Limited Edition of 1000

This interview is taken from the Beggars Banquet/Luxuria "lifelines" promo only album (see [Interview LP]).

Interview conducted by Tony Michealides.

Grateful thanks to Steve Webbon at Beggars Banquet And Howard Devoto.

For best results thaw for one hour before use. Place flexi over vinyl record and weight label area with a coin.

Do not re-freeze.

In a true bizarre tale this was produced by our very own Dave :-

I produced the flexi largely to try and boost interest in my Late For The Real World Buzzcocks fanzine. I approached Beggars Banquet, who said that I could use the interview for free providing I give them a full page ad in the 'zine.

The flexi was 'mastered' from the vinyl LP, in my kitchen (the easiest available room at the time - I lived a strange life at the time !) I supplied an audio tape and the firm in London produced plates, no test pressings or anything like that. I can't remember how much they cost, but I got the sleeves printed and numbered for a tenner! I then bought 1000 cheapo poly sleeves and sat for hours folding the sleeves and cobbling the thing together.

I never got to keep the plates, supposedly they melt them down and re-use them but I think I faded it out early to fit the time restrictions of the 7" disc.

When I first started selling them I used to log who I sent each number to, but I dropped said process. I was a trainspotter of sorts even in 1992.

I recently discovered some when clearing out under the stairs - and are available at a very reasonable price - Dave.

HD:-

I suppose it all started in late 1975 when I stuck up a notice at college asking to meet some guys who would be interested in forming a band. I slung a few names around in the advert like 'The Stooges' and 'The Velvet Underground' - I think I said something like "anyone who might be interested in a version of 'Sister Ray" or something like that. And through that met Peter Shelley.

We fumbled around for a few months - I think with a drummer - playing some Eno songs and some Stooges songs and this that and the other and really not quite knowing what we were doing. Obviously at the same time the Sex Pistols had started to happen cos I think by the time Peter and I saw them in February 1976 they'd already played a few gigs at St Martin's College.

So its always been curious to me that - that they were doing that in London we were up here sat in the Student Union bar on a Thursday or Friday or whatever day it was that NME came out and Peter pointed out this review - which was the first ever review of the Sex Pistols"Don't look over your shoulder the Sex Pistols are coming". And he said well have you read this and I read it and it mentioned they played a "Stooges" number - they something it said something about "We're not into music - we're into the chaos"

It happened I could borrow a car that weekend and we just decided to go down to London to see if this band the Sex Pistols were playing. We went to see them - sort of looked at each other and said "Yeah - We'll go back to Manchester and do sort of something like this" - cos of course nobody else was doing anything - anything like that at all. And the Sex Pistols had 5 or 6 followers.

One of the things that made me latch into them was also the fact that John Lydon is and was a kind of poet. I in particular remember the line - I don't know what song its from now"Eat your heart out on a plastic tray". Vivienne Westwood said to me at some point John didn't write "I want to be an Anarchist" the refrain of 'Anarchy In The UK' was "I want to be Anarchy" which is again a kind of poetry. So for me a lyricist there was immediately something there - not only the 'Stooges' this that and the other and the style - there was lyrically something happening.

So anyway we come back to Manchester and we've got a little more of an idea of what we're aiming to do and what I'd actually done was said to Malcolm"I try and fix you up to play at our college" - and he said "Yeah if you can fix it up - we'll do it". I couldn't get the Student's Union to go for it at all - so he then said "find somewhere" and we'll come and play.

I can't remember who told me about it - I somehow learned about the 'Lesser Free Trade Hall' - which is this little hall that holds about 400 people about the free trade hall and I think it was about £25 to hire it or something. And they came up and played in June of that year and about 100 people turned up. They really enjoyed it and they wanted to do it again. And at that gig we met Steve Diggle there cos Steve was sort of wandering around outside and Malcolm McLaren in his entrepreneurial way sort of hauled him in and said "Come to this gig - your friend's inside".

And we met Steve there - so by the time of the second gig in July we were ready and we opened that evening's entertainment then there were 'Slaughter And The Dogs' and then the 'Sex Pistols' played. A lot of the music press had come up so we were in the music papers the following week with out first gig.

I think in many ways it was possibly the first punk gig in the sense of their being more than one band. I think that gig was an instance of one of those gigs where far more people claimed to have been there than could possibly fitted in the place. From that first gig we played with me singing I played at most 10 dates through to the end of 76.

Then sort of around Christmas - New Year - we went and re-recorded 4 of the songs that we'd done for the Time's Up session that "Orgasm Addict" came from. We re-recorded 4 of those songs "Breakdown""Times Up""Friends Of Mine" and "Boredom". The only way we could get a record out was to do it ourselves and so we formed this label called 'New Hormones' - sort of had to learn about being a little record company in 3 weeks flat.

The only people involved are really essentially the band - Linder who was later to form her own band Ludus - and a friend of mine called Richard Boone who was later to go on to manage the Buzzcocks after I left. I think we pressed 1000 copies of 'Spiral Scratch' and we wondered "wooah are we even going to sell half of these to get back the money to pay Pete's Dad". They went in about a week or two weeks or so. Virgin records here were selling them and we were sending some down to the Rough Trade shop in London and 1 or 2 others. And so we pressed more and we pressed more.

By this time I'd decided to leave the band - making the record seemed to me to be a good point to stop things.