Heart of a Punk Soul of a Rasta

Live

Buzzcocks / The Lurkers


Well I never saw the Buzzcocks with Howard Devoto vocalising and I never saw them when they toured with their first album Another Music in a Different Kitchen, but I did see them on the Loves Bites and A Different Kind of Tension tours. In modern times I've seen them a couple of times the last time in 2004, was it me or was it them I don't know but it wasn't so hot that night so in time honoured fashion here at HOAP SOAR there was a great silence. But I do remember it wasn't a total bummer because support was Neville Staple who had just released his "The Rude Boy Returns" album and succeeded that night in turning a completely indifferent beer swilling watching from the shadows audience into a dancing totally interacting throng - top man & not from C&A. So it was the lure of The Lurkers that tipped the balance and made me shift myself to go see, first I needed a ticket, to the Little Civic Bar - Box Office.

The piss heads were there aplenty by the time I arrived at the Little Civic lacing the smell of their damp leather jackets with rancid cider (spot the bitter abstainer). As I waited in the queue of one, my desperation for the lavvy started to become critical, my bowel had been tickled by the caffeine intake from the three cans of Red Bull I'd ingested during the drive to Wolverhampton and hey I was properly just a little excited too. Ticket in hand I knew I wouldn't be able to make the two hundred yards or so to the venue, I'd have to use the facilities at the Little Civic Bar like now! I clenched like I'd never clenched before stumbled somehow down the sticky steps through the piss smeared double doors and in. I sat there on the throne in regal ecstasy sending a whole clutch of sausages off to the sea thinking, bloody hell will they never mend the lock on this door its been like this since, well since the Kaiser Chiefs played the Little Civic at least! My serious work for the night done I proceeded to pull up my kecks, but as I did so my mobile phone decided to jump out of my back pocket and hurl itself behind the toilet bowl. There was no time to think I quickly got myself up scuttled 180 degrees, trousers and boxers still round my ankles, bent over the toilet rim and proceeded to search in the grotty gloom at the back of the bog. It was at this moment the door behind me opened and a person or persons unknown entered……….yes entered……..entered my……………..well entered my unlocked cubicle. I can only imagine the hideous scene that this poor soul had to look upon (and I have no wish to reconstruct this scene using a mirror to look upon it myself) the only consolation is that the bronco paper had already been applied. My silent visitor gone, my mobile retrieved, to the venue.

This has happened once before I'm sure I arrive to find The Fred Flintstone of punk Arturo Bassick & The Lurkers are already on stage and rattling through "Jenny". Now Mr Bassick what can be said if only we could wire him up to the national grid we would no longer need to worry about renewable fuels, or if we could divert his all consuming passion from punk to saving the planet then the planet would be saved. But then we would be left bereft of a 51 year old completely unstoppable punk and at this moment in the Wulfrun Hall the punk is more important. He raconteurs between tracks and gives his bass a good old fashioned throttling during, the beer goes in (shoot him with an elephant tranquiliser he wouldn't blink). Part of what we are given or should I say made to have are "Fried Brains" from 2008 "Ain't Got a Clue" and "Freak Show" from thirty years before and it's topped off with "Go Ahead Punk". It's all fired off accurately and goes down well.

Old tossers like me have smiled inwardly for thirty years or more before a succession of up and coming rebel rousers who have served up a two dimensional, what they believe to be raw passion. Bassick was about thirty years ago and he's still here and still 101% vital. What ever age you are or music you like it doesn't matter go and see The Lurkers live, you might take to them you might not, but you'll find it hard to find anyone out there to top the passion Arturo Bassick has for his bag of tricks.

So to the Buzzcocks, we know they are the headliners because the obligatory white fluffy towels have arrived. They appear on stage without any silliness: Steve Diggle immaculate trim, polka dotted shirt, mod jacket raven locks. Pete Shelly fat, tee shirted and bald - come on Pete if I want to see an old, short fat bald guy I'd look in the mirror. The format of playing the first two Buzzcocks albums in record order does them and me an immense favour. They have a good structure, I don't have to now try and remember in an end of the Generation Game type fashion what they played. So "Boredom edit" and off we go with LP 1. Shelly from time to time rolls his eyes cheekily heavenwards all the while keeping close tabs on Diggle who flails around the stage like the insane bastard off spring of Pete Townsend that's being operated by some punk loving alien from another planet - long may it be so. They have the all songs they are in control it's not like 2004. What was best? "You Tear Me Up" obviously, "Autonomy" Diggle & Shelly together why wasn't there more of those? "Ever Fallen in Love" nicely placed mid set for a change, "Nostagia" which is Shelly's writing at its curious best, "Love is Lies" acoustically led by Mr Diggle, "Sixteen Again", "Promises" "Noise Annoys" etc etc etc. The night was concluded with the Steve Diggle sung "Harmony in My Head" All good, crowd chuffed, job done.

The day "Harmony in my Head" came out I was there at HMV money in paw. But I can't remember whether I bought it before or after it was reviewed on the new version of Juke Box Jury that the BBC had just brought back on the TV. Who was on the panel to review it? I can't remember I've been to sleep since then! But the panel all sat in hushed silence whilst "Harmony in my Head" was played wondering whether they were really listening to the Buzzcocks. When it finished Billy Idol (it could have been) says "it sounds like The Stranglers to me" and then probably did his lip thing. The Stranglers and Buzzcocks once together on United Artists are both still sufficiently intact and doing the retro tour thing thirty years on, for why? They've got all the songs, a veritable cornucopia of songs that most bands would give their hind teeth for, oh and they can bloody play a bit too!

Listed stuff
[Times Up - (No longer a bootleg) Howard Devoto lead Buzzcocks LP]
[Another Music in a Different Kitchen/Love Bites/A Different Kind of Tension]

Hey but stay away from Sky Yen by Pete Shelley - You just can't whistling it.