Gig 072: Buzzcocks / Subway Sect Oxford New Theatre 1 October 1978 I might have said in an earlier post that The Jam were my favourite group, and perhaps that particular week it was true, but the punk group whose records I adored to the point of distraction were Buzzcocks (as Pete Shelley insisted, not the Buzzcocks). I was still blown away by their debut Spiral Scratch 4-track ep, which even now sounds like nothing else on earth and was streets ahead of the competition in almost every respect, taking guitar/bass/drums/vocals somewhere very strange yet strangely accessible, erudite Beckett-referencing lyrics tumbling over themselves like an overloaded fruit machine disgorging its loot. Following the departure of Howard Devoto it might have been reasonable to assume that the game was up; subsequent singles and the first album suggested something quite otherwise. Where Devoto sang about sex in an oddly dispassionate and sexless manner (and would continue to do so,...