North East Unity At Graft Night @ The Black Bull 22-04-2016.

Well this was a very exciting night, for myself and Spitfire Bullets, our main drummer boy was unavailable to play the gig as such short notice due to his work schedule so i asked a young lad i know very well called Elliot to hop on the drums and learn our full set within 3 days for the gig, and he didn't disappoint us!

We got to the Black Bull nice and early to load in, have a quick game of pool and an adventure to burger king for something to eat.

poor lad was in the back seat with all the gear

once we got back, Anord were busy setting up and sound checking, soon it would be us to set up sound check and kick off the night of Punk Rock!!

8:30 soon arrived, we hopped on stage, did a quick check on sound tuning, making sure Elliot remembered the set and kicked it off with our opening track CID! taking things slow for this gig we blasted our way through our usual set list of covers and originals within our 30 min set finishing off with a high tempo of Beat On The Brat!!

Anord took to the stage with their Anarchy hardcore angry screams and grunts about David Cameron, being stuck on the dole and Katie Hopkins with a back line of screaming feed backing guitars and awesome Mowhawks. 

Keyside Strike took to the stage as the main headliners blasting out some wall of sound hardcore punk, with snarling vocals wah wah wailing guitars, heavy bass lines and good laughs even covering a few very very short songs such as "You Suffer" By Napalm death

All in all it was a great night as such short notice, its amazing when a group of punk bands can come together and instantly get a gig sorted within a week!!

Spitfire Bullets would like to thank the Black bull, Anord and Keyside strike for having us and a big thank you to Elliot for jumping on the drums for us at last min to play a great set list!!

Be sure to check out Anord and keyside strike on facebook and buy their merch!!!!

  

ROCK NIGHT AT FARRINGDON SOCIAL CLUB 27-11-2015

Back with a bang in the local social club and all in the name of raising money for project Gambia.
A good friend of mine, put this whole event together so he could raise the cash to travel to Gambia.

We loaded in nice and early, trying to keep warm from the freezing cold outside, and getting ourselves set up for the show.

first up was an acoustic act, performing various covers including Oasis and Stereophonics.

We took to the stage all warmed up and revving live a V12 merlin, and blasted off with CID a UK Subs cover we enjoy playing, there was a few sound issues during the set but it didn't stop us playing.
Going through song after song of our originals and covers we ended the set with House of the Rising Sun.

the final act on was lost cause, performing various covers, including bon jovi and zz top.

in the end the the money was raised a raffle was held, and everyone had a great night.

The Rocking Magpie - Spitfire Bullets – New York City and EP

the main feature article is from The Rocking magpie you can see the original article here >>> The Rocking Magpie

The Rocking Magpie

One man's views on the world of Americana, Blues, Country, Ska, Alt. Country & Folk music

Spitfire Bullets – New York City

OCTOBER 29, 2015

Music lands on my desk from a variety of countries; yet very little from my own doorstep in the NE of England. Who knows why; possibly because I don’t belong to any of the cliques that tends to spawn musical cultures; possibly because these bands and singers don’t think I’m any good!

Which brings us the Spitfire Bullets; whose name popped up on a friend’s Twitter timeline and the name attracted me; so I got in touch even though I knew exactly nothing about them.

Before these two discs arrived I tried to research the band; but they remain mysterious and something of an enigma; although a bizarre event on my own Twitter feed unknowingly did bring them to my attention; but I wasn’t to know that at the time!

Spitfire Bullets

New York City (Single)

self-released

The Spirit of ’77 is Alive and Well.

The bands second single opens with the chorus driven New York City; instantly evoking memories of the first Damned LP and too many Toy Dolls gigs. The (unnamed) singer has a raspy voice; which is perfect for breakneck songs like this. The immediate difference between bands like Spitfire Bullets and the Punk originators is that the modern bands can play their instruments and understand the concept of production.

That last sentence gets thrown right out of the toilet window with second song Psycho Girl! Recorded ‘live’ at the CBGB’s of Wearside, Farringdon WMC this track is 110mph Stella Artois fuelled spittle enhanced Punk; with added whistles and feedback.

New York City re-enters the frey with a live version recorded at the same prestigious venue and is virtually unrecognisable as it sounds like it was recorded on a Casio Cassette Recorder just before the batteries died.

These two tracks are as awfully authentic as any Punk gig I ever attended; but not something you want to play on a first date.

Spitfire Bullets

Spitfire

self-released

Pure Fire & Brimstone Punk!

It was the cool band name Spitfire Bullets that first caught my attention; and this their debut single sounds exactly like what you would expect of a band with that moniker.

The title track Spitfire! crashes out of the speakers with some of the dirtiest guitar that I’ve heard in ages; then the singer attempts to swallow the microphone in his attempt to get his message across. The bass and drums hold the show together with gaffer tape and luck; but the end result is a doozy.

