Stiff Little Fingers' Inflammable Material

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Situating the band and its groundbreaking debut within the context of The Troubles, this book explores the bands complicated and controversial relationship with the Belfast punk scene, a scene that actively defied violent social divisions to create important non-sectarian spaces through which an Alternative Ulster was imagined and put into practice.

Stiff Little Fingers 1979 debut album, Inflammable Material, was the first independent album to ever reach the UK Top 20 and is regarded as one of the most influential punk releases of all time, containing the singles Suspect Device and Alternative Ulster. Inflammable Material was both a product of, and response to, The Troubles, the era of political violence in Northern Ireland that claimed more than 3,500 lives over three decades.

Though Inflammable Material was regarded as the clarion call for that scene, with anthemic songs now regarded as synonymous with the times, the band was often viewed with suspicion and outright hostility by many of their contemporaries.

Author Bio

Kevin C. Dunn is Professor in the International Relations Department at Hobart and William Smith Colleges in Geneva, NY, USA. He is author of Global Punk: Resistance and Rebellion in Everyday Life (Bloomsbury 2016) Inside African Politics (with Pierre Englebert; Bloomsbury 2013 and 2020), as well as the award-winning novel Vicious is My Middle Name (2022). Active in DIY punk scenes since the 1980s, he continues to perform in several bands, runs an independent record label, publishes various zines, and is a regular contributor to the influential DIY punk zine Razorcake.