The Undertones
&
Stiff Little Fingers
This article is
based on two different NFH pieces. The first originally appeared in NFH #5 in August 1981,
and featured both the Undertones and Stiff Little Fingers. Shortly after that, SLF toured
on the west coast, and I saw them play two shows out here and also got to interview Jake
Burns...the first interview ever for NFH. The results of this appeared in NFH #6 in Oct.
1981.
If an analogy were to
be drawn between reviewing records and reviewing books, then the past releases of the
Undertones have played the Harlequin Romance to the War and Peace role of Stiff
Little Fingers. Comparison of the two bands is not so offbeat as this might make it seem,
however. Despite major philosophical differences about lyrics content, these groups both
have a lot in common. Both hail from violence plagued Northern Ireland; Stiff Little
Fingers from Belfast and the Undertones from nearby Derry. Both came to prominence as the
first wave of British punk bands began to fizzle out. Both started on influential
independent labels; the Undertones on Good Vibrations and Stiff Little Fingers on Rough
Trade. And both play fast, punk influenced pop.
The lyrical
differences between the two bands have led to a number of exchanges between the two groups
in the British music press. The Undertones have been heard to accuse Stiff Little Fingers
of sensationalism with regard to the Irish situation. "It’s a hard thing to
write about", John O’Neill has said. "Stiff Little Fingers don’t do a
very good job of it." In their defense, Jake Burns has said that the Undertones have
developed the attitude of many other Northern Irelanders; ignore it and hope it’ll go
away. Stiff Little Fingers feel that the troubles won’t go away until people start to
recognize them. In these bouts, the Undertones have generally seemed to be the antagonists
while SLF have merely attempted to defend their position. In an NME interview a couple of
years ago, Jake Burns insisted that the interviewer print his opinion that the ‘Tones
"You Got My Number" was his favorite single of the year, and he lamented that
"everybody seems to want us to hate each other."
Against this backdrop
we are presented with an lp by each of these bands, and if it can be said that SLF’s
inflammatory political stance has softened somewhat with songs like "Just Fade
Away" and "Kicking Up A Racket", then, too, the Undertones have developed
an attitude that is much less innocent than the "Teenage Kicks" approach of
their first two albums, with songs such as "Crisis Of Mine" or "You’re
Welcome", a song about a girl who is waiting for her boyfriend to get out of an Irish
prison.
Stiff Little Fingers
Stiff Little Fingers
-- Jake Burns (lead guitar and acidic vocals), Ali McMordie (bass), Henry Cluney (rhythm
guitar) and Brian Faloon (drums) -- formed in the winter of 1977 in Belfast after the
excitement of London’s punk rock explosion reached their ears. They took their name
from a cut by the Vibrators ("well if it wasn’t for your stiff little fingers,
nobody would know you were dead") and played covers of their songs as well as tunes
by the Clash (who they revered at the time), the Ramones and the Damned. After a bit of
local gigging, Burns wrote to a local critic to try to get some mention of the band in
Belfast’s Sunday News. The writer, Colin McClelland, came to a couple of Stiff
Little Fingers shows accompanied by Gordon Oglivie, another journalist with the Belfast Daily
Express. The band had one Ulster song, "State Of Emergency", under their
belt at that pint, but felt uncomfortable pushing the subject. Oglivie and McClelland both
provided encouragement and with Oglivie helping out with some lyric contributions a
single, "Suspect Device" was soon released on the band’s own Rigid Digits
label. "Suspect Device" showed the fire of the band, but was missing the blend
of pop sensibility with punk vitriol that was to become the band’s trademark.
After a round of
label shopping whose somewhat bitter fruits are perhaps best summarized in the song
"Rough Trade" on the first album, the band ended up on the label of the same
name. The deal was mutually beneficial; Stiff Little Fingers quickly became Rough
Trade’s biggest act, and the label gave the band the springboard they needed to move
on to greater national prominence. The band’s first Rough Trade single,
"Alternative Ulster" will probably always be regarded as their undisputed
masterpiece; just the right blend of pop, punk, politics, and a perfect chorus:
An
alternative Ulster
Grab it and change it, it’s yours
Get an alternative Ulster
Ignore the boors and their laws
An alternative Ulster
Be an anti-security force
Alter your native Ulster
Alter your native land!
