Buzzcocks with Howard Devoto - Time's Up LP 

Label: Raven Records (Unofficial); Year: 1979; Format: Vinyl LP 

I stumbled across this record not too long ago at my local record shop up the road from where I live and didn't hesitate a single minute purchasing it. Buzzcocks are one of those rare bands that I enjoy hearing even some of the newer material of as they never lost the magic touch of coming up with great songs. So, according to the little research I have done the version I have is an Australian bootleg released in 1979 and is basically a bootleg of an earlier bootleg for history's sake. More important is the music and that was taken from a session in October of 1976 even before these Manchester lads recorded their self-released first EP. So what you get is Buzzcocks at its rawest with Howard Devoto still part of the band. Now, some people will argue that Buzzcocks have never sounded better than at this point where they really had that unfiltered early raw punk sound as opposed to the cleaner and better produced sound of their later output. Now, that is up to everybody's own taste but this LP is definitely worth getting providing you with a chance hearing tracks like Boredom, Breakdown or Orgasm Addict recorded without dubs live in a studio when those songs were just ideas the day before so to speak. I think what is really enjoyable the most about this record is hearing the spontaneity of the time, and in that regard it is hard to beat. Domino Records have released the session in recent years officially but from what I saw the tracking list is a little different. Last but not least listen to the drumming on You Tear Me up and tell me whether that is not the beginning of D-Beat.