“Inflammable material, planted in my head, It's a suspect device that's left two thousand dead”

That’s how “Suspect Device”, Stiff Little Fingers debut single and the first track on this album begins. Looking back I find it inconceivable now that this album wasn’t released until 1979, getting on for 2 years after Punk Rock’s first rush and it’s difficult to convey now how much of an effect Stiff Little Fingers had on us at the time. At times in 1979 it felt like Punk had been and gone and then along came this album length howl of teenage frustration.

Stiff Little Fingers were formed originally when a group of school friends got a band together to play Rock covers, naming themselves Highway Star (after the Deep Purple song). On the departure of their bass player Ali McMordie took over completing the classic line up of Jake Burns, Henry Cluney, Brian Faloon and McMordie that recorded this album. Cluney had by this time discovered Punk Rock and introduced the rest of the band to it. Jake Burns was particularly taken with The Clash, saying later "what The Clash did more than anything else was give me the confidence…to realise it was OK to write about my own life and experiences". After renaming themselves after a Vibrators song they began to write songs about those experiences.

One monumental independent single, the already mentioned “Suspect Device”, and Stiff Little Fingers were launched onto the world. The lyrics to “Suspect Device”, and 6 other songs on “Inflammable Material” were written by journalist Gordon Ogilvie. He had met the band at one of their early gigs, encouraged the band to keep writing about their lives in Belfast and showed them some words he had written, which the band set to music and became “Suspect Device”. Ogilvie became SLF’s manager,  set up Rigid Digits the label that released their debut single and has been credited by Jake Burns as being the 5th member of SLF.

That debut single piqued the interest of Rough Trade records who took on the band and distribution of “Suspect Device”. In October 1978 they released their second single, the equally powerful “Alternative Ulster” and in February 1979 “Inflammable Material” became ROUGH 1, the first album to be released by Rough Trade Records. 

It begins, as we already know with a re-recorded version of “Suspect Device”. “State Of Emergency” (“You're looking around you, But hate has made you blind”)and “Here We Are Nowhere” (“No shows in town, There is no place to go, Here we are nowhere, Nowhere left to go”)thunder along and then we reach one of Stiff Little Fingers truly great songs, “Wasted Life”. It crashes in with a big, distorted power chord before Jake Burns bellows

I could be a soldier, Go out there and fight to save this land

Be a people's soldier, Paramilitary gun in hand

I won't be no soldier, I won't take no orders from no-one

Stuff their fucking armies, Killing isn't my idea of fun

The pressures on young kids in Northern Ireland in the late 70’s weren’t just your normal school, parents, girls problems we were having on the other side of the Irish Sea. You had fully armed British soldiers patrolling the streets you lived on and on the other hand pressures from the paramilitary organisations from whichever side of he sectarian divide you were on to play your part and support the “cause”. Jake Burns makes it very clear he’s not gonna kill for any side in that first verse. By the last verse he makes a comparison between those pressuring the likes of him and some of history’s less savoury inhabitants

They ain't blonde-haired or blue-eyed, But they think that they're the master race

They're nothing but blind fascists, Brought up to hate and given lives to waste

Over on side 2 there’s a quite fantastic cover of Bob Marley’s “Johnny Was” with Marley’s gentle reggae lilt being replaced my shuddering guitar riffs and impassioned vocals. It’s a story that works perfectly in Trenchtown or Belfast. There really is no let up on this record at all. As Paul Morley said of it in the NME it is a "crushing contemporary commentary, brutally inspired by blatant bitter rebellion and frustration" going on to claim it was better than “Never Mind The Bollocks..”, “The Clash” and as seismic in its importance as “Ramones” !

Surprisingly not a whole lot of the album is about Northern Ireland and the troubles. Less than half the songs reference those two things and one of those, “Alternative Ulster”, while it does make mention of the Army on the street and the RUC is really just about being a bored teenager with nothing much to do. Jake Burns has said of it "Everybody refers to it as "the Irish record" but…there's probably 4 out of 13 (songs) that refer specifically to Northern Ireland. The rest of it is just disaffected teenagers kicking against the world”.

Wasted Life - https://youtu.be/8nx8adlkvFw?si=iMi8c4Irypk4Q7aQ