Steve Garvey (music business)
Encyclopedia
Stephen Garvey is a musician who is known for being the bass guitarist of the punk band Buzzcocks
, forming part of the classic line-up of the group, from 1977 to 1981, and, again, from 1989 to 1992.
, England. After working as a gas pumper, he joined Buzzcocks as bass guitarist in late 1977, replacing a short-time member, Garth Smith, shortly after the release of the Orgasm Addict
single, taking part of the successful punk days with the releasing of the first three albums – Another Music In A Different Kitchen
, Love Bites
and A Different Kind of Tension
– and the famous singles compilation Singles Going Steady
. The group disbanded in 1981.
,which was mostly his school band, along with The Fall's Karl Burns
Martin Bramah and Tony Friel
, who released 2 EPs in 1978, In And Out Of Fashion
and Leave Me No Choice, an only 7" single in 1979, Seeing Double, and an album called Final Vinyl
, in 1980. Shortly after the release of the album, it seems the band changed their name to Bok Bok, who were formed by Garvey, Burns and a singer and guitarist called Dave Price, releasing that year a 7" single, Come Back To Me,[single of the week in the record mirror] whose eponymous song is backed with "Misfit".
After Buzzcocks split up, in 1981, he worked for his Buzzcocks bandmates, lead vocalist and guitarist Pete Shelley
, until late the year and releasing the Homosapien
album, and guitarist Steve Diggle
, participating in the 50 Years Of Comparative Wealth
EP (1981).
By 1981, he formed a band called Motivation
, along Dave Price (vocals), Dave Rowbotham
(guitar) (previously in The Durutti Column
, and then in The Mothmen
) and Snuff (drums) (Later in Distant Cousins
). This band was forced to change their name to Shy Talk and was signed to Columbia records in the U.S. releasing one album, but by this time Garvey was no longer involved,"they turned us into a Duran Duran clone, I rejected what it became" he was quoted as saying, although he is thanked in the album credits.
During his last years living in England, he joined post-punk
band Blue Orchids, playing bass while they were playing alongside Velvet Underground's Nico
.
He produced power pop band Private Sector's Just Wanna Stay Free single, in 1979, and some works of Night Visitors at Graveyard Studios, in Prestwich
.
, Bucks County, Pennsylvania
. Previously, he was living in an apartment in Greenwich Village
, Manhattan
, New York.
In the 2000s, he founded a label/production company called "New Hope Sound and Vision" and has produced several local acts notably James Sewardalso Damn River, Inbred, Behn Wolfe, Less Pain Forever, Pete Chambers, as well as videos with his son Kyle.
In 2008, he was panellist of the Howl Festival Punk Panel, at Bowery Poetry Club
, during the Howl Fest, in East Village
, New York. Another panellists were Richard Lloyd (Television
), Ari Up
(Slits), Cynthia Sley (Bush Tetras
), Judy Nylon
(Snatch), Walter Lure (The Heartbreakers
) and Arturo Vega (Ramones
artworker).
His cousin is Tony McGuinness, the former bass player of Irish band Aslan.
He is married with his wife Debra, by whom he has two sons, Kyle (born c. 1990) and Ian (born c. 1987).
Buzzcocks
Buzzcocks are an English punk rock band formed in Bolton in 1976, led by singer–songwriter–guitarist Pete Shelley.They are regarded as an important influence on the Manchester music scene, the independent record label movement, punk rock, power pop, pop punk and indie rock. They achieved commercial...
, forming part of the classic line-up of the group, from 1977 to 1981, and, again, from 1989 to 1992.
First Buzzcocks years
Garvey was born in ManchesterManchester
Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...
, England. After working as a gas pumper, he joined Buzzcocks as bass guitarist in late 1977, replacing a short-time member, Garth Smith, shortly after the release of the Orgasm Addict
Orgasm Addict
"Orgasm Addict" is a single by punk rock band Buzzcocks and its B-side is "Whatever Happened To...?" The song later appeared on the album Singles Going Steady and also on CD reissues of Another Music in a Different Kitchen....
single, taking part of the successful punk days with the releasing of the first three albums – Another Music In A Different Kitchen
Another Music in a Different Kitchen
Another Music in a Different Kitchen was Buzzcocks' first album, released in 1978 and including the hit single "I Don't Mind", which reached #55 in the United Kingdom singles chart in May 1978. The corresponding CD was released in March 1994 on the same record label...
, Love Bites
Love Bites (album)
Love Bites was Buzzcocks' second album, which managed to peak at #13 on the United Kingdom albums chart at the time of its release. In March 1994, an EMI CD version of the original album was released with four additional tracks.-Track listing:...
and A Different Kind of Tension
A Different Kind of Tension
-Personnel:*Pete Shelley – guitar, vocals, keyboards*Steve Diggle – guitar, vocals*Steve Garvey – bass*John Maher – drums-Vinyl information:*A blue vinyl version was re-released around 1986....