Psycho Girl starts with the traditional 1-2-3-4 and you can sense the veins popping out of the singers neck as he screams his love for two skull crushing minutes of scorching Metalic-Punk.

Head in the toilet starts with some deliberate feedback; and the tale of teenage angst wouldn’t have been out of place on a Dogs D’Amour or even those old romantics the Angelic Upstarts; but it’s unlikely to ever get played on BBC Radio2.

Then we finally arrive at the best of the bunch – She’s a Punk! The obligatory crashing guitars get the show on the road; but the produced judiciously uses his fader to allow a good song to be heard as the band get faded down when the singer sings and back up to 11 at other times.

‘Back in the day’ an observational song like this would actually have been played on Radio 1; certainly by John Peel; and possibly by the likes of Kid Jensen; but today? Highly unlikely; which is a damn shame.

So, there you have it The Spitfire Bullets keeping the Punk flag flying high in a time when the world needs more shouty music.

https://www.facebook.com/spitfirebulletsband

CORNER FLAG - 27-08-2015

Well we may haven't played for a while and the guys of Spitfire Bullets have been busy
but that doesn't stop us from getting together and playing a one off show in our local boozer!

Thursday arrived with excitement, stress and panic. Of course the odd gig has those little problems
but it happens, it happens to every band.

Spitfire Bullets loaded in to the corner flag at 6pm, not long after silence fiction had turned up.
We all chatted and had a laugh while we got to work setting up the stage, soon after the PA had arrived and work soon was under way setting up everything.

unfortunately the local rock band "Guilty" were unable to perform due to the singers illness and had to pull out, but this didn't stop us.

after Silence Fictions very loud and thunderous sound check and having to rearrange times for the bands to go on, we began the long wait for people to come down. And being a Thursday night in Sunderland which is Rock night, we hoped the misfits of the night will come crashing in hoping to hear some great music.

Silence Fiction kicked off their set with a collection of originals and covers, with some heavy screaming vocals from Shaun and clean high vocals from Emily their newest member of the band.
this band performed a great 45 min set with a small mosh pit consisting of one guy (whitey who we all know from Sunderland) be sure to check out silence fiction if you are a metal fan

Spitfire Bullets took to the stage kicking off with stepping stone and sliding into 5th gear with Spitfire, and being this year the 75 anniversary of the Battle of Britain Rob dedicated the song to those who fought in the air.
nearing to the end of the set a unusual event had occurred, the ex original bassist of Spitfire Bullets from 3 years ago was watching in the crowd, Rob and Michael hadn't spoken or seen each other since September 2013,a very long time if you think about it. Calling this as a sort of a reunion mike had joined rob for the first time in 3 years on stage as a one off performing Beat on the brat and Rock away beach. it was a short performance but was rare to see.

all in all the whole thing was a successful night.

we would like to thank the Corner Flag for putting up with us and also a big thank you to Riff Raff Guitars who hired out the PA system to make this gig possible

and of course thanks to Silence fiction to performing.

3 years and still in perfect timing on stage

the original line up 3 years ago

Radio Northumberland, Gigs and more

Recently our old drummer John had rejoined us to continue the adventure in Spitfire Bullets

In more recent news Rob was live on Radio Northumberland talking about upcoming gigs,
spreading the sound of spitfire bullets to the Cubans and attending the live radio Northumberland
under the dome event and hanging out with the guys from Logoz

GIGS GIGS GIGS!!

Spitfire Bullets have a gig coming up at the Sunderland local bar the corner flag on the 27th August with a small line up which will be announced on the face book page.

but if you can't wait till then be sure to head to Ashington to catch rob doing a one off solo acoustic
after finding a guitar small enough for rob and having to fix it up, hes strumming away and practicing a list of covers and originals for the set.

thats all for now folks but keep checking in for more updates

Check out Spitfire Bullets. Review by Surrounded by music

check the site out hereCheck out Spitfire Bullets

Posted on 12/03/2015

In an era of perfect production and polished songwriting, the music scene is heaving with bands who cite classic punk acts as inspiration, yet there are so few genuine punks out there. Splintering open the door with a metaphorical hobnail boot and sweating venomous malice, meandering all the way from Sunderland, the mercilessly red raw delivery of “Spitfire Bullets”, a band that genuinely have a sound akin to the Ramones in their earliest recordings. Reeking of bad attitude and couldn’t carelessness (so it’s not a word, well we’re making it one, we’ve been listening to Spitfire Bullets, haven’t you been paying attention?), their self titled EP has been around for a while, but it’s brutish honesty really makes it worth a listen, it’s REAL punk and not for the faint hearted, but with tracks like the full throttled “Spitfire” and Ramones-esque “Psycho Girl” (replete with 1,2,3,4), “Head In The Toilet” and “She’s a Punk” this is pure homage to the New York and London punks of yesteryear.

