Short Circuit: Live at the Electric Circus

Vinyl CollectionCD Collection
Written By Paul McDermott

A few words on Short Circuit: Live at the Electric Circus taking in: Paul Hanley’s Sixteen Again: How Pete Shelley & Buzzcocks Changed Manchester Music (and me), Joy Division, Buzzcocks, The Fall, John Cooper Clarke, The Lobby bar, Leeside Music on Cork’s MacCurtain Street, price stickers, Ultravox’s ‘Vienna’ and Joe Dolce’s ‘Shaddup Your Face’.

Various Artists - Short Circuit: Live at the Electric Circus (10” - 1978, Virgin Records). Photograph by Paul McDermott.

I mentioned Leeside Music on Cork’s MacCurtain Street in a recent post (The Smiths - Rarities) and how when I flick through my records the bargains from that secondhand record shop always jump out at me; the bargains and the scarred sleeves evidencing the removal of one of Leeside’s notoriously gluey price stickers. I joked in that post*…

“What did you spend most of the early-90s doing Paul?”
“Slowly, very slowly, peeling Leeside Music price stickers from records. Good times!”

* It wasn’t really a joke.

Joe Dolce Music Theatre - ‘Shaddap Your Face’ (7” - 1980, Epic Records). Photograph by Paul McDermott.

It still irks me that I failed to remove the Leeside sticker from the Epic company sleeve housing Joe Dolce Music Theatre’s ‘Shaddup Your Face’. Why do I possess this 7”? Well, forgive-a me, I’ve a penchant for novelty-a records.

‘Shaddup Your Face’ spend three weeks at the top of the UK Singles Chart in February and March 1981 improbably keeping Ultravox’s ‘Vienna’ at No. 2. ‘Vienna’ reached the top of the Charts in Ireland, Belgium and the Netherlands but was never a UK No. 1.

Ultravox - ‘Vienna’ (7” - 1980, Chrysalis Records). Photograph by Paul McDermott.

‘Vienna’ had the ultimate revenge in my house. Its price sticker came clean off whereas ‘Shaddup Your Face’ is forever to remain defaced by a cursed Leeside sticker that refuses to budge. There is pop justice after all.

Leeside’s price stickers came to mind again as I recently read Paul Hanley’s Sixteen Again: How Pete Shelley & Buzzcocks Changed Manchester Music (and me). It’s his third book about Manchester music. Hanley played in The Fall between 1980 and 1984 and Have A Bleedin Guess: The Story of Hex Enduction Hour is his first-hand account of the recording of what many consider to be the band’s greatest album. In Leave The Capital: A History of Manchester Music in 13 Recordings he told the story of some of the influential records that were recorded at Strawberry and Pluto recording studios. With Sixteen Again he’s gone three for three.

Sixteen Again is a glorious weave of biography, oral history, critique and memoir and like Hanley’s other two books, it’s an essential read. It includes details of Buzzcocks’ gig at the ‘Last Night of the Electric Circus’ weekend of gigs on 1 and 2 October 1977 and the subsequent release on Virgin Records of the 10” live compilation album: Short Circuit: Live at the Electric Circus.

Paul Hanley’s Leave the Capital, Have a Bleedin Guess and Sixteen Again (all Route Publishing). Photograph by Paul McDermott.

I remember finding Short Circuit in Leeside in 1991. Even then I had read enough about Manchester music to know of this famed live compilation featuring The Fall, Buzzcocks, Joy Division, The Drones, Steel Pulse and John Cooper Clarke. The sleeve of Leeside’s copy was battered, but they had it priced at a measly £1.99.

A bargain, despite its sleeve condition it was always coming home with me but it still annoys me that I couldn’t get the damn Leeside price sticker off without leaving a sticky glue residue.

The Electric Circus was a music venue in Collyhurst, Manchester that hosted punk gigs in 1977. The building was originally the Palace Cinema and later was renamed the Top Hat Club run by Bernard Manning. Later again it was a bingo hall before becoming the Electric Circus and hosting gigs by Ramones, Talking Heads, The Sex Pistols, The Clash, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Motorhead, The Jam, The Slits and The Damned.

The venue closed its doors in October 1977 and Short Circuit features live recordings of local Manchester bands from the last two nights. In An Ideal For Living - An History of Joy Division, Mark Johnson writes, “The Electric Circus was a casualty of its own popularity, and the combined weight and vigorously-enforced fire regulations doomed it.” Johnson continues:

“Since May 1977 the club had been the focal point of the burgeoning Manchester music and social milieu. But the bands of Manchester were not likely to let the club shut its doors without a good send off so they held a “wake” over two nights in commemoration.” An Ideal For Living - An History of Joy Division (1984).

