I get a new turntable and dust off some old records. Vinyl Tap #45:  

Plenty of folk to tell you what to do
But they don't speak the same language as you…

Frustration, too, can be power - with the potential to seek out and resurge from outlets both personal and political. As much as Stiff Little Fingers were touted as, or relegated to being, “the Irish Clash,” they were indeed another band that mattered in their own way, making their own distinctive mark amongst the onrush of late ‘70s punk not only with economic pointedness, commitment, and force - but with melodic underpinnings and infectious accessibility. Indeed, the Belfast-based band offers a potent mix of strident energy along with plenty of hooks to hang a harangue or an aspiration or two.

1980’s Nobody’s Heroes is SLF's follow-up to their 1979 debut album Inflammable Material, which packed a visceral political and raucous wallop as it centered on the volatility of life and strife in Northern Ireland. In 1979, London was calling, with the group moving there and embracing broader, more universal topics for Nobody’s Heroes as it addresses such issues as personal isolation, war, and racism.

The venom of the rousing lead-off track, “Gotta Gettaway,” sees the Strummer-streptococcal voiced Jake Burns — along with Henry Cluney (guitar), Jim Reilly (drums), and Ali McMordie (bass) — kick off a non-stop and cohesively explosive side one with an account of domestic discord that’s only a piece of a bigger puzzle:

My father argued and my mother begged
It's not their words ain't tugging at me
But gotta stretch them break them get myself free…

…Gotta gotta gettaway, gotta gotta gettaway
I'm leaving home.

In the stellar stand-out grabber, “At the Edge,” Burns expands on the homebound friction, with parental one-on-ones that might seem familiar: “I've no time to talk about it / All your stupid hopes and dreams…” But, beyond a youth “under my roof, by my rules,” the existence of ever-shadowing and lifelong meet-the-new-boss authority figures is acknowledged as disputation is provoked and Bob Dylan paraphrased:

And I'm running at the edge of their world
They're criticizing something they just can't understand
Living on the edge of their town
And I won't be shot down.

Article Author: Gordon Hauptfleisch

Gordon Hauptfleisch is a Blogcritics Books Editor, freelance writer, and book reviewer for the San Diego Union Tribune. For many years he worked in and managed bookstores and record stores. Email him and he'll stop talking in the third-person.
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