After a reissue of
"Suspect Device", Rough Trade put out the first album for both the group and the
label to unanimous critical acclaim. Inflammable Material was a fierce, raw album
of politically charged punk that could stand with the first releases of any of
Britain’s new wave and punk bands. The album included both singles and ten other
originals, plus an emotionally charged version of Bob Marley’s "Johnny
Was", which is far superior to that late Marley’s own version. The album climbed
to #11 on the UK charts without the benefit of a penny of advertising, and was one of the
major forces behind the current wave of independent releases and successes that have
continued to the present.
One more Rough Trade
single followed; the excellent "Gotta Gettaway", which is a close rival to
"Alternative Ulster" for the best SLF song ever. At this point, the band felt
the need for better distribution and stronger financial backing. After much shopping
around, the group signed a contract with Chrysalis that gave them complete control of
material on albums and singles as well as advertising and artwork, tours, and release
dates for records. The extent of say they have in their affairs is perhaps best exhibited
by the back of the UK Nobody’s Heroes lp jacket, which shows a reproduction of
the rejection letter Chrysalis sent them in their pre-Rough Trade days, a letter which no
doubt causes Chrysalis considerable embarrassment now.
Shortly after signing
with Chrysalis, the band released the 45 "Straw Dogs", which didn’t seem to
catch much attention despite the riotous flipside "You Can’t Say Crap On The
Radio", which includes a closing rave-up of the Clash’s "Crapitol
Radio". This single proved to be a mere calm before the storm, though, as the release
of Nobody’s Heroes brought Stiff Little Fingers into the ranks of superstardom
in the UK and also became the band’s first US release. The album, which included a
new take of "Gotta Gettaway", also spawned two other 45s, "At The
Edge" and the double A-side of "Tin Soldiers" and "Nobody’s
Heroes", the latter a response to negative press arising from the presence of hordes
of screaming teeny-boppers at the band’s London shows. At least three other cuts from
the album also had "hit material" stamped on them, the exceptions being a
dubious cover of the Special’s "It Doesn’t Make It Alright" and a dub
version of "Bloody Sunday" called "Bloody Dub". "Sunday" was
the flip of "Gotta Gettaway", but many critics failed to realize the source of
the title to the instrumental dub version and accused the band of gratuitous use of
imagery in naming the song on the album.
Nobody’s
Heroes showed marked musical improvement over Inflammable Material, although it
can’t match the passion of the first album. Jake Burns began to use his trademark
growl with more discretion than on earlier material and the guitar interplay between Burns
and Cluney became much tighter. Ali McMordie’s bass work now often recalls Bruce
Foxton of the Jam, and only the drumming remains pedestrian, with Jim Reilly replacing
Brian Faloon.
Within nine months of
the release of Nobody’s Heroes SLF were back with another lp, this one the
live Hanx!, an album that seemed to be a big mistake right from the start. The band
simply didn’t have enough material to draw from to make a live record worth buying to
someone who already had either of the first two albums. The performances were also less
moving than the studio recordings. The record showed the band to be very tight live, but
they seemed to lack the concentration demanded by the material, being more intent on
working with the dynamics of the crowd.
A new single,
"Back To Front", was thus a heartening development, especially since it was as
good as anything on Nobody’s Heroes. After the release of this 45, a silence
fell on the band which has just now been broken with the release of the new album Go
For It and the single "Just Fade Away". This time Stiff Little Fingers have
branched out into all other kinds of music with the binding thread of punk still apparent
in a slightly subdued way. A tinge of reggae here, a touch of rockabilly there, horns in
one cut, another an instrumental, a cut about girlfriend troubles -- all point to a
diversification in the band’s style. There will be those who cry "sell out"
for sure, but many of these same people would have accused the band of being in a rut if
they had released another record like Nobody’s Heroes.
