Bands no one ever mentions today (a potential series....)
Stiff Little Fingers
I remember a boy at my school whose binder was covered in logos for TRB, but he also had the SLF logo
On the basis of that first album Inflammable Material, with all its songs about the Troubles, they were seen as political punk at its rawest.
Hence the bracketing of SLF by my schoolmate (Sandford!) alongside Tom Robinson Band.
Punkest of the punks - aurally, if not image-wise - for a brief moment, Stiff Little Fingers were.
Spearheads indeed of a second-wave of punk that included the Ruts, Angelic Upstarts, and what would soon be called Oi!
... and then almost immediately Stiff Little Fingers became more of a mainstream rock band.
Jumped from Rough Trade to Chrysalis.
Cleaner sound and cleancut image.
Second album Nobody's Heroes cracked the Top Ten, got to #8.
Modest-sized hit singles and a surprisingly large number of appearances on Top of the Pops.
No, I don't think anyone would mention them nowadays.
Even though in some ways they presage the American hardcore sound - Jake Burns's vocals as paint-stripping as the dude in Negative Approach. You can virtually hear the nodules forming on his larynx. Every note sounds like it's at #11 on special Spinal Tap style amplifiers. By empathetic projection, similar to the way that air guitar works, hearing his voice causes pain in your own throat.
Nor would anyone think of them alongside the Rough Trade groups like Raincoats, Scritti, Essential Logic, Young Marble Giants, et al, despite having scored a signal triumph for the label by being Rough Trade's first record to make the charts - SLF's debut Inflammable Material went in at #14 which at that time seemed like an impossible feat for an an independent label.
Well, the sound is not postpunk but punk at its most straightforwardly blasting.
SLF carried on for years, putting out albums deep into the Eighties, touring up and down the UK playing mid-size concert halls.
This advert is from 1982
Broke up in '87.... Burns hooked up with Bruce Foxton for a while.
Then they reformed and they carry on still, playing to their fanbase.
Their version of Johnny Was is one of the all-time great cover versions:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2SCAFiP049o&list=RD2SCAFiP049o&start_radio=1
But generally they leant on being from Norn Iron a bit too much.
Yes! Their Johnny Was is a classic. Points the way to World Domination Enterprises, if you you squint a bit. And Suspect Device is still an adrenaline rush.
DeleteI think they sank their credibility partly because they went on too long, as you say. It also didn't help when it emerged that their manager Gordon Ogilvie was a Northern Ireland correspondent for the Daily Express who co-wrote some of their lyrics. They were blasted for what we would nowadays call bothsidesism, because they were sceptical of both Sinn Fein / the IRA and the British government.
Shotbybothsidesism.
DeleteTom Robinson is another funny one. I was another boy who had the clenched-fist TRB logo all over his binders. And I felt vindicated when I found that Burchill and Parsons had picked Robinson as "king" alongside Poly Styrene as "queen" in The Boy Looked at Johnny.
ReplyDeleteToday their reputations could hardly be more different. Poly Styrene is (rightly) revered as one of the greatest of the punks. Perhaps the greatest. And Tom Robinson is a BBC DJ, I think. On Radio 2?
(Turns out the BBC is the family firm for the Robinsons. His brother was the executive producer of Eastenders!)
Seems like a decent chap. Probably better suited to being a radio personality than a rocker. His voice had a bit too much tightness in the throat.
DeleteRemember going into my school's sixth form, which had its own building, in 1986, and there were lockers with names like Mott The Hoople, Rich Kids and TRB grafffiti'd on them. Bands none of us had listened to, and had barely heard of. Dead enthusiasms; an archaeological vibe. Pretty much all the bands that my year were into have fared much better.
DeleteI recall Malcom McLaren on a Channel 4 programme, remarking in a rare moment of sincerity, that of all the punk bands, SLF were the ones who really had something to be genuinely angry about - the political turmoil in their homeland.
ReplyDeleteAs the years go by, The Undertones have emerged as the most enduring of the Irish new wave bands. Nowadays, they are more fondly recalled than The Boomtown Rats who were much bigger at the time. I Don't Like Mondays topped the charts for weeks and sold close to a million and a half, but it now sounds really dated. Teenage Kicks was only a minor hit - lower end of the top 30, I think ? It's now hailed as an ageless pop classic.
There's something of the Mandela Effect with a lot of these old songs - I remember Teenage Kicks really well, it seemed to be on the radio all the time, so its modest chart position feels uncanny in hindsight. It's the same with Making Plans For Nigel, which I remember as being a massive hit, but it only got to about number 17. How come everybody remembers it?
