57 - Buzzcocks with Steve Diggle (Manchester)

57 - Buzzcocks with Steve Diggle (Manchester)

Author: Rock n Roll Book Club March 29, 2025 Duration: 1:06:33

This week we welcome Steve Diggle, original founder member of Buzzcocks, to discuss his memoir 'Autonomy: My Life as a Buzzcock'. The conversation explores Steve's early life in Manchester - growing up in the suburb of Bradford, the influence of music in the 60s, and the formation of Buzzcocks amidst the early UK punk scene.


Steve shares personal anecdotes about his childhood, the impact of hearing bands like The Beatles, The Kinks and The Rolling Stones, and the magic of performing live for the first time at the Lesser Free Trade Hall in Manchester.


We go into on the early days of the Buzzcocks with Pete Shelley, Howard Devoto & John Maher following their remarkable meeting at the first Sex Pistols gig at the Manchester Free Trade Hall. The recording of their iconic Spiral Scratch EP with Martin Hannett, the impact of Howard Devoto's departure from the band & Steve switching to guitar, the White Riot Tour with the Clash, the Slits & the Jam, the Screen on the Green gig in Islington with the Sex Pistols & signing to United Artists with the guidance of Andrew Lauder & more.



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Hosted by Mark Hart & Simon Cardwell

Written & Produced by Simon Cardwell

Edited, mixed & spruced up by Andy Maxwell 


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The Music Maps Podcast from the Rock n Roll Book Club isn't your typical music show. It's an audio expedition where geography is the guide. Every episode starts with a specific location-a city, a venue, a forgotten roadside attraction-and uses that place as a launchpad to explore the sounds, stories, and scenes connected to it. You might find yourself deep in the blues clubs of Chicago one week and tracing the underground punk threads of a small European town the next. The conversations are wide-ranging, connecting the dots between iconic artists and obscure movements, all anchored to a point on the map. Listening to this podcast feels like adding a new, richly detailed pin to a global atlas of musical influence. It’s about the context behind the chords and the cultural soil from which genres grow. The result is a continuously evolving, deeply human portrait of how music and place are inextricably linked, one fascinating destination at a time.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 100

Music Maps Podcast
Podcast Episodes
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Duration: 56:58
Roddy Bottum is best known as the keyboard player in Faith No More & his new book The Royal We is out now on Akashic Books. Roddy moves to San Francisco from L.A. in 1981 & a l;ittle while later he joins what was origina…
103 - The Undertones, Teenage Kicks & John Peel with Mickey Bradley [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:04:01
This week we celebrate 50 years of The Undertones with the one & only Mickey Bradley - our starting point is Derry in the late 1970s as we trace the formation of the band at the O’Neill house on Beechwood Avenue. Althoug…
101 - The Blitz with Robert Elms [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:09:32
This week esteemed writer & broadcaster Robert Elms joins us to tell us about the legendary Blitz nightclub in London’s Convent Garden. Back then Central London looked very different to today - back then it was an empty…
100 - Dexys Midnight Runners with Kevin Rowland [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 38:47
Join us to celebrate 100 episodes of Music Maps with the mighty Kevin Rowland to discuss hew recent memory Bless Me Father & the story of Dexys Midnight Runners. We start with Kevin’s early years in Wolverhampton, the fa…