Go For It
still contains a number of the "expected" sort of cuts; "The Only
One", "Safe As Houses" and the excellent "Picadilly Circus", a
song about the senseless stabbing of a friend in London that recalls "Johnny
Was" in spirit. The real attention getters, however, are the new-mold songs; "Go
For It", the instrumental, "Roots Radicals Rockers Reggae", a cover
version, "Just Fade Away", the single about breaking up with a girlfriend, and
the new 45 "Silver Lining", which includes a horn chart. The lp also includes
the "Back To Front" single. My reaction to the album is that it’s the most
enjoyable lp yet from the band.
Many of my friends,
when they hear that I’m a new wave fanatic, react with: "How can you like that
stuff; it’s so violent", or "You don’t seem like that type". I
roll my eyes and wish they would hear Stiff Little Fingers, because this band best
exemplifies the reasons I like punk music -- they play compassionate, impassioned rock and
roll that gives a damn; music for people who care.
SLF
West Coast Tour Review
Expecting Stiff
Little Fingers’ west coast tour to be like everybody else (i.e., skipping San Diego)
I bought tickets for the LA show at the New Florentine Gardens as soon as they went on
sale. Shortly afterwards a San Diego show was announced and I found myself with tickets to
both.
Those who saw the
Bacchanal show here in town will have a good idea what the LA show was like. The Gardens,
just off Hollywood Freeway, is an old theater that brings to mind Montezuma Hall at San
Diego State; a flat square floor, no seats, and a high ceiling. Perhaps 800 people showed
up along with a small contingent of bored looking record company types seated at tables in
a cordoned-off area to the right of the stage. Missing Persons opened, and if they
didn’t impress the crowd, they certainly impressed themselves. They were awful.
A long tape filled
the gap between the openers and SLF, building up until finally "Go For It", the
instrumental from the new lp, blared from the speakers. An orchestral fanfare (not unlike,
<shudder>, a Yes concert) introduced the band, who lunged into "Roots,
Radicals, Rockers and Reggae". The material from there on was fairly well divided
among the three studio lps, but although the band were tight and sharp they failed to
interact with each other or with the crowd. This problem became particularly noticeable
after "Picadilly Circus", a song which they interrupted and restarted three
times due to the vigor of the slam dancers, with Jake punctuating each halt with tirades
like "You animals! We’re not fucking bloody Black Flag, you know!".
I’m not big on LA style slam dancing myself, but Burns’ melodramatic speeches
probably did more to encourage the crowd than to slow it down.
It took about four
songs for the band to recover their momentum, which they achieved with an excellent
"Gotta Gettaway". From here on the show was technically excellent, but the
interaction, the feeling, which is so important for a band like SLF, was still missing.
Henry Cluney’s clown-like cavorting about the stage and his incessant breaking of
strings due to his hammering guitar style clashed violently with serious messages in songs
like "Tin Soldiers" or "Wasted Life", where Jake’s utter
seriousness seems a little stiff from someone who started with Ramones and Vibrators
covers.
It’s
understandable then that the high point of the show was when the band encored with the
Undertones’ "Teenage Kicks", a song where no false earnestness is required
and the band could just cut loose and have a good time. SLF make great records, but their
live act needs a little improvement.
After blowing about 8
bucks on long distance calls to Chrysalis Records and getting put on hold till I was blue
in the face, I managed to get an interview set up with Jake Burns before the Bacchanal
show. The interview, while interesting, was not as good as I had hoped, partly because I
shared it with a writer from a local magazine whose knowledge of the UK scene was, to be
kind, limited, and partly because I myself had never interviewed anyone before. So rather
than transcribe the whole thing, I’ll just hit the major points.
I started out talking
to Gordon Oglivie, the band’s manager and partner in songwriting, about the progress
of the tour. Oglivie felt that the previous night’s LA show had been their best,
which doesn’t say much for the rest of the tour. He added that the band was scheduled
for a few east coast dates and then a European tour starting in Greece, where Chrysalis
reports that they outsell Blondie (with total sales of about 800 records, though), and
proceeding through Italy, France, Germany, and Scandinavia. Oglivie shrugged off reports
of violence among Italian crowds at shows by politically oriented bands.
