They're back with a buzz

have got a living to make, and all. And maybe if once having done

something brilliantly, you keep doing it long enough, you'll be good at

it again. Or words to that effect. Or maybe not.

Whatever, we cannot find it within ourselves to cast horrid

nasturtiums upon Mancunian buzz-pop deities Pete Shelley and Steve

Diggle. In truth, their Buzzcockian fizz-tune heyday came 16 bleak punk

summers ago. And their new LP, Trade Test Transmissions (Castle), tends

o'ermuch to the prosaic. But we are sure that the Scottish leg of the

Buzzcocks' current UK tour (Ayr; Aberdeen; Edinburgh; Glasgow's Cathouse

on Friday) will be worth a look.

But is it not three-and-a-half years since your initial reunion tour,

Mr Shelley? What's not been happening, me old 'cock?

An acid-glam Bet Lynch, Pete Shelley chews out an answer via rounded

Lancastrian vowels. ''It wasn't self-enforced, the delay. The difficulty

was in trying to convince the UK record industry. Lots of games were

played, but now we've a record with new songs that gives everything some

justification. If people buy it, they'll know when to clap when they

come and see us.''

Would it not be better to strike out boldly into the void, rather than

doing songs that sound like the old Buzzcocks did?

''It doesn't come from our hearts to do it differently. There's a

Buzzcocks' sound that just happens. It's natural. It's like our

accents.''

But, rather than writing more Buzzcock-style tunes with guitars,

couldn't you have done something electro-dancey -- like your wondrous

first solo single, Homo Sapien -- and inspired a hall full of lumpily

heterosexual Buzzcocks' blokes to lisp camp choruses featuring the word

''homo''?

Pete laughs, refusing to be drawn. He'd sooner talk about the new LP,

which ''articulates a wide range of otherwise-internalised ideas and

emotions, everything from the rise of neo-fascism to masturbation'', and

the fact that the band are scheduled to play in New York next month at

the prestigious New Music Seminar again.

Steve Diggle chimes in. Stateside, the Buzzcocks were always a

reference point, he observes with justifiable pride. Nirvana, Bob Mould,

R.E.M's Peter Buck; Steve's met them, and they've all admitted to having

begun by mucking about with Buzzcocks' covers. ''It's gratifying. You

can't get away from your history, but you don't want to dwell on it.

''It's not been a nostalgia thing for us since 1990. We play the new

ones live. We live in the now and in the future, athough we do the old

songs at the end for the established fans.''

In reply to accusations of a descent into Buzzcockian cliche, he is

adamant. If the Buzzcocks continuing to be the Buzzcocks is cliche'd,

then so are ''catchy, memorable choruses with simple guitar riffs,

catchy solos and harmony vocals''.

By heck, Steve's looking forward to this tour. ''There's one guy

that's going to every date. He's an accountant. By night he becomes a

Buzzcocks fan, a monster, jumping about at the front.''

What would Steve have been doing if he hadn't been a Buzzcock?

''I'd have been unemployed. I'm a conscientious objector to work. I'd

be starving in the streets! I'd have been a poet or a Coronation

flag-seller! Music told me more about life than my parents did. It told

me life's a joke. Records are precious; they turn your world upside

down.''

It is touching and probably good that a grown man can feel this way

about the redemptive power of rockenpop. Or it isn't. Give me a

Buzzcock; mature punkers doing their best, which is all they know, all

they can.

Rock off

WE had no reproachful words for Radio Scotland's rock-hating overseers

last week, but our campaign on behalf of this nation's lovers of

contemporary popular music will not simply fade away. Queen Margaret

Drive's mandarins have still to justify their sudden, scandalous

decision to denude Radio Scotland of nightly rock and pop. Likewise,

Professor Sir Graham Hills and his colleagues in the Broadcasting

Council for Scotland remain insultingly mute.

Despite John Cavanagh's welcome reappearance on weekend Radio Scotland

with his 90-minute Original Masters programme, the station's lack of

understanding of (and antipathy towards) unclassical music is as evident

as ever.

New releases

Teenage Fanclub, Radio (Creation) -- whoo-hoo! They're coming back!

Not that they've really been away! A new four-track single, out next

Monday! Tunes! Guitars! Electric! Drumming! Voices you can believe in!

Order now!

Various, Living The Nightlife (Kent) -- a 24-track collection

featuring some of the uptempo soulfulness which appeared on the Wand and

Scepter labels in the years 1964-67, thereafter to be hymned by all true

Northern soul-lovers. Chuck Jackson! Betty Lavette! Tommy Hunt! Shake

and fingerpop!

The Standells, Is This The Way That You Get Your Kicks (Big Beat) --

they hailed from Boston and pretended in the mid-sixties to be angry

proto-punks with a bad attitude, but in fact they were a teen-pop

cash-in band who were about as hard and authentic as New Kids On The

Block. The highlights of their career were (a) supporting the Rolling

Stones on an early US tour, and (b) being photographed at an airport

next to a slightly embarrassed-looking Mick Jagger. Dirty Water, a

raucous hymn to their home town's riverside nightlife, was their biggest

hit, and it must be said that it still sounds quite splendid. As does a

lot of the stuff on this compilation, in fact. What does this prove?

That pop's conveyor-belt can transform base humanity into sonic gold.

Joe Tex, Ain't Gonna Bump No More (Southbound) -- ah, those heady

disco days of the seventies! They're back! So hand me down my high-waist

34" French flares (with patch pockets)! My stack-heeled two-tone Gatsby

boots! A pint of Martini and 20 Consulate! And a one, a two, a

one-two-three-four: ''Ain't gonna bump no more with no dimensionally

extended person!'' These words weren't quite what the late Joe Tex sang.

Similarly, this compilation of material crafted in the seventies to

exploit the then-current disco boom reveals that Joe Tex was never

anything but Joe Tex: a muscular funkateer with a country tinge to his

voice and a wicked sense of humour. Solid songs; funky fun. My plea to

the recordbiz: next we need a compilation covering Joe's entire career,

from jocular sixties soul-funk (Skinny Legs And All) to disco parody

(Discomonia, wherein he satirises Rod Stewart and the Bee Gees).