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 STIFF
LITTLE FINGERS- Guitar And Drum (Kung
Fu Records) Thank fuck this doesn’t suck (and in truth, there’s
really some good stuff here, but back to my lame build up for the moment).
SLF is one of my top five all-time favorite bands.
Singer/lead guitarist Jake Burns is a god, and original rhythm
guitarist Henry Cluney inspired me to play like nobody else could.
That we’re now over 25 years past their historic first release,
combined with the fact that I haven’t been all that excited by their
more recent albums- though I think they still rule live- made me sort of
dread reviewing this. I
would’ve felt terrible saying bad things about a band so dear to me.
Happily, this disc tells me in no uncertain terms that ol’ Jake
Burns & company still got it. First
off, Jake’s voice is pure magic. Not
as growlly as in his younger days, but it’s so passionate and smooth it
amazes me that this guy, who is the only original member of SLF still in
this version of the band, has got to be near 50 years old.
Stand-outs on this one include the title track (an instantly
likeable lament about how much today’s corporate music blows),
“Walkin’ Dynamite” (a corking history lesson on the troubles of
boxer Sonny Liston) and “Who Died And Made You Elvis” (a pounder about
a rock “star” with an over-inflated ego that sounds like it would have
fit beautifully on their underrated 1981 release Go For It). The lyrical
cream of the crop on Guitar And Drum
is “Strummerville,” a moving eulogy to the mighty Joe Strummer.
It’s powerful stuff listening to this tribute from one punk
legend to another.
I don’t love every song on this one, but
there’s enough good here to make buying it worth your while.
If you’ve never, gasp, heard Stiff Little Fingers before, you
should pick up Nobody’s Heroes (their
second release and what I think is their masterpiece) or Inflammable
Material (their fantastic debut) before buying this one.
If you’ve already got those- and Go
For It for that matter- pick this sucka up as soon as you can. –Ben
Hunter
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