DeleteThere's also lots of songs which were in the Top Ten for weeks, which I have no memory of whatsoever.
Boomtown Rats are a massive mystery, or rather, their massiveness seems mysterious now. Two number one hits! A number 4 and a number 3! 'Mondays' as you say held the top spot for what felt like months. It all sounds so sub-Springsteen goes punkoid now.
DeleteWhenever I have felt out of curiosity like listening to Tonic for the Troops or Fine Art of Surfacing (wank title) I have recoiled at the last minute.
And indeed the Undertones stuff seems imperishable, a perfect run of singles to spar with the Buzzcocks's same.
I've never really seen the similarity with Springsteen, myself. I always think The Boomtown Rats were more like The New York Dolls had they taken on proficiency and chosen to be earnest rather than camp. As a vocalist, Bob Geldof sounds closer to Johannsen than Jagger.
DeleteThe Undertones/Buzzcocks comparison is spot on, mind. The two punk bands who it felt most accurate to call pop rather than rock - Great singles bands.
Banana Republic still sounds pretty good - an unusually restrained song for a hit. But that Rats are not helped by Geldof's unwholesome personality - like an even less charming Bono. Also the fact that everybody close to him seems to end up dead.
DeleteThe Boomtown Rats played a big summer festival in August near where I live - All Together Now (ATN) in Portlaw, Waterford. They had a Sunday afternoon slot in the big tent. Of course I did the usual stupid grumpy contrarian on it by having a quick glance in and then sat down nearby sipping a can of beer “nah, not bothering with them, fuck that” etc. The tent was heaving though and plenty said afterwards they were really enjoyable. I watched back some YT clips later when I got home and of course then immediately regretted not having got off my arse to go to some of it. Geldof responded to all the Palestinian flags and said some touching words about the mothers of Gaza and how we should all be grateful to be alive enjoying ourselves during a rousing version of ‘I Don’t Like Mondays’. I had watched some inconsequential indie act shortly after the Boomtown set! Sometimes you just have to go with the flow at these festivals and embrace the famous names however ancient and irrelevant they now are. They’ve earned their dues after all I guess.
DeleteIt’s funny though that by Live Aid 85 the Rats were already considered a completely forgotten, out of time non-entity really. When they played early on in Wembley nobody gave a shit.
The connection to US hardcore is evident in Naked Raygun's excellent cover of "Suspect Device".
ReplyDeleteStiff Little Fingers are mentioned approvingly in the film of High Fidelity (specifically, in relation to the influence they had on Green Day).
ReplyDeleteYou briefly mention a group I consider a primary one to have been unfairly memory-holed: the Ruts. I don't think they're even mentioned in the discography of Jon Savage's England's Dreaming.
Inspiral Carpets have suffered from the collective amnesia induced by the Stone Roses hoarding all the baggy acclaim (is there a better example of rockist conservatism among critics?). I would have also suggested Cast (in your romo/yob rock piece, it's a little mystifying to the current ear how often they got mentioned), but the Oasis reunion has boosted their presence (undeservedly? perhaps).
Very much like Cast's Scouse fervour, but then I've long held that second division Britpop is better than the first division.
DeleteI think Ruts were the primary influence on US hardcore, along with Motorhead. Henry Rollins has said as much:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dpltFpLGfWg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I94g8rGZOEU
Early hardcore is basically Motorhead with Malcolm Owen on vox.
Love the Ruts
DeleteJust thought of another example: Arrested Development. Despite the success of their debut and the brouhaha of their Grammies, nobody was interested after 1993. People nowadays assume the name just refers to the sitcom.
ReplyDeleteWhich has me wondering if overtly political acts particularly run the risk of being forgotten. Possible reasons: circumstances change, rendering them irrelevant; any change in their politics sets them up for dismissal due to inconsistency; few enjoy out-of-date stridency in their entertainment. It seems to me that to escape the political ghetto you really have to have other songs in your arsenal (Dylan, CCR), or you have to shoot the moon (Clash, Jam).
Another reason: record labels find marketing such bands a pain in the hole, knowing that a fair portion of the audience will just be alienated. That said, I once watched a documentary about Thatcher's legacy, and a Tory MP said he was a fan of The Beat's Stand Down Margaret whilst at Oxford, but claimed that at the time he couldn't understand the grudge they had against Princess Margaret.
DeleteWho remembers Red Wedge these days?
As if by magic…
ReplyDeletehttps://superdeluxeedition.com/news/stiff-little-fingers-inflammable-material-reissue/