Chords for B'dum B'dum Buzzcocks Magazine Documentary Part 1

_ _ What's on P938 stroke 29 part 1 take 1.
May God have mercy on Tony Wilson's soul.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ If [A] I could read what [Gb] it was,
What I think I'd love for one night of [C] these,
You had me on my kick-dum,
[B] So don't you say I'm very under [G]-um,
_ [Eb] _
[Bb] Boredom, boredom.
_ _ [E] Ba-dum, ba-dum.
Ba-dum, ba-dum [Gb] lines from a song, a punk anthem called [Em] Boredom,
first released in Manchester in February 77.
[B] On an independently produced EP called Spiral [C] Scratch.
That EP is now a [B] collector's piece, a punk classic.
It both influenced and represented the [G] spirit of the new music,
which thrived in the last two years.
[Bb] The group in question, Buzzcocks, were formed,
and the [B] songs written by, on the right, Howard DeVoto.
He changes his name each time he moves town.
And on the left, Pete Shelley.
Shelley was what his parents were going to call him if he was [B] a girl.
By the summer of [C] 78, Shelley and DeVoto had parted company.
With their [B] own bands and record contracts,
they had each released albums to [G] great critical acclaim.
[Eb] Albums which, though musically [Bb] very different,
defined the present state of play. _
[G] _ As well as being the story of how these guitars [C] got to be in this condition,
this is also the story of Pete Shelley and Howard DeVoto,
two young men who seized their desires
and helped change the reality of modern music.
Autumn 1975, Bolton Institute of Technology.
[B] Shelley and DeVoto are students, and they're very bored.
[Eb] I was incredibly _ sick of what I was hearing
and what I was reading _ _ on record, _
on paper, in people's minds.
[Db] I can't write [A] down, I can't [E] write it down yet.
November 1975, DeVoto puts up a notice looking for musicians.
An obscure notice which prophetically included the word punk.
Shelley [Db] answered the notice.
[N] Well, about a couple of weeks after we met,
when he was performing in a group,
we started _ just writing songs together.
And the [Ab] songs were good and we enjoyed them.
[E] And we thought, we must get a group together proper
and go out and [Gm] perform these songs,
so people can enjoy them as well.
[Em] _ _ Feeling betrayed by [B] contemporary music,
the sounds inside their heads were revolutionary.
Energy, [G] aggression and simplicity.
For [Gb] many it seemed harsh and tuneless.
[B] It would later be called punk rock.
Everybody that was involved with that movement,
and certainly myself, and I think probably Peter and the rest of Buscox, _
was that you didn't think you were going to be around very [Eb] long.
You didn't think you were going to [E] make another record.
You didn't really know that you were going to play another concert.
And therefore, _ in a way, you had to do it fast.
And you [D] had to do it as directly as you could.
[C] Well, in some ways it was in opposition and we were glad about that
because we didn't want to be the same [G] as everybody else.
But also it was different because we were different.
_ [D] _ It just seemed [Gb] to arise from the things that we [B] were doing.
[G] That we had this feeling between us that we wanted to do something
that was just [Ab] entertaining and exciting and actually meant [Eb] something.
I thought of it as an attack, but not in any _ straightforward, up-front,
I'll show you my fists man sort of thing.
_ It was just an attempt to step sideways and _ shadowbox with a few phantoms.
_ [G] _ [Gb] The fight begins on [G] July 20th, 1976 at Manchester's Lesser Pre-Trade Hall.
Shelly and DeVoto on stage for the first time.
They have now added a Stratford schoolboy on drums, John Ma,
and on bass, Steve Diggle, [D] unemployed from Oldham.
This is an 8mm film taken by a friend, no soundtrack exists.
Well, it was a bit of a rush job.
We were told that unless we were on the stage within 5 minutes
we wouldn't be playing at all and that we'd rather play for [G] half an hour.
But, I _ mean, there was excitement because we were partially organising [Eb] the gig as well.
So there was a lot of [C] banging around and everything.
[Dm] In those days it seemed [Eb] exciting.
_ It was amateurish. _
But it's still [G] exciting, I like that people enjoyed it. _ _ _
When I came off the [Gm] stage, I [Gm] _ [Eb] went and looked down the back staircase.
[Gb] I'd cut my [Eb] finger [F] on Peter's guitar strings and I had some blood on my finger.
And [C] I thought I [G] felt_
_ [Gm] _ _ _ Mmm, mmm, _ mmm_
So unbelievably [D] blank. _ _
[Gm] _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ [Bb] _ [B] Between July and December [C] 1976, Buzzcocks play 10 gigs.
[Bb] They pile in a van and go down to the screen on the green in Islington in [G] London.
Although they set the pace from the start with their Friends of Sex Pistols and The Clash,
because Buzzcocks are from Manchester, their top [D] line status is a while in coming.
It looked to [E] have arrived though with the release of Spiral Scratch,
made with money borrowed from Friends, and [Gm] in particular money borrowed from Shelly's dad.
[G] _
_ _ _ It has [Eb] sold 15,000, it's worth $100 in New York,
but time was up for the [F] special relationship.
_ _ _ [G]
Just three weeks after release, DeVoto decides to leave the band.
In a statement to the music press he says,
I don't like [D] most of this new music, I [D] don't like music, I don't like movements. _ _
Well, it was just _ _ another one in a [E] series of perverse movements on my part, really. _ _
Like getting involved with the sort of music the Buzzcocks were doing was
_ _ _ _ a reaction and maybe a slap in the face for everything _ else.
So _ leaving it, I _ had this second slap in the face in the back of my mind.
[N] _ _
_ _ Did it cross your mind that when Howard left that was the end?
[B] _
_ [D] It may have done, but it wasn't there for very long.
It was a thing [F] where _ _ [G] if Howard leaving had made it the end, _
_ [G] _ then it would have been just a waste of time doing [D] it because there'd been nothing actually there.
Because he left [G] before we actually [A] became really well known.
_ And I thought, well, there's two [C] things we can do.
We can either get in another vocalist, _ [Db] or _ [Ab] I can do the singing.
_ So I thought, well, if we get another [Db] vocalist, then that means a [D] front man.
_ And it can change the [Cm] character of the whole group.
So I [F] thought, I'll do the singing.
So I did.
For the Buzzcocks, it's back to the notice board, this time in Virgin Record Shop in Manchester.
Leading Northwest beat combo require bass player who is pretty or competent or pretty competent.
[G] This is Garth, who's fairly pretty.
Diggle moves over [Bb] to play the guitar, and [G] Shelley takes over from Devoto as the band's front man.