RIP Pete Shelley. I would suggest three minutes silence, but Buzzcocks would have said it all in 2 minutes and 59 seconds.
When I spoke to Shelley a few days ago for my podcast ‘The Green Room’, he was in good spirits, looking forward to another busy year, and especially looking forward to performing the entirety of the Singles Going Steady collection at the Albert Hall in London. He died suddenly on Thursday of a heart attack at the age of 63. He was a hero of mine and of many others. They say you shouldn’t meet your heroes, but I found Shelley patient and witty when I accosted him at a Damned gig in 1987, no less patient and witty when I met him again backstage at a Buzzcocks gig 30 years later, and still patient and witty when we spoke last week in what turned out to be his final interview.
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Two poets named Shelley have graced the English language.
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