sound of the suburbs

I'm feeling quite good today Sound of the Suburbs is one month old and my girlfriend hasn't left me yet! I've been thinking about putting a little bit of structure into the blog and have come up with the idea of making the weeks first post (generally Monday's but who knows) a track taken from a Peel session. I would being lying to you if I said that I had listened to the man religiously, I was more often than not out a gig somewhere or the other, but if I was at home or near a radio I would tune in and listen. As with many people of my generation I owe the man a great debt for what he helped me to discover and what he turned me on to and so helping to make me the man I am today. Having said that I would certainly not suggest that his broadcasts were perfect, far from it, in technical terms he was often sloppy, true this added to his charm as did his sometimes doubtable music taste, who ever really enjoyed the likes of Napalm Death?




So first up the Buzzcocks, with 'What Do I Get' taken from the first of four sessions they recorded, put down on tape 07/09/77, just months after the departure of Howard Devoto. The Buzzcocks remain a legend for their short sharp ambiguous pop punk nuggets, a number of which graced the UK charts. Their recorded output from this period 3 studio albums, a compilation to kill for, 'Singles Going Steady', some live cuts and odds and ends have been put together as the 3 CD 'Product' and at less than £20 no home should be without a copy. The band originally spilt in 1981 citing disagreements with their label as the reason. They reformed in 1989 to tour the states and have been an on going concern ever since even going as far as releasing studio albums! Their 8th such outing 'Flat Pack Philosophy' has recently been released by Cooking Vinyl, and with 14 songs clocking in at just 36 minutes it is probably the shortest album of their career.
little pointer for you here the Buzzcocks have second web site called Secret Public, if you are ok with signing up with them there is an albums worth of live mp3s to be downloaded, sadly only 128kbps.
A foot note for today linking Peelie with the Buzzcocks, a charity single was released last year in aid of Amnesty International. It was a re recording of 'Ever Fallen In Love With Someone', apparently one of John's favorite songs, by such punk legends as Robert Plant and Roger Daltry, I somehow doubt the great man would have graced his programs with this version!