Love Bites - The Story of Buzzcocks

One day in 1975 Howard Trafford placed a notice on the Bolton Institute of Technology's noticeboard saying he was looking for musicians that shared a liking for The Velvet Underground song "Sister Ray". Peter McNeish, a fellow student at the Institute, responded to the notice.

The pair travelled to London to see the Sex Pistols play and were so impressed and excited by what they'd seen they invited the Pistols to play in Manchester at the Lesser Free Trade Hall, a gig that has gone down in history as the birth of punk, new wave and independent music that remains a large part of Manchester's musical identity to this day.

McNeish became Pete Shelley and Trafford became Howard Devoto, the pair formed the Buzzcocks and produced the UK's first independently recorded and distributed records, the Spiral Scratch E.P. Devoto then quit to form Magazine leaving Shelley to continue on his own bringing his idiosyncratic views on love to the punk song, fusing pop and punk in a genre that continues to thrive to this day.

The story of Buzzcocks is one of sudden ups and downs, join me on this rollercoaster ride that doesn't look like it's going to stop any time soon!

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