We sat down with Jake
behind the stage. He’s a thin, pale skinned guy who doesn’t look much like his
photos, and doesn’t look particularly tough, either. We started talking about recent
UK bands and the general direction of things over there. Jake said he doesn’t care
much for Adam and the Ants, but said he did like Spandau Ballet, which came as a
shock to me. He confessed that this was largely because he knows them personally since
they are Chrysalis labelmates. He acknowledged that UK punk was pretty much over with,
insisting that bands needs to progress, pointing out the Cockney Rejects and Angelic
Upstarts as bands that he felt were pretty much mired in the past. His favorite new bands
included U2, Echo and the Bunnymen, and Orange Juice.
I asked him about
LA’s scene, and he seemed to have somewhat of a pick and choose attitude. He liked
DOA somewhat (but they’re from Canada!), having toured with them and gotten to know
the band members, but stated emphatically that he had no time for bands like Black Flag,
whose music he calls regressive and downright bad. On the whole, LA’s brand of new
music didn’t seem to impress him.
One of Jake’s
peeves on the tour was the fact that they were forced to play mostly in clubs where
teenagers couldn’t get in. Except for the LA show, most halls didn’t allow those
under the drinking age to enter, depriving the band of what they feel is an important part
of their audience. As for rowdy crowds, Jake dismissed his comments on stage in LA to some
degree saying that that stuff goes on everywhere and it wasn’t all that unusual. He
had the usual complaints about US audiences just standing and staring at them, and felt
that the worst gig for that sort of thing was in Pasadena, where he says the crowds just
sat and did nothing. The most animated crowds on the tour? Toronto, Boston, and the LA
show at the Florentine Gardens.
No conversation with
Stiff Little Fingers would be complete without hitting on the political content of the
band’s music. Jake says that the band prefers to take a middle of the road stance,
and rather than say what is wrong and what is right, they just want to say: this is
what’s around you. Are you happy with it? They’ve never had problems between
Catholics and Protestants at their gigs in Ireland, and he attributes this in large part
to this attitude. It also helps that the band consists of two Catholics and two
Protestants and that they try to schedule their gigs at venues in areas that are mixed.
Jake acknowledges that to some his ideals may seem to be too much, and at times he feels
like all the songs about the underdog and the downtrodden make him sound like Batman or
something, but it’s an approach that he finds to be valid and worthwhile.
In the San Diego show
later that night, Jake begins to introduce "Picadilly Circus" by talking about
how it tells a true story about a friend of his. Someone in the crowd right in front of
him yells out that it’s bullshit. Jake snarls at him: "No it isn’t. And if
you say that again I’ll smash your bloody face". It’s the most real passion
I’ve seen out of him yet. It was interesting to talk to him...he seems to put so much
of what he feels into what goes on vinyl, and it’s a little sad to see the hard
exterior he’s built around himself to protect himself from the slings and arrows of
the UK press. His answers seem sincere, but they were delivered in a polished and
rehearsed style that made you feel that he had a stock answer for almost every question.
The fear of being misquoted or misinterpreted seems to haunt him. The UK press is
notoriously tough, and despite all Stiff Little Finger’s success, Jake is only about
22 years old; still very young to have to handle so much pressure. Good luck to him.
The
Undertones
The Undertones -
Feargal Sharkey (vocals), brothers John and Damien O’Neill (guitars), Mickey Bradley
(bass) and Billy Doherty (drums) -- have never claimed to be anything other than a good
time. In fact, they generally seem surprised that anyone thinks anything of them at all.
This lack of self-importance has always been one of their most endearing qualities.
Like Stiff Little
Fingers, the Undertones formed in earl 1977 out of an interest in punk bands like the
Buzzcocks and Ramones, but also with more mainstream influences such as T. Rex and Gary
Glitter. However, where Pete Shelley had to be content with dreaming that he was almost 16
again, the Undertones really very nearly were -- none were over 20 when they began. They
started out playing weekly gigs at the Casbah in Derry, a small club with no stage that
was just about the only place in the area that you could hear anything from the new wave.
