You think you’ve been in hell. You don’t look very well. It seems that you’ve just been, to Stalag 17……...

In 1979/80 ex Stillborns bass player Petesy Burns, a first year engineering student, met up with a young YTP named Tul whilst both were attending courses at the Boucher Road Government Training Centre. Tul (ex Maimed vocalist) told Petesy that he and his mate TC Tommy McGlone (ex Maimed guitarist) were forming a new band and asked Petesy if he would like to get involved. Petesy agreed and the trio began to practice in Tul’s dad’s garage. The band had no drummer at this stage. A mad wee bastard called Mickey, who worked in the plumbing section of the Boucher Road GTC, had helped Petesy to make a mic stand for Tul and as it turned out Mickey had more than a passing interest in drumming. The line-up was complete when Mickey agreed to join the band, and then they set about seriously annoying Tul’s neighbours. Next on the agenda was to find a suitable name and Stalag 17 was chosen, Petesy Burns – “The name Stalag 17 was plucked out of the air probably because we thought there would be associations with concentration camps and horrific events and that was punk rock too. There was also the irony that the band were wholeheartedly anti nazi.”  Their first set included two old Stillborns songs, Social Diseases which Petesy retitled Stalag 17 after rewriting the lyrics, and National Front which was renamed Anti National Front then finally Smash The Front, which became the bands anthem!

By the time Stalag 17 were ready to play live the Harp Bar had already closed down and other suitable venues were few and far between. However, the band managed to get a gig in the Hillhead community centre in West Belfast and after that successful debut they were offered a support slot to The Defects at the Pound the following week. They then went on to play in some unlikely venues such as Orangefield Girls School, The Clubhouse, some youth club “where the priest kept us in line with a hurling stick” – recalled Petesy, Hyne’s Bar and the Project in Bangor. One of the most memorable gigs was when Stalag 17 took part in a ‘Battle Of The Bands’ competition at Coleraine University and came third! Petesy Burns – “It was tacky of course but it was worth it just to see the young Pakistani guy with the union jack T-shirt giving us abuse and nazi salutes during ‘Smash The Front.’  A Christian band whose female singer had hitched the sides of her long skirt into her waistband won!”

On 29th March 2022 Spit Records released Shellshock Rockers Vol. 3, a compilation CD of previously unreleased tracks, all salvaged from old cassette tapes. Stalag 17 featured on the opening track, 'It's Up To You', recorded live at the A Centre, Belfst 1981 and can be heard below.

It was 1981 and by this time the band had a manager (of sorts!) called Sam Ireland (eventually replaced by Billy McMullan). They then recorded their first demo, which consisted of two songs Stalag 17 and Smash The Front on Greg Cowan’s (Outcasts) 4-track. The following week a group of NF skinheads called Offensive Weapon recorded their demo on the same 4-track. “Apparently they thought ‘Smash The Front’ was a good song apart from the lyrics. This was to set the scene for many encounters between the two bands, one of which nearly caused a riot in the Pound when the Outcasts let them up to play ‘Bulldog’ in response to ‘Smash The Front’ – said Petesy.

Stalag’s uncompromising stance and wholehearted embracement of the DIY ethos soon moved them to the forefront of the emerging Anarcho-punk scene alongside Newtownards band Toxic Waste. The opening of the Anarchy Centre provided a great boost for punk in Belfast in the early 80’s and when Stalag 17 played there with Ten Past Seven they got their first (and last) review in the NME – “Stalag 17 are all bar-chord bluster booming through closed doors. What’s needed is a deed pool, more mastery and less battery”, to which Stalag 17 responded,  “Hey mate, it’s punk rock, so fuck off”. Highlights for the band at the Anarchy Centre were supporting Poison Girls and later Crass, who made a big impression. Tensions had started to rise within the band and after a drink-fuelled gig in Portstewart, which ended in mass punch-up, Stalag 17 effectively split in two.

Within a few months Stalag 17 mark II were up and running, Petesy Burns (bass & vocals), Mickey (drums) and Gaskey (guitar). Armed with a whole new set they played their first gig in the Manhattan Bar with Asylum. Petesy soon handed over bass duties to Joe Carey and this four piece line-up were offered a gig by the Larne Barmy Army, at a hall in Drains Bay, just outside Larne. Unbeknown to the band, the NF magazine had printed a piece about Stalag 17 and the upcoming gig, and had urged all NF members and supporters to ‘welcome’ the band to town! Needless to say there was a bit of trouble at the gig, when the NF skinheads tried to intimidate the punks. Not to be outdone Stalag 17 launched into their old anthem ‘Smash The Front’ (which at that stage had been dropped from their set) which greatly encouraged the punks to stand up to the skins, “The skinheads proceeded to line up along the front of the stage with their backs to us and gave nazi salutes to all of the punks. This prompted every punk in the hall to get up and dance in an ever-decreasing semicircle around them. By the end of the song they had all sat down with their tails between their legs. I’ve never seen punks standing up for themselves so well before or since that night, it was incredible” – Petesy Burns. In the ensuing fracas several windows were smashed and a number of arrests made. The incident made the front page of the Larne Times with the headline ‘Police Save A Nasty Punk Concert Row’.

Stalag 17 battled on for the next few years with several more line-up changes on the way. The Manhattan, Lavery’s and The Labour Club became the established venues providing local acts such as Stalag 17, Rebel, Toxic Waste, Asylum and Bad Babies with somewhere to strut their stuff. The Warzone Collective (who went on to establish Giro’s, but that’s another story) and the Rathcoole self-help group, helped set up and promote gigs, bringing bands such as Conflict, The Subhumans, Disorder, Alternative and Dirt to the province. Through these bands links were formed with punk record labels such as Mortarhate and Words Of Warning, which resulted in both Stalag 17 and Toxic Waste appearing on a number of compilations and split releases. Having built up contacts with the Anarcho-punk scene in the rest of the UK, Stalag 17 were able to embark on a seven date tour of England and Scotland, although some of the dates were eventually cancelled. Also, throughout this period, Stalag 17 kept going into the studio to record tracks for (mostly) benefit compilation tapes. “I think it would be interesting to work out just how much money punks donated to worthy causes over the years, it must be a very tidy sum indeed” – Petesy Burns.

Further highlights of the bands career were a three-week tour of Europe (organised by a tubby Belgian called Gunter) around Christmas ’85 and in 1986 when they played at a gig organised by Conflict in London to a crowd of 1,600 (not U2 standards I know but I was shitting myself nonetheless – Petesy Burns). But by the summer of ’87 it was all over, after a drunken performance at a free outdoor event on Tayport beach, Scotland. “We played, it was shite, we were going through the motions and everyone, especially us, knew it. We all knew it was over and that was that!” – Petesy Burns.