Creating a buzz

If it is the vision of a leader that engages its employees, then it is the vision of the manager that gels the musical talents of a band. Katie Pattullo talks to former Buzzcocks manager Richard Boon, once referred to as the ‘Malcolm McLaren of the North’, about the part he played while managing one of the most influential bands of late-seventies British punk

Back in the mid-seventies bands would come to Manchester to play, but it was unusual for them to come from Manchester. All that would change with the fateful meeting of Howard Trafford   and Peter McNeish, both students at Bolton Institute.

The two students changed their identities to Devoto and Shelley, respectively, and decided to set up a band having seen the Sex Pistols perform in High Wycombe and been inspired by lead singer Johnny Rotten’s statement: “We’re not into music, we’re into chaos.” Shortly after, the Buzzcocks were born.

Richard Boon, originally from Leeds, had gone to school – and formed a lasting friendship – with Howard Devoto. Having graduated from Reading University, he moved into Howard’s spare room and fell into a ready-made job vacancy for someone to hire rehearsal rooms, and book gigs for, the recently formed Buzzcocks.

The punk movement was in its early days. Boon and Devoto had also seen The Fall in one of their early gigs: “We just thought, ‘yes: we get where they’re coming from’,” Boon explains to Employee Engagement Today.

But the music scene then was very much a do-it-yourself culture. “No one would book you, you had to find places yourself and put yourself on. We had to create the buzz,” adds Boon. “Managing the band at this time was not about leadership – it was about stumbling into things.”

One of the pivotal and influential decisions taken by the Buzzcocks at that time was to release their material independently on Boon’s label New Hormones. In January 1977 the four-track EP Spiral Scratch was released. Boon says: “We felt this [the punk movement] was all going to burn out and we had to document it in some way.” This was the first time a record had been released without a major record company’s backing and was the dawn of the alternative music era: it kicked off the infrastructure for independent artists.

Boon has since been described as a visionary: “Richard’s vision ‘became’ the music, such was his influence,” said Ian Runacres of Dislocation Dance, one of the labels signings.

But 1977 was an eventful year for the Buzzcocks. Disillusioned by the way the media had clichéd the punk movement, in March that year and shortly after the release of Spiral Scratch, Howard Devoto quit the band. Shelley lost little time in taking to the mic and in August the band signed to United Artists for £75,000 – albeit over a three-year period. It was shortly after this they released, perhaps their most commercial hit, Ever Fallen in Love.

Booking emerging local bands to support them, meant the Buzzcocks had helped put Manchester on the map in terms of media and presence. Manchester had become, after London, a leading punk city with a thriving music scene, perhaps a more friendly one than London. There was a sense that musicians wanted to collaborate and throw ideas into the ring; they wanted their voice to be heard. “We were all making it up as we went along,” says Boon, “but the band were very self-motivating: we knew we were saying something that was worth saying.”

There were many fans out there who agreed. One of the lasting legacies of the Buzzcocks was their personal approach to their fanbase. Introducing fans to like-minded fans in other parts of the country, through their ‘exclusive’ fanzine The Secret Public, could be seen as a forerunner to the Facebook of today.

 But, despite attracting a wide range of budding and talented musicians to the New Hormones label – not to mention The Smiths who, fearing the label lacked sufficient marketing and distribution backing, Boon advised to approach Rough Trade in London – the label was frequently cash strapped. By 1982, there were “financial issues” and Boon was forced to call time on the label.

Boon adds: “Part of my, and that punk, rationale was: making things happen. Make the place you happen to be living a place that you want to be living in.”

If you consider your place as the workplace this is a statement that could hold relevance not just in the punk movement of the seventies but for leaders in today’s work environment. Be proud, be loud, carry the vision.