– and the famous singles compilation Singles Going Steady
Singles Going Steady
Singles Going Steady is a compilation album by Buzzcocks, featuring their United Kingdom single releases from 1977–1979, along with their corresponding B-sides...
. The group disbanded in 1981.
Other bands and collaborations
From 1978 to 1980, in parallel with Buzzcocks, he formed part of The TeardropsThe Teardrops (band)
The Teardrops were a Punk/New Wave band formed in Prestwich, Greater Manchester, England, in 1978. The founders and always the core of this band were Trevor Wain, John Key and Jimmy Donnelly with various good friends from the Prestwich music scene:- Buzzcocks bassist Steve Garvey, members of The...
,which was mostly his school band, along with The Fall's Karl Burns
Karl Burns
Karl Burns is a British musician best known as drummer for The Fall, featuring in many incarnations of the band between 1977 and 1998....
Martin Bramah and Tony Friel
Tony Friel
Tony Friel is a bass guitarist known for his role in different New Wave bands.He attended Heys Boys Secondary School, where met Martin Bramah and got, along him, Art O Level. He and Bramah shared many interests. In mid-1970s, they were introduced, by their friend Barbara Smith, to her brother Mark E...
, who released 2 EPs in 1978, In And Out Of Fashion
In And Out Of Fashion
In and out of Fashion is the debut recording and the first EP and 12" single of New Wave band The Teardrops, released by Bent Records, in 1978. The band was formed by then Buzzcocks bass guitarist Steve Garvey, among others...
and Leave Me No Choice, an only 7" single in 1979, Seeing Double, and an album called Final Vinyl
Final Vinyl (The Teardrops album)
Final Vinyl was the only album released by Manchester, England New Wave band The Teardrops. It was released in January 1980, shortly before the band dissolved....
, in 1980. Shortly after the release of the album, it seems the band changed their name to Bok Bok, who were formed by Garvey, Burns and a singer and guitarist called Dave Price, releasing that year a 7" single, Come Back To Me,[single of the week in the record mirror] whose eponymous song is backed with "Misfit".
After Buzzcocks split up, in 1981, he worked for his Buzzcocks bandmates, lead vocalist and guitarist Pete Shelley
Pete Shelley
Pete Shelley is an English singer, songwriter and guitarist, best known as the leader of Buzzcocks.-Biography:...
, until late the year and releasing the Homosapien
Homosapien (album)
Homosapien was Buzzcocks frontman Pete Shelley's 1981 debut solo album, the title-track of which was released as a UK single the same year. The single was banned by the BBC, but was nevertheless a hit in several countries....
album, and guitarist Steve Diggle
Steve Diggle
Steve Diggle is a guitarist and vocalist in the British punk band Buzzcocks.-Early years:He was born in Manchester, and grew up in Bradford and Rusholme, where he was a mod...
, participating in the 50 Years Of Comparative Wealth
50 Years Of Comparative Wealth E.P.
50 Years of Comparative Wealth E.P. was a 1981 7" EP released by Steve Diggle of Buzzcocks. This was his first disc released in his solo career and without Buzzcocks, who by those days were disbanding...
EP (1981).
By 1981, he formed a band called Motivation
Motivation (band)
Motivation was a short-lived band formed in Manchester, England, c...
, along Dave Price (vocals), Dave Rowbotham
Dave Rowbotham
Dave Rowbotham was a rock musician who played guitar and bass with different Manchester bands in the 1970s and the 1980s, and as studio musician.-Biography:...
(guitar) (previously in The Durutti Column
The Durutti Column
The Durutti Column are an English post-punk band formed in 1978 in Manchester, England. The band is an ongoing project of guitarist Vini Reilly who is often accompanied by drummer Bruce Mitchell. Other current members are Keir Stewart and Reilly's girlfriend Poppy Morgan...
, and then in The Mothmen
The Mothmen
The Mothmen were a short-lived post-punk band from England, formed around 1979 by Dave Rowbotham, Chris Joyce and Tony Bowers, shortly after they left The Durutti Column, including ex-Alberto Y Lost Trios Paranoias singer Bob Harding.-History:...
) and Snuff (drums) (Later in Distant Cousins
Distant Cousins
Distant Cousins were an English band from Manchester. Some journalists grouped them with the Madchester scene, though the music was a blend of soul and pop. The band's singer was Doreen Edwards who sang the closing theme song of Count Duckula. Former member of The Smirks Neil Fitzpatrick played...
