Photo: Press
Great news punk fans, Buzzcocks will have their seminal debut EP, Spiral Scratch, reissued thanks to Domino, who want to celebrate its 40th anniversary.
All ten minutes of it were first released in 1977 and it marked the beginnings of the punk rock genre, being the first punk record to ever be self-released.
Having formed in the early years of the punk boom, Buzzcocks came together after witnessing the buzz surrounding the Sex Pistols.
After supporting the Sex Pistols at their iconic 1976 gig at Manchester’s Lesser Free Trade Hall, a few months later they put out Spiral Scratch as their contribution to the emerging punk scene - and what a contribution it is, sublime.
Revisiting an interview in issue 21 of Vive Le Rock, bassist Steve Diggle recalls, “I’d seen thousands of records in shops, but I didn’t know what a thousand records looked like on a pallet. We had some people helping us, but we took them out of the regular plain sleeves and put them in the Spiral Scratch sleeves, so there was a little bit of ‘hands-on’ work there. It was a great feeling to do that, thinking ‘Wow, we’ve made a record our own way.’”
Spiral Scratch’s title was inspired by the recording process the band went through, which was literally a spiral scratch on each side of the vinyl.
Martin Hannett, a producer of Spiral Scratch, was somewhat inexperienced when the Buzzcocks recorded the EP, but having worked on the era defining EP, he later went on to become an iconic producer who later added Joy Division and Happy Mondays to his producing credits.
Happy Mondays' Shaun Ryder spoke fondly of his experience working with Hannett in an interview with Gigwise last year and talked openly about Hannett's talent as a chemist who would make ecstacy.
Spiral Scratch will be released via Domino on its 40th anniversary (27 January 2017). A re-issue of the Buzzcocks’ ‘Time’s-Up’ album is due for release on 10 March 2017.
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