"Suspect Device" is the debut single by Northern Irish

punk Punk or punks may refer to: Genres, subculture, and related aspects * Punk rock, a music genre originating in the 1970s associated with various subgenres * Punk subculture, a subculture associated with punk rock, or aspects of the subculture s ...

band

Stiff Little Fingers Stiff Little Fingers are a Northern Irish punk rock band from Belfast. They formed in 1977 at the height of the Troubles, which informed much of their songwriting. They started out as a schoolboy band called Highway Star (named after the Deep P ...

, released on 17 March 1978.

Background and release

Stiff Little Fingers – Jake Burns, vocals and guitar, Henry Cluney, guitar, Ali McMordie, bass, and Brian Faloon, drums – made their first public appearance as a punk band on 16 August 1977. Their fourth gig was at the Glenmachen Stables, Belfast on 14 November 1977. At this gig, the band met journalists Gordon Ogilivie and Colin McClelland, who would soon become the group's management team. Ogilivie showed Burns draft lyrics for a possible song. "Gordon asked me if I'd written anything pertinent where I'd grown up t which juncturehe literally handed me the finished lyric of 'Suspect Device'. I couldn't believe it. Here was a guy who was thinking along exactly the same lines as I was. I'd go so far to say that from the moment he handed me that piece of paper, the band changed." ( Jake Burns) Burns put a tune to the lyrics and "Suspect Device" was born. Footage of the group performing "Suspect Device" at Belfast's Pound Club on 17 January 1978 - the first time the group played the song live - appeared on an Ulster TV programme ''It Makes You Want to Spit'' about the emergence of punk in Belfast. Stiff Little Fingers recorded the single on Saturday 4 February 1978 at Downtown Radio studios. The release of the record required a record/publishing company and Rigid Digits was formed with the band members and two managers all owning equal shares. "Suspect Device" was released on 17 March 1978. The front cover of the "Suspect Device" record sleeve is a photograph of explosive inflammatory devices which were being used by the

Provisional IRA The Provisional Irish Republican Army (Provisional IRA), officially known as the Irish Republican Army (IRA; ) and informally known as the Provos, was an Irish republican paramilitary force that sought to end British rule in Northern Ireland ...

to fire bomb commercial premises. The back sleeve was a black and white photo of the group taken on the 'peace line' between the republican Falls Road and the loyalist

Shankill Road The Shankill Road () is one of the main roads leading through West Belfast, in Northern Ireland. It runs through the working-class, predominantly loyalist, area known as the Shankill. The road stretches westwards for about from central Belfast ...

. A copy of the single was sent to

John Peel John Robert Parker Ravenscroft (30 August 1939 – 25 October 2004), better known as John Peel, was an English radio presenter and journalist. He was the longest-serving of the original disc jockeys on BBC Radio 1, broadcasting regularly from ...

and within days of its release he was regularly playing it on his Radio One show.Sean O'Neill & Guy Trelford (2003) "It Makes You Want To Spit - The Definitive Guide to Punk in Northern Ireland 1977-1982", Reekus Records, ISBN 0-9546057-0-5 Rough Trade's

Geoff Travis Geoff Travis (born 2 February 1952) is the founder of both Rough Trade Records and the Rough Trade chain of record shops. A former drama teacher and owner of a punk record shop, Travis founded the Rough Trade label in 1976. Biography Travis wa ...

heard "Suspect Device" on the John Peel show, ordered copies for sale in the Rough Trade shop in London and distributed the single through Rough Trade's recently set up distribution network of independent record shops. By April, the initial 500 copies had sold out and another 1,500 were pressed. Further re-pressings took place as sales took off. By July 1978, '' Sounds'' was reporting that over 10,000 copies of the single had been sold. In October, ''

Melody Maker ''Melody Maker'' was a British weekly music magazine, one of the world's earliest music weeklies; according to its publisher, IPC Media, the earliest. In January 2001, it was merged into "long-standing rival" (and IPC Media sister publicatio ...

'' estimated sales had reached 12,000. After a proposed contract with

Island Records Island Records is a multinational record label owned by Universal Music Group. It was founded in Jamaica by Chris Blackwell, Graeme Goodall, and Leslie Kong in 1959, and was eventually sold to PolyGram in 1989. Island and A&M Records, another ...

fell through, the band signed with Rough Trade. Following the release of the second single " Alternative Ulster" in October 1978, "Suspect Device" was re-released on Rough Trade on 17 March 1979. A re-recorded version of "Suspect Device" was the opening track on the debut Stiff Little Fingers album, '' Inflammable Material'', which was released on Rough Trade records in February 1979. Its B-side, "Wasted Life", also appeared on the album.

Reception

The popularity of "Suspect Device" was reflected in the annual

Festive Fifty The Festive Fifty was originally an annual list of the year's 50 (though the exact figure varied above and below this number) best songs compiled at the end of the year and voted for by listeners to John Peel's BBC Radio 1 show. It was usually do ...

voted for by listeners of the John Peel show. In 1978, it was voted at number four, and in following years, "Suspect Device" would become a regular fixture in the Festive Fifty, placed at number eight in 1979, number 24 in 1980, number 32 in 1981 and number 31 in the reshaped All-Time Festive Fifty in 1982. The single's B-side, "Wasted Life", appeared in the 1979 Festive Fifty at number 18 and in 1980 at number 27.

References

{{Stiff Little Fingers 1978 songs 1978 debut singles Stiff Little Fingers songs