Have You Got Spiral Scratch, Buzzcocks?

This Friday in Manchester and Saturday in Brixton, 25th and 26th May 2012, Buzzcocks will play for the first time in 33 years with original vocalist Howard Devoto. I will be at the latter show. I am getting quite excited, almost as much as my fourteen year old self would have been.

This chapter from Taking Candy from a Dog will explain all.

It’s July 1979 and Lee writes to tell me some big news. Really big news. He’s read in the NME that Spiral Scratch is going to be re-released.

After a string of fantastic singles throughout 1978 the last couple haven’t been so hot, but the Buzzcocks are still my favourite band. I bought the current one, Harmony in my Head, in both the blue and red sleeve, even though it’s not a patch on Promises or Love You More.

I’ve got everything they’ve ever made, including Pulsebeat 12" on blue vinyl, everything except Spiral Scratch. Lee tells me that the Spiral Scratch EP is one of punk’s main foundation stones, the first true ‘independent’ record. That piece of plastic, recorded one December afternoon in 1976, has inspired a thousand other bands to make DIY records. That way they cut out the corporate middle man.

I’ve never heard Spiral Scratch, the only record they made before Howard Devoto left the band to form Magazine. You can buy it easily enough though. Lee says you can see it advertised in the NME classifieds. The problem is you can buy it easily enough if you have £15 to spare. Yeah, you heard, fifteen quid for an EP. I get £1.25 a week from my paper round and even Capital Radio by the Clash is only a tenner. It’s that rare though, that sought after.

And now it’s soon to be available from every record shop in the land for only £1.49. When when when? I write back.

Lee replies - two weeks’ time, Friday 10th August. I can barely wait. The magic of Christmas returns, seven years after I’d sussed the big secret about the man with two names.

The day arrives and I march up to the record counter at Boots in Chatham, 9am.

“Have you got Spiral Scratch, Buzzcocks?”

The girl looks at me blankly and shrugs. It means, ‘I haven’t a clue what you’re talking about’.

Now, the Buzzcocks are not as well known as the Bee Gees, ELO or the Pistols, but heck, they’ve been on Top of the Pops loads of times and this is meant to be a record shop.

Would she act like this if I asked for spuds in a greengrocers or plimsolls in a shoe shop? Hmmm, I wonder?

Never mind, this non-reaction is okay. It’s better than a definite, ‘I am very sorry, Sir, but we do not stock your desired punk rock merchandise.’ She goes into the back room to ask someone. I have hope. She will come back with my shiny disc in its paper sleeve, the one with the black and white Polaroid of Howard and the Boys on the cover. My palms are clammy. I cannot wait a moment longer for this aural delight. Here she comes...

They’ve not got it.

I plead with her, “But it’s re-released today...it said so...in the NME.”

There was nothing the poor wretch could do. She doesn’t have the record. She’s asked and they don’t have it.

I go to Harlequin, K2, Smith’s and Startrack. The story is much the same. I may as well be asking for ‘Bangers and Mash’ by the Lemon Emulsion Spectacular. I go to Gillingham, to Barnaby’s and Smith’s. Same result, same blank looks. The furious and indignant 14-year-old in the NHS specs, Adidas shirt and flares (Yes, I know it’s 1979, but my Mum buys the clothes and she’s still living in 1974) wonders how these numbskulls ever got a job in retail. Don’t they know anything?

The next day, a family trip to Canterbury. Sightseeing? You must be kidding. I walk every pavement of Tommy Beckett’s city, seeking out every record store. You know the question, you’ve guessed the answers.

Dad has the week off work and we go out somewhere different each day, like we always do. Everywhere we go - Hastings, Tunbridge Wells, Margate, Maidstone = same outcome. Come Friday, already a week beyond the magical 10th August, we visit Hythe, my favourite seaside town. Hythe will not let me down. I will invoke the spirits of all the skeletons in the crypt at St Leonard’s Church to curse all the record stores in Kent if they do not have this record.

Hythe is a sleepy little town, one of the Cinque Ports, with only two record shops and not, you would imagine, a bastion of punk rock. I plough on nonetheless, with a doughty spirit that would have made me a valuable member of Captain Robert Falcon Scott’s team. First shop, same story. One down, one to go; the little one at the end of the High Street, the one just before the canal.

I step through the door, the same clamminess in my hands of a week earlier and my heart sinks. It sinks to somewhere around my ankles. I cannot believe the sight in front of my eyes. Is this some sort of bizarre practical joke? There is a woman behind the counter. When I say woman, I mean somebody’s grandmother. No, make that somebody’s great-grandmother. She’s not likely to have heard of the Beatles let alone the Buzzcocks. Would probably be fine if I wanted Spiral Scratch by Max Bygraves or Anarchy in the UK by Vera Lynn.

