Album Review: Stiff Little Fingers - The Singles [1978-1983]
Reviewed by Dan Barnes
Next up to get the Captain Oi! treatment is Northern Ireland’s finest, Stiff Little Fingers who’re still going strong and drawing big crowds to this day, though a new album is somewhat overdue – just saying! Having recently wound up another successful spring jaunt around the UK – with the obligatory stop in Glasgow for St Patrick’s Day – it feels as good a time as any for the Captain to turn his attention to the thirteen single releases from SLF’s four genre-defining albums between the years 1978 and 1983.
Beginning life as Highway Star in the great – but troubled – city of Belfast back in 1977, the band took the moniker Stiff Little Fingers from a song on The Vibrator’s Pure Mania debut. The heavy influences of The Clash, and an obvious social and cultural impact, gave the Fingers an ire and – pardon the use of the word – cause to their creativity.
By the time Inflammable Material hit the stores in early February 1979 the band had already issued two of their landmark songs as singles: Suspect Device and Alternative Ulster. Opening disc one of this two-disc set comes the ferocious downstrokes of Suspect Device, as visceral a comment on the insanity of the situation as ever put to music, told from the point of view of the citizens who’re caught up in what is possibly the most half-arsed civil war in the history of conflict.
As an opening statement both here and as an introduction for the band to the world, it is a sub-three-minute whirlwind of punk aggression and social commentary. Backed with Wasted Life, another comment on the Troubles, it put punk onto the streets, and both remain firmly ensconced in SLF’s live set to this day.
As does Alternative Ulster, a song Jake Burns is known to introduce as the “new national anthem”, with its languid shapes, turning into an upbeat and positive sounding progression, which asks the pertinent question: “Is this the kinda place you wanna live?” The non-album B-side of 78 rpm finds bassist Ali McMordie leading the charge with the band expressing how music gets them through troubled times in an equally upbeat and jaunty manner.
As the Seventies gave way to the Eighties Stiff Little Fingers followed up Inflammable Material with the equally iconic Nobody’s Heroes, featuring more measured, though no less vitriolic, material, and producing three singles: Gotta Getaway, At the Edge and the title tune.
All of which also regularly feature in the live shows, garnering singalongs a plenty. Getaway’s flipside was the incendiary, Bloody Sunday, which at the time of release was less than a decade past and was still something of an open wound. The track reflects that raw and dark period in the country’s history; At the Edge, which would reach number 15 on the UK single charts feature a couple of live tracks, Running Bear and White Christmas, that is an example of the band playing random encores to their shows.
Nobody’s Hero was backed with Tin Soldiers, the fast, pumping riff and infectious chorus means this could easily have been a contender for a single release in its own right.
![Album Review: Stiff Little Fingers - The Singles [1978-1983]](https://i0.wp.com/live.staticflickr.com/65535/54491558860_4d94b1675b_c.jpg?w=678&ssl=1 "Album Review: Stiff Little Fingers - The Singles [1978-1983]")
Punctuating these singles were a couple of non-album 7”s: Straw Dogs and Back to the Front in 1979 and 1980 respectively. The first takes aim at the false idols being wheeled out at the time through crunchy vocals and some fearsome guitar, and was coupled with You Can’t Say Crap on the Radio, a throwaway sort of a ditty, recorded with tongues placed in cheeks. Back to the Front feels like an alternative take on what would become Nobody’s Hero and the B-side of Mr Fire Coal-Man is a punk-reggae interpretation of The Wailing Souls’ song
Disc two takes us to the third album, Go For It from 1981, with a couple of singles released the same year, though neither of which enjoyed Top-40 success. Just Fade Away was packaged with the mandatory set opener, the instrumental Go For It, and a live version of The Specials’ Doesn’t Make It Alright, another example of SLF’s ability to create some fantastic punk-reggae cross-pollination.
Silver Lining is about finding the best in a bed situation and comes packaged in a joyous and upbeat riff. Its companion, Safe as Houses has never been a favourite of mine, I’m afraid to say – it just doesn’t seem to tick any of the boxes that most of the other Fingers’ material does – though I’m sure I’m in the minority over this.
In January of 1982, SLF would release an interim 7”, labelled £1.10 or Less, which would include four new tracks that wouldn’t be otherwise available. Listen continues the band’s movement into more rock-friendly territory, though the caustic lyric barbs would be permanently etched into their canon. Sad Eyed People is an up-tempo chug with cascading vocals and a big drum sound; some of those SLF reggae rhythms form the basis of That’s When Your Blood Bumps, its chilled beats belie the intensity of the track. Jake has never shied away from the high regard in which he holds Joe Strummer, so Two Guitars Clash is his and Henry Cluney’s tribute to “the only band that matters”.
Former Tom Robinson Band drummer, Dolphin Taylor, joined Stiff Little Fingers for the EP and was still present on the subsequent full-length, released in September 1982. Now Then… which would see the band diversifying their sound through the use of horns and would, ultimately, see the Fingers going their separate ways, temporarily at least.
Talkback was shot-though with pure Eighties pop, still full of social commentary, just packaged in more refine wrapping. Backed with a swinging Good for Nothing it would suggest the band weren’t about to embrace the harder-edge punk was taking at this time.
Bits of Kids has a Fifties rock & roll feel to it, coming over like a nostalgia trip for a long-gone youth, when, really, it’s a reference to the loss of innocent life during the Troubles; backed with the mature sounding Stand to Reason this release deserved a higher chart placing than the no.73 is reached.
The last promotion material from Now Then… was released in 1983 and would be another two album tracks: Price of Admission b/w Touch and Go. The A-side is about as far away from Suspect Devise as you can get, though Touch and Go does harken back to the Inflammable Material days.
Following Now Then… Stiff Little Fingers would split and it would be another nine years before the arrival of Flags and Emblems in 1991. Jake is reported to have said the band called it a day as he didn’t think they could top they had achieved on their 1982 record.
In truth, any of Stiff Little Fingers’ first four records would be a great starting point for the band, and this new set from Captain Oi! and Cherry Red Records is the perfect sampler for anyone wanting to dip their toe in the rich work of one of the scene’s best and most enduring bands.