In New Order + Joy Division - Pleasures and Wayward Distractions, Brian Edge writes that, “the Electric Circus faced imminent closure for breaches of fire regulations and all knew that once it closed it would remain closed, probably for good.” Edge continues:

“To commemorate the loss of a club which had for so long been the vortex of Manchester’s New Wave activity, the owners organised a festival. It featured many local bands, most of them regulars, Buzzcocks, The Fall, Slaughter and the Dogs, Warsaw, The Drones and other local celebrities like John the Postman and John Cooper Clarke. A rumour circulated among the loyal crowd who turned up to bid the club a fond, if hot and cramped, farewell that a live album was being recorded. It was true: Virgin Records subsequently released the 10” live compilation LP, entitled Short Circuit.” New Order + Joy Division - Pleasures and Wayward Distractions (1988).

The Electric Circus. Photograph by Bernice Wilcox/mdarchive.co.uk.

Joy Division’s Peter Hook describes the venue in Unknown Pleasures - Inside Joy Division: “The Electric Circus was an older, normal rock venue, in that it was a redbrick building, with a pointed roof like a church. The front door opened into one big, dark room with a high ceiling. The bar was on the right-hand side and there was a balcony, which I never saw open.” Hooky also writes about the closing weekend of the Circus:

“Manchester’s punk hub, the Electric CIrcus, no longer able to afford the big names and refused a food licence - and thus a late licence - by the council, was forced to shut in October. Among the bands performing on the final Saturday were Steel Pulse and the Drones. Warsaw opened the Sunday, while the Prefects, the Worst, and the Fall all played. Howard Devoto debuted three songs from his new band Magazine, and the Buzzcocks headlined, the night ending with a stage invasion and a ‘Louie Louie’ sing-along. Virgin Records sent a mobile studio to record the weekend for a ten-inch.” Unknown Pleasures - Inside Joy Division (2012).

Deborah Curtis recalls in Touching From a Distance - Ian Curtis and Joy Division (1995) that, “the old cinema stood out on the flattened landscape… Inside, the building smelled damp, and the polystyrene tiles at the back of the stage were rollered with black paint which gave the Circus ‘ring’ a homely, amateurish appearance.”

In John Robb’s oral history The North Will Rise Again - Manchester Music City 1976-1996 Jon Savage describes the Manchester of the period. He recalls that he, “travelled up to Manchester for the ‘Last Night of the Electric Circus’ gigs in October 1977.” Savage continues:

“Manchester was a complete shithole at the time, unrecognisable from what it is now; at the time London had bombsites and derelict buildings but that was nothing like what Manchester had. Manchester really looked like the end of the world, like a nuclear bomb had hit it.” Jon Savage in The North Will Rise Again (2009).

Various Artists - Short Circuit: Live at the Electric Circus (Back Sleeve) (10” - 1978, Virgin Records). Photograph by Paul McDermott.

In Shadowplayers - The Rise and Fall of Factory Records - probably the greatest book about this period of Manchester music - James Nice also mentions the venue: “As punk and new wave went overground, the former bingo hall could no longer afford to book popular bands, while at the same time its rundown physical condition aroused the interest of safety inspectors. Thankfully a last hurrah was staged over the weekend of 1 and 2 October, highlights of which were recorded on a souvenir album, Short Circuit.”

Reviewing the second night in Sounds magazine on 15 October 1977, Jon Savage wrote: “It had to end in lunacy, one of the finest gigs I’ve ever been to, with an atmosphere so charges it’s stayed with me all week, given me strength. I felt honoured to have been there. It was hard though to escape the end of an era feeling: the only way to look at it is to quote Shelley’s introduction to ‘Time’s Up’: “If we get another place, let’s make it better than this.” I hope the if isn’t too hard.”

Short Circuit was was released in June 1978 with sleeve notes written by Paul Morley:

“If you didn’t get drunk for the first time or make an utter fool of yourself or dance without inhibitions or make your first acquaintance with illegal substances or spew up at regular intervals during an evening or French kiss with someone of your own sex or fall asleep for hours on end or eat glass… then you weren’t really a part of the Electric Circus club.” Paul Morley (taken from the sleevenotes to Short Circuit)

The Fall get two tracks on the compilation: ‘Stepping Out’ and ‘Last Orders’. It was the band’s first appearance on record, their debut EP Bingo-Master's Break-Out! followed in August ‘78. In his review of Short Circuit for Sounds on 26 June 1978 Jon Savage writes, “It’s mainly worth your attention for the first appearance of The Fall on record.” Savage continues, “‘Stepping Out’ sensibly opens the album - it’s the best cut - with muscular modern dance. Hypnotic tune, electric piano fills and growled lyrics: ‘I used to believe everything I read (x3) but that’s OK ‘cos now I’M STEPPIN’ OUT! I used to stay in the house and never go out, but now I’M STEPPING’ OUT.”

