Customer Reviews

Spiral Scratch

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I was too late in trying the buy the original limited edition EP in 1977 and have been looking for a copy for 23 years! When I found the CD on amazon I immediately ordered a copy. Whilst waiting for the CD to arrive I was worried that my recollection of the music might be clouded by time and rose-tinted memories.

Well, I have just listened to Spiral Scratch and the wait was well worth it. The first chords of Breakdown immediately woke me up and within seconds I was dancing animatedly around my hotel room. The raw energy that was so typical of the early punk days came back to me and I was immediately immersed in the music. Devoto's voice has that edge that singers just do not have these days, and the sheer abandonment of the bands' music shines through.

Those that are not familiar with punk music should buy this EP and see why punk took off so quickly in the late 70s. Spiral Scratch is uncomplicated music, and is probably the best session that the Buzzcock's did in their career. The guitar riffs in Boredom have not lost their hypnotic lure over the years and really remain the sound most associated with the band.

The fact that the EP only has four tracks should not put people off. Any more tracks would have possibly diluted the music and the impact it made.

This is the definitive early punk CD and the Buzzcock's best work. Buy it now and reawaken your love of rock!

Badum, Badum!

Jeez, I really love the Buzzcocks' later material but listening to this makes me wish there were a parallel universe where Howard Devoto never left the band and they went on to record all of their other albums. He definitely sounds more punky and less poppy than Pete Shelley.

Anyway, this is classic old school punk at its best.

This Ep was recorded in 1976, with the original Buzzcocks line-up, and even today, you can't quite match the spontaneous energy and noise onslaught of this classic punk band's first release! BREAKDOWN and TIME'S UP use basic three-chord guitar riffing turned up and one hundred mile an hour drumming as original vocalist Howard DeVoto(in pre-Magazine and pre-Luxuria days, obviously!) shouts and rants about life's vicissitudes and being stood up at the supermarket(I think, but what the hell?. BOREDOM is a true punk classic, the title tells all of the subject matter but this song is far from boring(unlike today's godawful boy bands and gangsta rap rubbish) - the guitar 'solo' is one big UP YOURS to middle-aged rock musos, even now I'm nearing that age myself! Brings back memories of college punk discos and an alternative music club I used to visit - this track was a dancefloor favourite. Finally, we have a fast FRIENDS OF MINE which sounds in places like a cross between someone's vaccuum cleaner and my two-year old nephew trying to emulate Bill and Ted on my old Aria Pro2 guitar! Wonderful.

Well, I HAVE the original - first issue - vinyl of this and it still just about plays! It represents the 'improvisational' attitude that punk was really all about all those years ago, the 'anyone can do it' attitude, as David Byrne later said.

This home made EP is simple, sardonic and just perfect. If you can, check out the 'Time's Up' album, originally only available on bootleg. They are both great examples of punk before it became a designer fashion and not forgetting the Buzzcocks' debts to the Troggs and Captain Beefheart.

First of all, considering that this album came out in 1977, the sound quality is amazing. I put it in my CD player expecting it to be a little rough sounding, but the bass sounded awesome!!! Everything sounds great. So my first buzzcocks CD was operator's manual, which I thought was alright. This album... couldn't call myself a buzzcocks fan without it.

...but I do remember the musical desert of FM radio in the 80s and it's hard to believe things could have backslid so far after such a great burst of jagged, forward-thinking noise.

Sure it's only ten minutes long, but it packs the whallop of an album. Absolutely worth every penny.

Ba-dum ba-dum.

Back-and-white sleeve, black-and-white disk, black-and-white world, or at least that's how I remember it. One listen and you're straight back there - Before you even play it, it's clear that few records are as immediately evocative of time and place as this one. That said, when Spiral Scratch appeared (along with The Sex Pistols on the front page of The Daily Mirror) it really did seem like anything was possible, even the lurch from monochrome to colour.
In these days of digital recording, mp3s and myspace it's important to remember just what an accomplishment 'Spiral Scratch' was. (No-one put their own records out, ever) Its very existence is enough to secure Buzzcocks' place in the history books, let alone the sounds contained therein. And what sounds! Combining humour and angst in equal amount, Howard Devoto set the lyrical bar about as high as it could go in the confines of a 3 minute pop tune. That contemporaneous Mancunian wordsmiths Mark E. Smith, John Cooper-Clarke and Ian Curtis were able to rise to the challenge is testament to the extraordinary explosion of talent that existed in Manchester in 1976. The music doesn't disappoint either - Pete Shelley's pop sensibilities, which were to come to the fore following Devoto's departure, were enough in evidence to ensure that the 4 tracks here were strong enough to remain in the listener's subconscious (and in Buzzcocks' live set) for the next 30 years. The production dates it, of course, but even that brings a warm glow of nostalgia for simpler times, a time when you could count both the number of takes and the number of guitar overdubs on the fingers of one hand.

Finally available on CD domestically, this short but cohesive EP is a document of the earliest days of the Buzzcocks. The four songs are tight and quirky, and less 'poppy' than the band's later work. This EP is just as important as 'Never Mind the Bollocks' or the first Clash album - be sure to order it immediately!

If your idea of a good Buzzcocks tune is "You Say You Don't Love Me" or "Autonomy," this brace of their first songs may shock you. Recorded in half an hour in December, 1976 with nothing but bass, drums, Starway guitar and youthful vigor, it makes their later work sound like A Flock of Seagulls. Howard Devoto's lyrics are terse genius, slashing through a gamut of issues with a witty, nihilistic edge, and at a pace almost too rapid for their richness. You find yourself asking, "Did he really say 'let it ringa-ringa-f***ing ding?' or, "Is he singing 'friends of mine' or 'amphetamine'?" His words bend language backwards, wielding double-edged imagery while remaining curt and to-the-point.

Perfectly suiting this air of jumpy dislocation, his vocals are miles beyond later singer Pete Shelly's camp monotone. Devoto runs through as many voices as verses, one minute evoking an adrenalized Johnny Rotten, the next some demented cartoon mouse. Raging, snarling, stuttering like a machine gun, snapping at his own words almost before they've left his mouth, he's a man choked with doubt and disgust, yet swept on by rage. The music is more than his equal: a pandemonium of drum rolls, ringing guitar and careening bass lines that power forward like a freight train. It's the perfect marriage of the Sex Pistols' atonality to the Ramones' sheet-metal blur, and the Buzzcocks have never sounded darker, harder, or better.

After twenty-one years this punk landmark is finally back in print, so buy it before the curse strikes again! You will never be sorry.

only buzzcocks release with devoto on vocals. neither magazine nor the rest of the buzzcocks releases sound so Rotten. great stuff though, well worth the money.