Alternative Ulster

Yesterday was a strange day which came at the end of a stressful week where I found myself getting caught up in all sorts of meetings and huddled conversations in my role as a union representative (for the National Union of Journalists) over various shifts in working patterns in the paper where I work.
Anyway I was feeling drained after forcing myself to be a conduit for other people’s worries and preoccupations and often finding my own analysis of things being totally ignored and so was just looking forward to getting Saturday’s paper off to the printers and coming home for a glass of wine.
Then at about 5.30pm we were told to evacuate our city centre offices because there was a suspected bomb close by. It was a throw back to a 20 years ago when such things were not that uncommon in Belfast but which now seems outrageously shocking.
After about 10 minutes standing outside we were told it would be at least 45 minutes before the bomb squad arrived and so split up in to various groups to go off to shopping, to pubs and in my case to a venue called The Black Box, where I had my book launch a few years ago.
I’d merely suggested it as a place to go for a coffee but when I and a few colleagues got in I saw Terri Hooley, ‘the godfather of Northern Ireland punk’ sitting talking to someone who I vaguely recognized but couldn’t quite place who turned out to be Don Letts.
Letts is an iconic figure in punk mythology, a ‘black English man’ who is credited with instigating the cross fertilisation between punk and reggae which so influenced The Clash.
It turned out that he was doing a question and answer session with Terri, in front of a modest audience of about 40 people. Within a few minutes Terri and Don were in full flow and reminiscences and names were being bandied about – Terri’s of Belfast, Stiff Little Fingers, The Undertones, The Outcasts and Rudi and Shane MacGowan. Don’s involvement was in London – Malcolm McLaren, Vivienne Westwood, John Lydon and the Sex Pistols, Joe Strummer and Mick Jones of the Clash, Bob Marley and The Slits.
Don Letts became involved in the Punk scene through a shop, Acme, he ran in the mid-70s and by becoming a DJ at the Roxy where many of the early punk bands played. He later turned his hand to filmmaking and his footage of The Sex Pistols and The Clash in 1976 and 77 provides some of the most iconic moments of that era.
He filmed many of the best-known punk bands and was later a member of Big Audio Dynamite, along with former Clash guitarist Mick Jones.
Unfortunately just as the conversation was getting interesting I had to make my way back to work, although when I got there I ended up standing outside The Irish News for another hour while a controlled explosion was carried out in a neighbouring street before we were allowed back in to the office to finish off producing the paper.
Anyway, by the time I was back at my desk I felt fully reinvigorated by the little interlude and my brief brush with punk history.

Stiff Little Fingers - The Academy, Dublin

‘IT’S Friday night in Dublin and we are Stiff Little Finger’. The soft, anglicised, spoken voice of Belfast-born Jake Burns is a jarring contrast to the guttural, snarling lead vocalist.
When he sings you feel you better pay attention to what he is saying in case he looks around and turns his venom on you, yet his stage persona and banter with audience and fellow band members is amiable.
The difference between SLF and other punk/new age era bands which have reformed in recent years is that the Stiffs are still a full working band, recording new material and debuting new songs.
Burns and bass-player Ali McMordie are the only two original members – and McMordie only rejoined in 2006 after a 15-year sabbatical – but Friday night’s performance suggested a band of equals who bounce of each other and were clearly having a good time.
Burns introduced two new songs – a diatribe about former US president George Bush and the tendency of British tabloids to create hate figures and demonise them.
However, these were cushioned among a generous delving into the Stiff Little Fingers back catalogue, focusing for the most part on their first two overtly punk albums, but with helpings form their third and fourth more mature albums and tracks from their post reunification days.
“Inflammable material is planted in my head/It's a suspect device that's left 2,000 dead”
The words of ‘Suspect Device’ – a refutal of paramilitaries and state oppression in the north – may have dated in terms lyrical content since it was written in the late 1970s as has the reference to “the RUC dogs of oppression/are barking at out feet” in their best-known song ‘Alternative Ulster’, but the punk sentiment of refusing to be classified or limited by the society in which we live is still valid.
Lyrics aside both songs have stood the test of time purely in terms of their ability to get 600 people jump around a intimate little venue just around the corner from the GPO in O’Connell Street.
‘Wasted Life’, ‘Barbed Wire Love’, ‘Tin Soldiers’, ‘Nobody’s Heroes’ were all given work outs and – proof that Irish bands can play reggae – the Special’s cover ‘Doesn’t Make it Alright’ and the epic Rita Marley-written (originally sung by her husband Bob ) ‘Johnny Was’.
They were the soundtrack to many of our youths but this concert proved that Stiff Little Fingers are not just playing on past glories and can still deliver a quality set that confirms to their audience why they loved them in the first place and challenges them to move with them into new territory.