Autonomy: Portrait of a Buzzcock

By Steve Diggle

Publication Date: 22.08.24

From bass player to lead guitarist, member, Steve Diggle has been the driving force keeping Buzzcocks alive since he first met Pete Shelley in 1976. Together they would ignite the Manchester music scene, kickstart indie and become one of the best loved and most influential punk groups of all time.

Following Shelley’s untimely death in 2018, Autonomy is Diggle’s definitive inside account of their shared musical legacy and complex friendship through the band’s rise, fall, and rise again – from their punk origins supporting Sex Pistols with original singer Howard Devoto to Top of the Pops, the excess of success, break-up, reformation and life beyond bereavement.

Funny, honest and touchingly philosophical, it is also Diggle’s very personal story of working class escape, dreams, redemption and loss – an ultimately heroic survivor’s tale from an irrepressible rock’n’roll spirit.

"Steve Diggle's approach to bass, and later his switch to guitar, was crucial in the shaping of the sound of the entire punk movement. Autonomy captures the excitement I felt in 1977 first hearing Buzzcocks' visceral punch." Will Sergeant, Echo & the Bunnymen

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