inflammable material

Stiff Little Fingers loaded their personal experience with their brutal homeland troubles into these potent punk polemics and launched them in this earnest and incendiary introductory insurrection.  The group started in Belfast, Northern Ireland as a rock cover band called Highway Star.  They changed their name to Stiff Little Fingers after the song by the Vibrators and decided to pursue a punk sound with lyrics informed by their experience with the violence in Northern Ireland at the time.  Jake Burns recalls:  "There were a number of moments. The initial rush of hearing the Damned and Pistols, obviously. But the real 'this is really good' moment was deciphering the Clash’s lyrics and realising they were dealing with real issues, things that spoke directly to me and made me think that we could do something similar...It was of the young people, by the young people. That’s the top and bottom of it. It wasn’t a bunch of po-faced music graduates showing off. It wasn’t some manufactured bunch of pretty boys posing about via glossy magazines. It was people like you and me, and that was important. Also, it was hellish exciting...There aren’t all that many songs on ['Inflammable Material'] that directly address the N.I. situation.  Folks would have you believe that the whole thing was some sort of concept album based around the Troubles. It’s a scrappy piece of work that pretty accurately reflects what we sounded like at that time. Raw, raucous and full of anger...At the time, we were just reflecting what we saw around us. I don’t think it was any more dangerous for us than it was for anyone else at that time."

The underground success of their self-released debut single 'Suspect Device' (thanks to John Peel) led to a deal with the fledgling Rough Trade independent label, which released their second single 'Alternative Ulster'.  A deal with Island Records fell through and they were forced to release their debut album on Rough Trade, the first album release for the label.  'Inflammable Material' was recorded at Air Studios in London with producers Geoff Travis, Mayo Thompson, and Doug Bennett.  It features Jake Burns on vocals and guitar, Henry Cluney on guitar and vocals, Ali McMordie on bass and vocals, and Brian Faloon on drums.  

 'Inflammable Material'  went to number fourteen on the UK album charts and sold over one hundred thousand copies, which had never happened before for an independent release.  Cluney considers:   "We were the first indie album in the British charts. It was only supposed to be a couple of releases initially…then when they were successful we made the album, and the shop was effectively saved by sales of that album – before then they had only really had acts like Scritti Pollitti, who weren’t really selling. It made the label £250,000.But the 50/50 deal they gave us was crucial for us in helping us, it was totally unique. It also led on to the slot supporting Tom Robinson – Third World were supposed to do it, but then they had a big hit so they went off and did their own headline tour...Rough Trade distributed all over the UK so they enabled us to stay in Belfast. We couldn’t have done things without Rough Trade, they were the best thing that happened to us...Well the conflict was just day to day life so it was only natural to subsume it into songwriting."

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"Suspect Device"
The band's first single was released on their own Rigid Digits label and sold over thirty thousand copies.  




"State of Emergency"



"Here We Are Nowhere"




"Wasted Life" 



"No More of That" 



"Barbed Wire Love" 




"White Noise" 



"Breakout" 



"Law and Order"



"Rough Trade" 



"Johnny Was" 



"Alternative Ulster" 




"Closed Groove" 



 





'Inflammable Material'
full album: