete Shelley on guitar/vocals, Garth Davies on bass. To complete the line-up, Garth gets Mick Singleton, a drummer from local band Black Cat Bone, to fill in for the night. They open their set with David Bowie’s ‘Diamond Dogs’ followed by the Rolling Stones’ ‘Come On’, ‘I Can’t Control Myself’ by the Troggs and ‘All Day and All of the Night’, which proves to be the last song of the night. The debut performance is so bad that the organisers pull the plugs after the third number. They are still paid their fee of £5.

Garth Davies recalls, ‘Pete and Howard starting writing original songs together for Buzzcocks after the original gig. Some of the songs were to my mind good, but Pete wrote a lot of songs on his own for Jets of Air, and I thought they were better. After rehearsing at Pete’s house in Leigh one evening, Pete, Howard and I caught a number 26 bus, which ran from Leigh to Manchester. Pete was going to stay with Howard that night; I was getting off the bus in Astley, near my home. Pete and Howard were running through their latest song at the time, which was called ‘Oh Shit!’ I thought to myself that this is not the kind of song that’s going to entertain the masses and get us many gigs in the clubs and pubs that we were then aiming for. Naïve or what? Anyway, I decided there and then that the band wasn’t for me, and told Pete a couple of days later.’