After a year of this,
in 1978, the band recorded the now renowned "Teenage Kicks" ep on the Good
Vibrations label. The ep contained the title track and three others, one of which
("True Confessions") was to appear on their debut lp in a much different form.
"Teenage Kicks" was the only song on the ep that showed the band’s true
potential, and still stands out as one of their best tunes ever.
It is perhaps
interesting to note that some of the big name indie labels such as Chiswick, Radar and the
much overrated Stiff passed on the Undertones demos. Not that is has any great relevance
here, but Stiff has long been touted as a champion of the new wave, when in reality they
are just a bunch of broken down pub rockers whose only real contributions have been giving
us Elvis Costello and the Damned. All one needs to do is look at the rubbish in the Stiff
boxed sets (I mean, Max Wall!! Now c’mon!) to see the real stuff that Stiff is made
of.
Anyway, the famous,
influential and tasteful (did we mention good looking?) BBC dj John Peel began playing
"Teenage Kicks" regularly on his show and the Undertones were off to the races.
Sire Records came
around and Feargal Sharkey himself negotiated the band’s contract with them, a fact
which doubtless contributed to their leaving the label prior to the Positive Touch
lp. At the time, Sharkey felt that negotiating was easy: "The numbers were low, so I
made them bigger. It said six thousand on the contract -- we asked for twenty. It was as
simple as that." Unfortunately, these things are never that simple, and there’s
no question that this fact became clear to the band later on.
Sire began with a
reissue of the "Teenage Kicks" ep, and the band followed that up with the superb
"Get Over You", which featured a solid b side as well with "Really
Really". Next out was the marvelous "Jimmy Jimmy", released at first on
bright green vinyl with a sleeve printed on clear plastic. But the Undertones really made
their mark with the release of their debut album in mid-1979. The lp knocked out almost
everybody with rollicking tunes topped off by Feargal’s unique vocal warbling from
start to finish. The UK release included "Jimmy Jimmy" and spawned yet another
45, "Here Comes The Summer", a song that NME’s Julie Burchill said more
about life in Ireland than any Stiff Little Fingers cut. That may or may not have been
true, but "Summer" was indeed another fine single.
America was in for an
even bigger treat. When the album was finally released here, it came with all new artwork
and included as a bonus the A sides of the first two singles, making it a rival of any of
the Ramones best albums. "Teenage Kicks" was released as a US 45, but it went
nowhere due to inadequate promotion and the US markets disinterest in new wave bands.
There certainly seems to be no reason why the Undertones couldn’t be huge in the US.
Despite a dislike of
touring (they said it took them away from their girlfriends), the band packed it off to
the states as opening act for the Clash, a pairing that was enormously beneficial in
getting the group press here, since at the time a Clash tour was regarded as the
premier new wave event by most rock journalists. The Undertones did more than hold their
own on this tour; despite their awe for the headliners they were able to garner rave
reviews for themselves. Late 1979 saw the issue of the band’s best and toughest
record, the great "You Got My Number", a cut that features layer on layer of
hard, bruising O’Neill guitars, gutty drumming, and a powerful vocal by Sharkey. The
flip, a cover of the Chocolate Watchband’s "Let’s Talk About Girls"
could have been an A side itself. The production on this 45 was much more powerful than on
any other Undertones recording before or after, closely resembling the band’s live
sound. I still remember Jim Green’s review of this single in Trouser Press:
"Music for reviewer to smash typewriter to!". No wonder Jake Burns felt the way
he did about this song.
1980’s album, Hypnotized,
saw a more mellow, reserved version of the Undertones. The lp had its share of ‘Tones
standards, such as "There Goes Norman", "Whiz Kids", or
"What’s With Terry", but also included were slower cuts like "See That
Girl" or "Under The Boardwalk". The production left the guitars sounding
muddy, something that has been a problem on all Undertones records except "You Got My
Number", but was worse on Hypnotized than any previous release. Hypnotized
was a good record, but everything previous had been great, so a feeling of disappointment
began to settle in.