Every bone in my body tells me to walk out of the shop. Self preservation – I’ve already made an idiot of myself in front of two dozen teenaged shop assistants in the last week and have no need to repeat the humiliation.

But… there’s always a but. The but is - I desperately need that bit of plastic.

I walk up to the counter and the lady gives me a welcoming smile, which seems to be the first I’ve seen in my forlorn quest.

“Hello dear, can I help you?”

“Well...uh...I…er...”

“Is there something in particular that you’re looking for?”

“Well...uh...er...” I dither. Oh well, here goes; “Have you got Spiral Scratch by a band called the...er...Buzzcocks?” I am already turning to walk out of the door.

“Oh dear, no, I am sorry, it’s been delayed, I believe. Now, we do have Harmony in my Head, we’ve got that in a blue or a red sleeve and we’ve got both the Love Bites and Another Music in a Different Kitchen long-players, and I think we also have, if I’m not mistaken, Moving Away from the Pulsebeat 12" on clear vinyl, though not alas the blue vinyl, but let me see...”

She consults an official looking pamphlet, not the useless NME. More like something aimed at punk rock experts.

“Yes, here we are,” she reads, “Spiral Scratch by the Buzzcocks featuring Howard Devoto has been delayed until the 24^th I’m afraid.”

What a lady! She’s just crashed straight into the Top 5 Greatest Shopkeepers of All Time, right up there with the two ex-Spitfire pilots who run the cheese shop in Canterbury, the bloke from Mr Benn and the two old crones with the second-hand bookshop in Westward Ho!

She offers to put one aside when it comes in next week, but alas, I explain that I shall be back in Chatham by then. I thank her very much and she wishes me a cheery farewell.

As chance would have it, Lee is coming up to visit. It’s bank holiday weekend, and these days punk rock comes before football, cricket or tennis.

I tell Lee about the great lady of Hythe and he says ‘Amazing, shazbut’.

He’s got a new favourite word; he keeps saying ‘Shazbut’. I’ve no idea where he got that from.

We go down to Chatham together and we each buy Spiral Scratch on Friday 24^th August, just as my punk rock grandma had promised, from Startrack in the High Street. We take them back home and immediately put Lee’s copy on Grandad’s turntable; the same Ferguson hi-fi that had introduced me to punk rock just two years ago. I have to tell you, it’s worth every penny:

Boredom + Time’s Up + Friends of Mine + Breakdown = pure dynamite. We can’t stop playing it.

In fact, we’re playing it three days later when Grandad and Mac storm into the room with ashen looks on their faces. Grandad ignores us and turns on the telly. Grandad never watches telly, except for the Budget, the Weather, This is Your Life, or someone funny like Benny Hill, Steptoe or Dave Allen.

While they’re still waiting for the telly to warm up Boredom finishes, and in the brief silence before Friends of Mine begins, Mac says, “Bastards”.

Lee and I look at each other, then at Mac. Grandad is glued to the box. Lee turns the record off.

Come again?

“They’ve blown up Mountbatten.”

Whadaya mean? Who’s blown up Mountbatten?

“The IRA.”

And then we see it, a news flash direct from Ireland.

Lee looks at me, says ‘Shazbut’ and laughs. We sneak off up to Lee’s room and play Spiral Scratch there instead. He laughs uncontrollably for the next twenty minutes. He tells me that he can’t erase the image of a pair of plimsolls, like the ones Arthur wears, being washed up on the shore. It’s that that’s making him laugh.

“Mountbatten’s plimsolls, shazbut.”

And in twenty years’ time they’ll re-issue it again, Spiral Scratch, on one of those CD things that haven’t been invented yet. And this time I’ll know about it because Tower Records in Piccadilly will feature it in their promotional booklet that they give away free in the store. I will pluck a copy from one of the Everest stacks that they leave by every counter. I’ll flick through it absent-mindedly until my eyes zero in, like paper clips to a magnet, to a familiar picture. A picture I know very well.

One CD, same cover, same 4 tracks, for a paltry £3.99. Fantastic!

I will immediately take my wallet out of my pocket and turn towards the guy behind the counter. This time I won’t be faced by someone’s great-grandmother. Oh no, Tower Records do not employ OAPs who look like Thora Hird. No, Sir. No, Tower Records employ professionals who know their music inside-out. He’ll have long hair, ponytail, goatee beard, face jewellery, celtic tattoos, Nirvana t-shirt and I’ll say, “Have you got Spiral Scratch, Buzzcocks?”

And he will look at me blankly, pull a face and shrug, “What’s that?”

And I will think of my dear old lady from Hythe, who will no doubt by then be residing in punk rock heaven, and I’ll give a wry smile and think, you may be gone, but you will never be forgotten. RIP.