Street Portrait (for and of Steve Diggle), 2014– Street Portrait (for and of Steve Diggle), 2014 –

Wotcha! While I was away from here, I didn’t take many photographs – none for the first week, a few in the second. It’s funny how rusty you get when you’re not practising a craft – it takes days of wandering about achieving very little to get back in the swing of things. At the end of one of those particularly fruitless days I was about to pack the camera away when I spotted Steve Diggle. I loved the way he was dressed and his attitude. Steve was really nice about me taking a few shots. This one’s the first and my favourite. Thanks very much, Steve! Hope you like your picture.

Steve Diggle is the guitarist/ vocalist with Buzzcocks – one of the first punk bands in Manchester, and a role model for the raft of bands that followed (they were also one of the first punk bands to release a record on their own label: New Hormones), as well as introducing the city to the Sex Pistols (who they invited to play at the Lesser Free Trade Hall in 1976).

Incendiary, melodic and lyrically sophisticated, Buzzcocks’ music is an incredibly exciting, inventive take on Punk. Steve co-wrote the band’s Fast Cars, Promises, Lipstick, Why Can’t I Touch It and I Need, and is responsible for the classics Autonomy, Love is Lies and Harmony In My Head amongst others. If you want an introduction to the band, I strongly recommend you buy Singles Going Steady – it’s crammed with punk gems.

Buzzcocks release their ninth album, The Way, in November.

* * *

This post is dedicated to Ashley Lily Scarlett.

* * *