Two singles were
released from the album, "My Perfect Cousin" and "Wednesday Week", and
another US tour followed, this time with the Undertones as headliners. Their San Diego
show demonstrated that there was nothing wrong with the material on Hypnotized that
tougher production couldn’t have remedied. Their show was uniformly great, keeping
the normally reserved San Diego crowd on their feet and pogoing madly from start to
finish. The general feeling was that every song packed the wallop of "You Got My
Number"...a huge, crushing guitar sound to go with these brilliant pop songs.
"Male Model" from the first album especially connected, sending the crowd into a
raging fit surging around the 15 foot wide space between the stage and the first row of
seats in the old Roxy Theater in Pacific Beach. People were bouncing up and down and side
to side, bashing into each other and into the stage, and with every song the Undertones
just pumped more energy into the mass of humanity in front of them. Everyone went home
soaked with sweat but deliriously satisfied at one of the best shows to come through San
Diego up to that time.
Following this tour
the band disappeared from view for a long stretch.. During this time, three members of the
group (Sharkey, John O’Neill, and Doherty) have married (sorry, girls) and legal
proceedings to wrangle out of the Sire contract have added a measure of maturity (or at
least caused a loss of innocence). The band, although still unconvinced of their
worthiness, are now aware of their star status and have taken steps to maintain it.
Feargal has given up smoking to protect his voice, and chocolate (remembers "Mars
Bars"?) to save his teeth. The band, once vigorously opposed to touring, now realize
the need for exposure and are planning sustained live gigging. Now on their own Ardeck
label, distributed by EMI, the band has a new lp Positive Touch and a new single
"It’s Going To Happen".
There might have been
some fear in the Undertones camp that the British music scene had passed them by in their
almost year long hiatus, and indeed, when the "See No More Tour" opened this
spring the sold out houses that would have been expected a year ago were not to be seen.
The band is hoping that their new records will quickly bring back the fickle UK fans,
though. The single, a bouncy and fairly typical Undertones cut, includes horns, which is a
bit of a switch for a band that has always been very consistent in its guitar/bass/drums
approach (they even comment on synthesizers in the lyrics to "My Perfect
Cousin"). The album is even further off the track normally beaten by the Undertones,
and while it will no doubt eliminate some of their old fans, it will also attract some new
ones. At times, the record seems like more of a showcase for Feargal Sharkey’s
quivering vocals than a workout for the band. There’s a mix of ballads and uptempo
cuts; the album begins with a reassuring rocker, "Fascination", but then swerves
into a sensitive ballad, "Julie Ocean" and from here on it seems that about half
the cuts have some new twist to them; piano on "Life’s Too Easy", the dead
serious tone of "You’re Welcome", or the studio effects nicked from Led
Zeppelin’s "Whole Lotta Love" (!) on "Forever Paradise".
There’s still a
good share of typical Undertones rockers -- "Good Looking Girlfriend", "The
Positive Touch" or "When Saturday Comes", for example, but the band is
trying to grow and the album shows it both in growing pains and in greater maturity.
Whether that maturity is a plus may be a matter for some debate...when I first listened to
this album I thought it was awful, but it’s been growing on me ever since. At this
point I feel that it’s a solid effort, but not as good as either of the first two
lps.
Both the Undertones
and Stiff Little Fingers have been written of almost in the past tense of late by the
British press because current fads have passed them by and today’s darlings are the
New Romantic bands. But honesty is never out of fashion, and those with the individuality
and independence to make their own choice will find the bright pop of the Undertones or
the rough and ready punk of Stiff Little Fingers far superior to the synth sludge of
Visage or Spandau Ballet, the pseudo rockabilly of the Stray Cats, or the fashion
conscious Adam and the Ants. There’s a real need for bands like the Undertones and
Stiff Little Fingers in this world. Go for it!
