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Also this issue: The Art of Rock 'n' Roll Beat Box Rock the Mic Tour Blistered in the Sun Orchestra Baobab The Blowjob Queen is Dead Singapore Sling The Fall |
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July 3- 9, 2003
music
 KEEPING ON: ãIf we would have known punkâs beginnings were going to be so important, I wouldâve kept a diary,ä says Pete Shelley (right). |
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Buzzcocks rise again.
At a time when Brit-punk’s veterans of ’76 are either jokes (Sex Pistols playing Atlantic City!?) or dead (R.I.P. Joe Strummer), the Buzzcocks are making the most adventurous, aggressive, loud music of their career. Like Wire -- another bunch of art-school Brits who busted apart in the ’80s only to start anew in recent years -- Buzzcocks have made more brilliantly melodic and lyrically cutting music since reuniting in 1989 (after breaking up in ’81), while the most melodic singles of their past are celebrated on the new Inventory (EMI) collection.
"That's very much like the prophet never being recognized in his own land or his own time," says frontman Peter Shelley about having his past honored by box sets, smash-hit American punk kids like Blink 182 and not-quite-accurate flicks like 24 Hour Party People. "It's historical, critical perspective -- distance and time, I suppose," figures Shelley.
For those not there then -- punk's perfect first moments of 1976 through '78 -- he laughs that, too often, young fans view his past as "exceedingly wonderful, a magical place." There is no paradise lost or gained for Shelley. "You really can't dissuade people from believing in the wonder. If we would have known punk's beginnings were going to be so important, I would've kept a diary." The present is twice as cool if their new self-titled CD on Merge is any example.
"We've grown comfortable again with the process of recording, of being able to record closer to how we present ourselves live." From its blunt, hard songs (each roughly three minutes long) and its bright, wall-of-sound production, Buzzcocks could be their best ever. It not only equals the fuzz-tone, anxiety-laden pop of original hits like "Ever Fallen in Love?," but surpasses such with its own hummably melodic, sourpussed sarcasm, sexuality and fatalism on "Jerk," "Useless," "Lester Sands" and "Stars" -- the latter two tunes written with Howard Devoto to mark the Buzzcocks' 25th anniversary.
As a writer with no problem relaying vulnerability, Shelley has made the Buzzcocks' best moments -- old and new -- gender nonspecific and never belittling. His love songs, among pop's best ever, can be heard as open-ended paeans, not to a "she" or a "he," but to sexuality and love itself.
Though modest, the famously bisexual Shelley says he knows why people so easily relate to the duality of his lyrics. "The kids who listen now, as before, know punk isn't and wasn't particularly macho. Music, no matter who you are, is a strange country unto itself. But there are kids who thank me for writing that way."
It's stranger still thinking that Buzzcocks are spending the summer opening for Pearl Jam -- the heaviest of alterna-music's bands who have surely been inspired by Buzzcocks' catchy, chunky metallic sounds. But Shelley always manages to find connection among Vedder freaks as well. "I was hanging in the audience during Pearl Jam's set the other night and there were a bunch of people -- one fan, 11 years old -- wearing a Buzzcocks shirt."
Rather than turning bitchy after not having attained the level of the massive mainstream success that the copycat kid bands have, Shelley is pragmatic. He laughs at the fact that Buzzcocks started as a prank, a joke out of art school. "You have to be careful with that art," he laughs. "Look, we live in a time when you can flog anything. It could be prejudice or the arrogance of the majors that sees younger bands doing so well. It's simply that they hold the cards, now."
But Shelley is even delightfully honest about watching his fellow vet contemporaries, like Johnny Rotten, go the route of Vegas and the casinos. "We do now what we've done then, regardless of record labels -- we're trying to wake people up to their potential. [Not doing the casinos and such] is not about us not selling out. No one's made us an offer. We're just waiting for the phone call."
The Buzzcocks play Sun., July 6, 7:30 p.m., $39-$43, with Pearl Jam, Tweeter Center, Mickle Blvd. and Riverside Dr., Camden, N.J., 215-336-2000.
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