Let The Day Begin...Let The Day Start!: Day 155 - Trade Test Transmissions

Trade Test Transmissions - Buzzcocks

Castle

Produced by Ralph Ruppert

Released May/June 1993

Buzzcocks
    Pete Shelley – guitar, vocals
    Steve Diggle – guitar, vocals
    Tony Barber – bass
    Philip Barker – drums

The past couple of days we have been talking about artists having to begin somewhere, today's post is a little different because it's about a band restarting again.Today's spotlight falls on the best band ever to come out of Manchester...Buzzcocks!

After breaking up in 1981 after making demos (I have a bootleg of some of them, mainly seem to be Diggle's Demos and they are not too brilliant) for a reported Fourth Studio album Pete Shelly went solo, John Maher and Steve Diggle formed Flag of Convenience and Steve Garvey formed Motivation and joined the Blue Orchids for a short period.

Their last album had been A Different Kind of Tension (1979) and final single had been Part Three (featuring Running Free / What Do You Know) in December 1980.

With news of their reunion in 1989 came the hope that there would be new music on the horizon. Shelly, Diggle, Maher and Garvey all back together again (at least for a short while!). Then in 1991 Alive Tonight EP was released (which proved just how brilliant they were again!) and former sticksman for The Smiths Mick Joyce was on drums.

A-Side

01. Alive Tonight (Shelly)

02. Serious Crime (Diggle)

B-Side 

01. Last To Know (Shelly)

02. Successful Street (Diggle)

And finally, after a long wait the Fourth Studio Album from Buzzcocks appeared entitled Trade Test Transmissions. They sounded back to their perfect best. Shelly had written pretty much most of the album, Diggle wrote five of the fifteen songs (and his songs are great especially Isolation and Alive Tonight). It was as if they had never been away.

Since Trade Test Transmissions Buzzcocks have continued touring and releasing new music. They have put out a further five studio albums: All Set (1996), Modern (1999), Buzzcocks (2003), Flat-Pack Philosophy (2006) and the excellent latest album The Way (2014).This year Steve Diggle and Pete Shelly are celebrating 40 years of Buzzcocks!

Let The Day Begin...Let The Day Start!