). This band was forced to change their name to Shy Talk and was signed to Columbia records in the U.S. releasing one album, but by this time Garvey was no longer involved,"they turned us into a Duran Duran clone, I rejected what it became" he was quoted as saying, although he is thanked in the album credits.
During his last years living in England, he joined post-punk
Post-punk
Post-punk is a rock music movement with its roots in the late 1970s, following on the heels of the initial punk rock explosion of the mid-1970s. The genre retains its roots in the punk movement but is more introverted, complex and experimental...
band Blue Orchids, playing bass while they were playing alongside Velvet Underground's Nico
Nico
Nico was a German singer, lyricist, composer, musician, fashion model, and actress, who initially rose to fame as a Warhol Superstar in the 1960s...
.
He produced power pop band Private Sector's Just Wanna Stay Free single, in 1979, and some works of Night Visitors at Graveyard Studios, in Prestwich
Prestwich
Prestwich is a town within the Metropolitan Borough of Bury, in Greater Manchester, England. It lies close to the River Irwell, north of Manchester city centre, north of Salford and south of Bury....
.
Buzzcocks reunion (1989–1992)
Buzzcocks reunited in 1989. However, Garvey left the band in 1992 due to health problems, one of them being a cancerous tumor on his cheek, but he survived that disease.Post-Buzzcocks years (1992–present)
Since around 1993, when he left Buzzcocks, he lives in New HopeNew Hope, Pennsylvania
New Hope, formerly known as Coryell's Ferry, is a borough in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, USA. The population was 2,528 at the 2010 census. The borough lies on the west bank of the Delaware River at its confluence with Aquetong Creek. A two-lane bridge carries automobile and foot traffic across the...
, Bucks County, Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
. Previously, he was living in an apartment in Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village
Greenwich Village, , , , .in New York often simply called "the Village", is a largely residential neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City. A large majority of the district is home to upper middle class families...
, Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
, New York.
In the 2000s, he founded a label/production company called "New Hope Sound and Vision" and has produced several local acts notably James Sewardalso Damn River, Inbred, Behn Wolfe, Less Pain Forever, Pete Chambers, as well as videos with his son Kyle.
In 2008, he was panellist of the Howl Festival Punk Panel, at Bowery Poetry Club
Bowery Poetry Club
The Bowery Poetry Club is a New York City poetry performance space founded by Bob Holman in 2002. Located at 308 Bowery, between Bleecker and Houston Streets in Manhattan's East Village, the BPC provides a home base for established and upcoming artists...
, during the Howl Fest, in East Village
East Village, Manhattan
The East Village is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan in New York City, lying east of Greenwich Village, south of Gramercy and Stuyvesant Town, and north of the Lower East Side...
, New York. Another panellists were Richard Lloyd (Television
Television (band)
Television was an American rock band, formed in New York City in 1973. They are best known for the album Marquee Moon and widely regarded as one of the founders of "punk" and New Wave music. Television was part of the early 1970s New York underground rock scene, along with bands like the Patti...
), Ari Up
Ari Up
Ariane Daniele Forster , better known by her stage name Ari Up, was a German-born vocalist, best known as a member of the English punk group, The Slits.-Career:...
(Slits), Cynthia Sley (Bush Tetras
Bush Tetras
Bush Tetras are an American post-punk band from New York City, popular in the Manhattan club scene in the early 1980s but never achieving much mainstream success. Their music combined funk rhythms and dissonant guitar riffs.-History:...
), Judy Nylon
Judy Nylon
Judy Nylon is an American artist who moved to London in 1970. She was half of the punk act called Snatch, which also featured Patti Palladin. Only those who lived in New York and London during the era that spanned glam rock, punk and no wave are likely to appreciate her importance, most of which...
(Snatch), Walter Lure (The Heartbreakers
The Heartbreakers
Johnny Thunders and the Heartbreakers, also known as The Heartbreakers, were an American rock & roll band formed in New York in May 1975. The band was part of the first wave of punk rock.-History:...
) and Arturo Vega (Ramones
Ramones
The Ramones were an American rock band that formed in the New York City neighborhood of Forest Hills, Queens, in 1974. They are often cited as the first punk rock group...
artworker).
His cousin is Tony McGuinness, the former bass player of Irish band Aslan.
He is married with his wife Debra, by whom he has two sons, Kyle (born c. 1990) and Ian (born c. 1987).
External links
- MySpace: Steve Garvey's official and personal MySpace site
- New Hope Sound and Vision New Hope Sound And Vision official MySpace site
- Interview around mid-1990's
- 2007 interview
- Steve Garvey, then in Motivation, interviewed by Mick Duffy of NME, circa 1981.
- Discography of Steve Garvey
- About Bok Bok
