Manchester band Buzzcocks were pivotal in many aspects: their debut EP Spiral Scratch was a self-financed release without an established record label and they expanded UK Punk’s geography outside London.
Breaking the macho mold, songwriter Pete Shelley (sometimes along with Magazine’s Howard Devoto) sang from the perspective of a person with “a sexuality different from the missionary position” with gender-fluid lyrics on romantic angst, politics and frustrations, so it could be universally relatable.
Everybody’s Happy Nowadays is Buzzcocks’ 1979 track about a delusional state of numbness and it showed a (even) more pop-polished version of the band, making old-fashioned fans grow apart from them.
These are Gildan shirts, screen-printed using violet water-based ink.
I wanted to preserve the yellow & blue aesthetics from their early artwork by Linder Sterling and Malcolm Garrett.
