Stiff Little Fingers - B's, Live, Unplugged and Demos + Live in Săo Paulo - Hangar 110

Photo from a show in Săo Paulo, ten years later.

Here's a great "official bootleg" of the Stiff Little Fingers, accompanied by an unofficial one, and a few extra bits to round it off. The first disc is a compilation of B-sides, live, unplugged and demo tracks (duh) that could be obtained by sending in a coupon from the "Pure Fingers Live - St. Patrix 1993" CD a long time ago; it is streaming for free on Grooveshark, but now you can keep it on your hard drive or digital music device of choice. I have padded it out with two additional unplugged tracks recorded at the same session, in Săo Paulo, Brasil. The second disc is a live show recorded in the same city on the same day, with reasonably good sound and a setlist divided between the classic stuff and the (then) more recent songs from the less played albums "Flags and Emblems", "Tinderbox", and "Hope Street". To finish things off I've added two tracks from Jake Burns's later band, The Big Wheel, whose entire discography is available on a single CD, bar these tracks - extended versions of "Breathless" and "Valentines Day" from the "Breathless" 12" single. They're quite atrocious production-wise, but not half bad songs, and it is Valentine's day today after all, so there you go!

Track listing:

Disc One - B's, Live, Unplugged and Demos:

1. Can't Believe in You (radio edit) (4:24)
2. The Cosh (remix) (3:39)
3. Long Way to Paradise (demo) (2:28)
4. Stand Up and Shout (demo) (3:18)
5. Silver Lining (unplugged) (3:14)
6. Listen (unplugged) (3:29)
7. Wasted Life (unplugged) (2:55)
8. I Could Be Happy Yesterday (unplugged) (3:57)
9. Alternative Ulster (unplugged) (3:18)
10. Johnny Was (live) (8:19)
11. Shake It Off (demo) (3:14)
12. Not What We Were (Pro Patria Mori) (demo) (3:48)
13. Get a Life (live) (5:03)
14. Harp (live) (4:22)
15. Can't Believe in You (live) (4:39)
16. No Laughing Matter (live) (3:01)
17. The Last Time (live) (3:25)
18. Mr. Fire Coal Man (live) (4:52)
19. Two Guitars Clash (live) (4:24)
20. Alternative Ulster (live featuring Ricky Warwick) (3:06)

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Disc Two - Live in Săo Paulo - Hangar 110:

1. Alternative Ulster (3:20)
2. Tantalise (3:00)
3. Silver Lining (3:52)
4. At the Edge (3:28)
5. No Surrender (4:18)
6. Doesn't Make It Alright (5:56)
7. Just Fade Away (3:09)
8. Hope Street (3:42)
9. Wasted Life (3:26)
10. Bits of Kids (3:54)
11. Johnny Was (9:47)
12. I Could Be Happy Yesterday (4:17)
13. Roots, Radicals, Rockers and Reggae (3:37)
14. Nobody's Hero (3:59)
15. Tin Soldiers (5:58)
16. Suspect Device (2:51)
17. Jake Burns and the Big Wheel - Breathless (extended version) (4:35)
18. Jake Burns and the Big Wheel - Valentines Day (extented version) (6:07)

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3 Men + Black - Acoustic

3 men are from the Stranglers, Stiff Little Fingers, and the Jam; Pauline Black is from the Selecter (and so is Nick Welsh, who does not count as a man, apparently). In 2004 they have decided to release an album containing acoustic renditions of some of their songs (or, in the case of Bruce Foxton, mostly his band partner's songs). I'm sharing this mostly because of Jake Burns's contributions, which are of course heavenly. I'm not a big fan of the Stranglers but JJ Burnel's stuff is also quite cool, and Bruce Foxton sounds quite a bit like Paul Weller - that's not a bad thing though. Pauline Black's songs I'm not so fond of, because while I do love the Selecter, I don't think these versions hold up to the regular ones; it's certainly an experiment, and while it doesn't sound like a successful one to my ears, it might to yours. The ballad "Missing Words" is quite nice, actually; it's the ska stuff that rubs me the wrong way played like this. Anyway, if you're a fan of the Stiff Little Fingers (which you really should be), you absolutely NEED the beautiful Jake Burns and the Big Wheel track "She Grew Up". I also quite like this version of a Stranglers track I'm very partial to, the new wave crossover hit "Skin Deep", and two other JJ Burnel's tracks are quite cool, too - a Hawkwind cover "Quark, Strangeness & Charm" and the funny hoedown "Jelly Fish". All in all, a nice little release!

Jake Burns is the coolest man alive, no contest.

Track listing:

1. Alternative Ulster (3:38)
2. Skin Deep (3:06)
3. That's Entertainment (2:56)
4. On My Radio (3:17)
5. She Grew Up (3:22)
6. Me and You (3:44)
7. Smithers-Jones (2:55)
8. Missing Words (3:50)
9. Harp (2:56)
10. Jelly Fish (1:53)
11. David Watts (2:23)
12. Armagideon Time (3:48)
13. Quark, Strangeness & Charm (2:34)
14. Down in the Tube Station at Midnight (3:29)
15. Three Minute Hero (3:00)
16. Wasted Life (3:33)

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