About Buzzcocks
Buzzcocks are an English punk rock band that singer-songwriter-guitarist Pete Shelley and singer-songwriter Howard Devoto formed in Bolton in 1976. During their career, the band combined elements of punk rock, power pop, and pop punk. They achieved commercial success with singles that fuse pop craftsmanship with rapid-fire punk energy; these singles were later collected on Singles Going Steady, an acclaimed compilation album music journalist and critic Ned Raggett described as a "punk masterpiece".
Devoto left the band in 1977, after which Pete Shelley became the principal singer-songwriter. After releasing three albums, the band broke up in 1981 following a dispute with their record label, and reunited in 1989 and released six more albums before Shelley's death in 2018. The band has remained active, being led by their original bassist Steve Diggle, who assumed guitarist-and-singer duties, and this line-up released the 2022 album Sonics in the Soul.
Howard Trafford, a student at Bolton Institute of Technology who had been involved in electronic music, placed a notice in the college looking for musicians to play The Velvet Underground's song "Sister Ray". Fellow student Peter McNeish, who had played in a rock band called Jets of Air, responded to the notice.
By late 1975, Trafford and McNeish had recruited a drummer and formed an early version of what would become Buzzcocks. The band formed in February 1976; McNeish assumed the stage name Pete Shelley and Trafford named himself Howard Devoto.
Devoto and Shelley chose the name "Buzzcocks" after reading the headline "It's the Buzz, Cock!" in a review of the television series Rock Follies in Time Out magazine. The "buzz" is the excitement of playing on stage and "cock" is northern English slang meaning "friend". They thought the name captured the excitement of the nascent punk scene and had humorous sexual connotations following Pete Shelley's time working in a Bolton adult shop.
Buzzcocks performed live for the first time on 1 April 1976 at their college. Garth Davies played bass guitar and Mick Singleton, who also played in local band Black Cat Bone, played drums.
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