Buzzcocks’ Spiral Scratch EP was released in January 1977. Howard Devoto left soon afterwards to form Magazine. As Hooky mentions in Unknown Pleasures Devoto’s new band performed their debut gig, a short set of three numbers - ‘Shot by Both Sides’, ‘The Light Pours out of Me’ and ‘Big Dummy’ - on the second night of the closing weekend, but they aren’t included on Short Circuit.

“Buzzcocks contribution to the compilation was a Pete Shelley sung ‘Time’s Up’,” writes Paul Hanley in Sixteen Again. “Which ended with Pete’s warm introduction to Jon the Postman’s rendition of ‘Louie Louie’.”

“That’s it from us, but the favourite of all Manchester, the one guy who never appears on the bill but is always there - Jon the Postman”
(Pete Shelley introducing Jon the Postman).

Shelley’s introduction is the last thing to be heard on Short Circuit. It always annoyed me that the album didn’t include Jon the Postman’s (who was backed on the night by Buzzcocks) ‘Louie Louie’.

By the time of Short Circuit’s release Warsaw had already changed their name to Joy Division, which is how they are credited on the record. Their gig on the night 2 October 1977 was the band’s third time playing the Electric Circus; they supported Buzzcocks earlier that year on 29 May and supported The Rezillos on 24 September. The band contributed ‘At a Later Date’ to the compilation. I played this song on repeat and wondered what Bernard Sumner meant when shouting out the line, “You all forgot Rudolf Hess”.

It turned out that Sumner’s line was meant as a conclusion to ‘Warsaw’ (a lyrical biography of Hess), the first of three songs performed by the band on the night, and not an introduction to ‘At a Later Date’. The line would haunt the band for decades.

“Where the remark came from was a book that Bernard and Ian had been reading: The Loneliest Man in the World. It was about Herr Hess and his time in Spandau Prison. There was a picture of Hess on the cover with his prison number ‘31G-350125’, which was the title of the song we played that night - we would later rechristen it ‘Warsaw’, writes Stephen Morris in Record, Play, Rewind.

“As catchphrases go, it’s fair to say that ‘Have you all forgot Rudolf Hess?’ was not one of the greats, but it wasn’t as though we’d be constantly reminded of it, was it? Just a spur of the moment thing, a moment in time gone forever. Not the sort of thing that haunts a band for years.” Record, Play, Rewind: Confessions of a Post-Punk Percussionist, From Joy Division to New Order Volume 1: (2019)

Jon Savage awarded Short Circuit 3/5 stars in Sounds. He had witnessed the concerts and felt that, “By beefing the production, sanitising the audience sounds, and generally aiming the album at a punitive, ‘wider audience’, Virgin have stripped the original project of any authenticity, and neutered what was to these eyes and ears one of the finest nights music ever.”

None of this mattered to me when I first played Short Circuit in 1991. To my ears it was simply a very rough live document of the early days of some of my favourite bands.

Short Circuit was also my first time hearing John Cooper Clarke who contributed ‘(You Never See a Nipple in the) Daily Express’, his deriding of hypocrisy in tabloid newspapers, and ‘(I Married a) Monster From Outer Space’ his hilarious pean to the inevitability of doomed intergalactic/human romantic relationships.

In the early-90s I got to see Clarke perform in The Lobby Bar on Cork’s Union Quay. A packed upstairs bar waited patiently and then became audibly giddy as through the corner window behind the small stage we spotted a familiar gait and mop of hair as The Bard of Salford, in trademark skinny jeans and pointed Chelsea boots, stoop walked across Parnell Bridge.

John Cooper Clarke - ‘Gimmix! Play Loud’/‘(I Married A) Monster From Outer Space (7” - 1979, Epic Records). Photo by Paul McDermott.

I don’t remember much about the gig, but I do remember about half way through the night Clarke imploring, “Could someone human chain a half-Beamish up here please?” In quick time about four glasses of stout were passed through the throng. These are the memories that flood back when I play Short Circuit, a record that cost me £1.99 in Leeside. A bargain.

“Manchester, so much to answer for.” Photograph by Paul McDermott.

Postscript

For further information on the Electric Circus, Short Circuit and the effort to locate and release the full live tapes of the “Last Night of the Electric Circus” check out the Sean Thorpe’s Facebook page ecircus1977

For Further Reading

Paul McDermott
Previous

SKiN and BONE
Next

Oasis - Knebworth setlist