A guest series by Fraser Pettigrew (aka our New Zealand correspondent)
#8: Spiral Scratch – Buzzcocks (1977)
While a series on EPs would not be complete without it, what can I possibly write about Spiral Scratch that hasn’t already been said? It is probably the subject of more column inches than any other EP in music history, weighted with significance that puts a price of more than £200 on some copies offered for sale. To those who still hold an original purchase from 1977 it is almost priceless.
I do not possess an original copy. Mine is the 1979 reissue, by which time the record had already acquired legendary status. Its reputation was built primarily on its self-published status: not the first punk single, but the first to be released on a newly-created, independent label with no distribution deal with a major company. It was seen to embody a quintessential DIY ethos in punk by rejecting conventional music industry pathways. The music seemed almost secondary.
To those of us who were Buzzcocks fans, however, the reissue was a worthwhile purchase because it was the band’s first release and the only record of Howard Devoto’s involvement as lead singer (apart from the similarly hard to find Time’s Up demo bootleg). By early ’79, Devoto had of course long-since departed the band and built his own place in the history of post-punk as the lead singer of Magazine, an altogether different project already onto its second album.
Buzzcocks without Devoto had also produced two albums by this time for major label United Artists, working in the studio with seasoned producer Martin Rushent, all a far cry from the circumstances in which Spiral Scratch was recorded. The Buzzcocks sound that I was familiar with was therefore rather different from that of Spiral Scratch which is understandably rougher and cruder than the albums.
I recently came across an article on the making of Spiral Scratch that, whilst it’s nearly ten years old, may be unfamiliar to some and is worth a read, even if you’re not a hardcore audio tech buff like the site’s primary readership. It’s also worth reading the brief memoir by engineer Phil Hampson on which the Sound on Sound article is based.
Hampson was the engineer at Indigo Studios in Manchester responsible for recording the epoch-defining EP on 28 December 1976. He is uncredited, while Martin Hannett (as ‘Martin Zero’) is listed as producer, but Hampson’s account makes clear that Hannett’s contribution was far from expert and more in keeping with the amateur DIY ethic that Spiral Scratch came to represent. Hannett’s experimental curiosity carried through into his subsequent production career, but it was more of a hindrance than a help in getting the Buzzcocks down on tape.
Hampson’s story reveals the tragi-comic fate of the master tape. The band couldn’t afford to buy it (and possibly didn’t appreciate its future worth) so it was simply put back in the rack to be re-used. Indigo Studios were directly across the road from the old Granada TV studios and were frequently used by various comedians and variety acts from Granada shows to record songs, skits and novelty tunes. Nobody knows who finally recorded over one of rock’s most famous master tapes, but Hampson offers up the prospect of Little and Large as the notional agents of bathos.
The other interesting viewpoint from Hampson is that the supposedly ground-breaking innovation of the EP’s independent release is somewhat overstated. Hampson says he himself worked on many self-published and pressed records in the years prior to Spiral Scratch and that the practice was not uncommon. I can see his point, but from his description it would seem that most of these ‘independent’ recordings were either private or vanity pressings and rarely if ever intended for commercial release and sale. Spiral Scratch was made to be sold like a ‘proper’ record, and it was the catalyst for dozens of similar ventures in the years that followed. In that respect its reputation is safe.
The enduring popularity of lo-fi indie guitar bands has helped to prevent Spiral Scratch sounding dated after nearly fifty years. The witty sophistication of Devoto’s lyrics contrasts with the stereotype of punk oafishness, and Pete Shelley’s enthusiasm for krautrock bands like Can and Neu married to The Ramones’ buzz-saw guitar sound undoubtedly helps the compositions avoid the clichés of fast and dirty rock’n’roll or the gormless crudity of many contemporaries.
Well, that’s another 700 words to add to the ledger. Time’s never up for this EP and people will still be writing about it in another fifty years’ time, but I won’t be around to read it.
THE NEW VINYL VILLAIN 
Well said, Fraser! This record is a true masterpiece, this has never changed. As fresh as IT was back then in fact!
Thanks Fraser, excellent piece.
A classic, for all the reasons mentioned.
I would just like to thoroughly recommend Patrick Marber’s short story ‘Pete Shelley’ in the Nick Hornby edited anthology ‘Speaking with the Angel’ (which also has Hornby’s excellent ‘Nipplejesus’ and a few other very good things, and some blah).