A rough trade indeed

Excuse the absence from blog land, I didn't really feel strongly enough about anything to write it down, plus the Olympics, work etc etc.
But...today I was out on my weekend long run and I listened to the Stiff Little Fingers debut album 'Inflammable Material'. Released in 1978, it's easy to forget what an impact on the music scene these upstarts from Belfast made at the time. Yes they wrote great tunes, yes they had bags of energy... what singled SLF out from the crowd were the lyrics. Heartfelt and hard-hearted, tales from young men living through the nightmare of the Ulster troubles. Here were guys brought up in an environment where Catholics and Protestants were enemies purely because of their religion. And whilst fellow countrymen The Undertones wrote sweet pop tunes about bubblegum and girls to forget the Troubles, SLF confronted the bigotry and hatred HEAD ON. They exposed the people who were meant to be representing them and let out a youth scream for peace - but they didn't beg, they demanded action.
So...listening to 'Inflammable Material' again, it's lost none of it's raw power and emotion. Jake Burn's gutteral singing was from the heart, no-one ever doubted that. The single 'Suspect Device' and 'Alternative Ulster' were hook-laden chart material with a dark underbelly, just listen to those lyrics. The epic trawl through Bob Marley's 'Johnny Was', adapted and delivered for Belfast instead of Kingston, but listening to it again you can't help but think it still applies to Damascus today. 'Barbed Wire Love' is the closest you get to an SLF love song, but it's a bitter sweet tale delivered with venom. I don't know why but my favourite track is - and always has been -  'Rough Trade', a tale of how SLF were treated when the big record companies started to sniff around them (Island Records in particular). How the corporate lies in London are no different from the religious bigotry back in Ulster.
I admit I'm biased, SLF were one of my favourite bands from the late 70's, I saw them at Portsmouth Guildhall, and live they really did cut it, but the album is one of the few that retains the power of a live performance and transfers it to vinyl.
And where are today's Jake Burns?