Inflammable Material – Still Burning Strong

Imagine being a 15 year old schoolboy in the sleepy idyll of a small village that called itself a town. You’ve made the effort to go to you nearest decent record shop to see what the next inspired choice will be, the next addition to your fledgling record collection. Peel had obviously been the catalyst and the list was growing. I only earned £2.50 a week paper round money plus £1.50 from the pockets of my parents, so the choice had to be wise and punctilious. Choice made,the journey on the bus back was made much less tedious by the visual exploration of the outer sleeve, and on the odd occasion where care had been taken by the record company, the inner sleeve and lyrics. Today’s purchase was the debut album by Stiff Little Fingers.’Inflammable Material’ with its stark black cover of 9 images of a single flame. Desolate titles such as ‘State of Emergency’, ‘Wasted Life’, and ‘Barbed Wire Love’, spoke of life on another planet, far removed from the sanctity of my surroundings. I couldn’t wait to learn about their lives in a foreign land over the sea. Granted it was the Irish Sea and Belfast was a literal stones throw away, but it may as well have been on the other side of the world.

Off the bus, run home as fast as the Six Million Dollar Man, up the stairs into my brother’s bedroom, take that Barclay James Harvest shit off the turntable, carefully take out the record holding it by the edges (after all this was a weeks wages I was holding),and put the needle on the record. And wait……
INFLAMMABLE MATERIAL IS PLANTED IN MY HEAD!!, IT’S A SUSPECT DEVICE THAT’S LEFT 2000 DEAD!!
What the fuck? I am now witnessing the aural equivalent of having all my teeth kicked out. They are then picked up off the floor and reinserted into my mouth. In the wrong order!
Ears and gums bleeding all over the place, I regain a certain amount of consciousness, dust myself down and strap myself in for the next 13 slices of an angry,shouting, Northern Irishman surrounded by 3 more enraged souls.
The Clash had posed with the English soldiers in Belfast, but these guys were living it day in day out. But amongst the negativity of their situation the positivity of the songs shone through, urging people of whichever religious or political persuasion to try to change things, or at the very least think about it. This was an album of its time, it gave me and thousands of other people an insight into what the ‘troubles’ meant for our generation. The only thing we saw was bleak footage on the news; bombs, death, riots in the streets, bricks and bottles and Molotov cocktails.
Alternative Ulster was released as a single the previous year 1978, so I had an idea of what to expect. That song is one of the best examples of punk and in the top 5 singles of many people, and the album expanded the issues SLF were wanting to convey. Not schoolboy ramblings or 6th form poetry readings, but songs about isolation, cultural ignorance and racism concerning the ubiquitous Irish jokes as well as the stereotypical language used by those morons concerning corner shops, muggers, pimps, spongers, etcetera. In language that pulled no punches. Preaching to the converted maybe, but educating at the same time. These are their experiences, real life without a gimmick in sight.
The record had no fillers and included a version of Bob Marley’s ‘Johnny Was’, with more than a hint to The Clash’s reworking of Junior Murvin’s ‘Police and Thieves’. Despite Jake Burns’s gruff delivery there are choruses in abundance and pure pop tunes, which much later would evolve into the polished, toned down sound of bands such as Green Day and Blink 182. Even the token love song on it was an incendiary blast of lust between the divisive, repressive regime of their environment.
Whereas the Undertones sang about chocolate and girls,(also a truly great band), Stiff Little Fingers kept upping the ante even after signing to a major label in the form of Chrysalis. Straw Dogs and At The Edge both uncompromising singles. There legacy still lives on and they still continue to fill venues across the world, playing to original and second generation fans.
But it all started on that morning in February 1979.

My ears are still ringing.