Pete Shelley and Howard Devoto formed Buzzcocks in Bolton in February 1976. The band, completed by the addition of Steve Diggle and John Maher, opened for the Sex Pistols in Manchester on July 20th - a follow up to the now (in)famous Lesser Free Trade Hall gig, which Devoto and Shelley had organised the month before. Gigs in Manchester and London followed and by the end of 1976, Buzzcocks became one of the first groups to form their own independent record label - New Hormones - on which they released the now-legendary and seminal ?Spiral Scratch' EP. The following year saw the departure of Devoto and the recruitment of bassist Steve Garvey. In August 1977, the band signed a recording contract with United Artists Records and released the landmark ?Orgasm Addict' single. This was swiftly followed by ?What Do I Get?' - the band's first entry into the UK top 40 singles chart and the first of a string of chart singles. Over the next three years, Buzzcocks toured extensively and released a trilogy of outstanding albums: Another Music in a Different Kitchen, Love Bites and A Different Kind of Tension, as well as the hugely influential and popular Singles Going Steady compilation. In 1981, the band went their separate ways to undertake new projects. 1989 saw the reconvened Shelley/Diggle/Garvey/Maher line-up tour the world again by popular demand. Since then, the Shelley/Diggle partnership has been the core of sustained and successful activity without pause, punctuating the years of high profile gigging to date with six successful and well-received studio albums, culminating in 2015's The Way. Few have had the longevity and sustained creative energy to produce the seemingly endless stream of truly original and fantastic pop songs, that Pete Shelley and Steve Diggle have consistently delivered over the last Five decades. Original and best.

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