IT was the year when punk rock filled the airwaves and Barry Adamson auditioned for Howard Devoto’s Magazine on a rusty bass with two strings.

“I couldn’t play it,” recalled Adamson, ‘But I came up with the one-note bass line for The Light Pours Out of Me, so I was in.

“We ended up doing Shot by Both Sides on Top of the Pops and I remember sitting in a BBC café with the cast of Blake’s 7, with this bloke dressed in tinfoil ordering lasagne.

“Then we did the Old Grey Whistle Test and a guy in a cool, black leather jacket held the door open for me going into the building.

“He said, “How ya ‘doin’ kid?” It was Joey Ramone.”

Adamson was a 17-year-old rookie from the tough streets of Moss Side when Spiral Scratch came out, the only Buzzcocks’ release to feature Devoto, and the punk scene exploded around him like a raging fire.

“For the first time I felt in the right place,” added Adamson. “From being this lone figure growing up us a mixed-race kid on Moss Side, I was suddenly involved in this movement.

“I was in the right place, right time, right age. It was like a call to arms, a kick up the backside.

“The sheer energy of it just made you pick up an instrument and make some noise.”

Magazine, with Devoto at the controls, were lionised for their first album – Real Life – but for Adamson is was only the first pit stop on an extraordinary journey.

One that would see him teaming up with Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, record nine solo albums, with Soul Murder nominated for a Mercury Prize, and then work beside film industry mavericks Derek Jarman, David Lynch, Oliver Stone and Danny Boyle.

“By the time I was 30, I realised that if I didn’t make changes I’d be dead,” said Adamson.

“It sounds funny, but the place I chose to relax and recuperate was Moss Side.

“I wanted to get into film, but didn’t know where to start, so I did a soundtrack.

“I was so arrogant that I said to my girlfriend that I was only going to work with Lynch, Tarantino and Danny Boyle.

“She said: ‘Well, good luck with that’. But that’s what happened.

“I was in a wheelchair following a hip operation when the phone went. ‘Barry. This is David Lynch. I’ve been listening to your music all day. I’d like you to work on my new movie, come over to Los Angeles’.

“Then I got a commission for Natural Born Killers (written by Tarantino) and I worked with him and Leonardo DiCaprio in The Beach.

“There was part of me that took it for granted when I was younger, but now I feel humility and gratitude.”

He even got behind the camera to direct several short films including The Swing The Hole and The Lie, shown at the Cannes Film Festival last year.

But when Magazine re-formed for a short tour in 2011, and a new album, No Thyself, Adamson was welcomed back in to the fold.

“It was so strange to get back up on stage and play those songs again and it felt like nothing had changed.

“It was incredible to feel that energy again. It was something beautiful.

“In 1977 the whole ethos punk was to try and break the mould and do something different, but I don’t see that in a lot of music now.”

Barry Adamson, Manchester, Ruby Lounge, Saturday, April 22. Details from 0161 834 1392