One night in the early ’80s, four lanky kids stepped out of a cab and ambled down Necco Street with biker jackets and Belfast lilts. As Stiff Little Fingers neared the night’s venue — the Channel — the city of Boston left a deep impression on frontman Jake Burns. “There were handwritten posters pasted on lampposts that said, ‘This is the third or fourth time Stiff Little Fingers have played in this city and we never get to see them cuz we’re under 18,’ ” recalls the singer-guitarist over the phone from his current home in Chicago. “It was written by kids who were organizing a petition for us to play an all-ages show. That blew me away.”
Stiff Little Fingers had come to Boston bearing explosive reports from the front lines of the conflict in Ireland — reports that left an indelible impression on the local punk scene. More than two decades later, the anthems on SLF’s first three albums, newly reissued by Rykodisc along with the live album Hanx!, remain woven into the bristly fabric of Boston rock, from the Mighty Mighty Bosstones, to Street Dogs/Dropkick Murphys, to up-and-comers Suspect Device, whose name is borrowed from an SLF tune.
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“For us, they were huge,” says Bosstones guitarist Nate Albert in an e-mail from Brooklyn. “I would say basically every solo I’ve ever done on any Bosstones record is based on Stiff Little Fingers.”
Having fronted the Dropkick Murphys before starting Street Dogs, singer Mike McColgan is in a unique position to comment on SLF’s impact on Boston punk. “You look at the Bosstones, you look at Dropkick Murphys, you look at the Bruisers, the Ducky Boys, and you hear SLF in all those bands,” he says. “It’s in the lyrics, and it’s in the chord structures. When you heard Jake Burns, it was real and tangible. It grabbed you right away. It didn’t sound manufactured or contrived. In Boston, people love that — they love the struggle, they love the underdog.”
That Stiff Little Fingers came to Boston as punk emissaries from Ireland, not England, is one of the keys to the formative impact they had on aspiring local punks. “We’ve always felt drawn to Boston and been comfortable there,” says Burns. “And we’ve always had great audiences there. I can only think it’s because of the big Irish population.”
The link between Burns’s Belfast brood and Boston punk has been further solidified over the years. Taang!, the one-time local punk label that gave the Bosstones their start, released new material by a reunited SLF in the ’90s, and in 2004, the band was honored by Massachusetts for “25 years of outstanding music and continued commitment to peace and justice” in a proclamation put forth by Representative Kevin Honan.