Like we said, it’s not gonna be to EVERYONE’S taste but as far as we are concerned …Spitfire Bullets – “Gabba-gabba-we-accept-you-we-accept-you-one-of-us” https://www.facebook.com/spitfirebulletsband and https://soundcloud.com/spitfire-bullets

THINK TANK 28-03-2015 THE RAMONAS

Spitfire Bullets @ THINK TANK

Newcastle 28th march 2015

Supporting Dead By Dawn and The Ramonas

Before i start to review this gig.

none of this would have happened with out the help of Luke

who took up the offer of playing the drums with only two practice sessions of 7 hours in total managed to help us blast through the set that night.

with a cloudy day over the North east and the little Spitfire Bullet mobile all loaded up with the gear we headed off to Newcastle to support one of the most amazing all girl Ramones Tribute band The Ramonas.

finding the venue was easy just working out how to get in was tricky after working out which secret back door to open by pressing a call button and accidentally locking connor and sophie outside not knowing how to open the door again we managed to get into THINK TANK. with the stage already christened with the Ramonas back drop and back line, there was a feeling that we had gone back to 1975 to standing in CBGB'S where the 4 guys from forest hills began to make a mark in history.

after sound checking tuning up and double checking everything our time on stage was 7:15pm

I had a feeling we were all nervous for myself it wasn't the first time i supported a tribute band going back to 2012 the early line up of Spitfire Bullets supported the well known Sex Pistols Experience. But with only a short few hours of rehearsals with a temporary drummer i worked twice as hard playing to a small crowd while attempting to cue the drum changes, we kicked off with stepping stone with screeching feedback and grovelling vocals we tore into the next track of battle cries of the song SPITFIRE!!

With no thought i dedicated the next track Psycho Girl to all the crazy one direction fans slitting their wrists over some karaoke singer leaving the group, i mean come on all one Direction fans are pretty psycho. Then crashing through with a cover of pretty vacant and our newest song New York City a short and fast tribute song to the city, CBGB'S and the Ramones.

With the band going at 100mph of snarling vocals over driven amps and crashing and pounding for cymbols and snare we ended our 30min set with a old classic house of the rising sun, with a slow and chilled out intro from the original animals version into a sonic blasting cranked up snarling punk crazy version (it really gets you hammering the guitar like mad)

next up was Dead by Dawn a crazy psycho-billy rock"a"billy horror band with a huge double bass a green sparkaly gretch and female fronted ghoulish vocals they kicked off with a full set of horror ghoulish original songs including a one called "Psycho Girl" (different to ours of course) while adding in a misfits cover of London Dungeon.

And finally The Ramonas took to the stage using the sound track from the good the bad and the ugly (clint eastwood film) they walked on stage with silence ready to unleash a lighting war. with the chant heard around the world BLTIZKREIG BOP! playing through two classic albums in track and album order Ramones and Leave home within 30 min's they blast through both albums just like the Ramones did in CBGB'S with a crowd of encores they went through classics such as kkk took my baby away, cretin hop, i wanna be sedated. 

in the end of the night when everyone left, we got a few good pics and had some good conversations 

Johnny Ramone and Rohnny Ramona

Spitfire Bullets

Ramonas and Spitfire Bullets

The Ramonas

15-01-2015 The Three Tuns with the Iron Hearts

its a cold thursday night, my car's heater fans are busted and the band was all over the uk literally!!

nothing like chaos before a show!

With Connor calling me up telling me he is in work in Wales! and our ed sheeran lookalike drummer craggsy busy doing a university exam, a plan of action and precision was required for this night.

The Iron Hearts

Spitfire Bullets

it begins with a phone call

(not the actual conversation happened but it was close)

Thursday 14:00hrs   

(rob is green Connor is Purple)

"Rob its connor am at work today i'm in wales but al be back in time to play tonight can you pick my bass up and take it to the tuns i will be getting a lift there"

"what the hell wales!! ok al pick it up no problem man. Why can i hear sheep in the back ground"

"cheers and what sheep there's none here" (baa baa) "Shush you"

and just like that a plan was being worked out.

1. pick connors bass up
2. get my gear
3. head to the Winchester and have a pint and wait for the whole thing to blow over. 

but like shaun of the dead. plans can go wrong.

Heading home from work i picked up connors bass headed to my place and picked up my gear

while feezing my ass off from the icy wind we headed straight over to the tuns, amazingly we were the first band to show up.

7:30pm

finding out we were on at 9pm connor was somewhere in a van on the M1 and craggsy was still in uni

the iron hearts turned up and we had a good chat with them about gigs and veunes while sharing stories of how long the bands had been going for.

8:45 pm 

i can't remember if this was the time but our drummer turned up with his gear ready to set up

since we were first on my gear was set up as well as connor's but there was no sign of connor.

9:30pm

there was a change of plan and the iron hearts went on first with no sign of a bass player we got worried our connor was killed or kidnapped (turns out he wasn't far away)

so the Iron hearts went on first and played a killer set of original songs as a 4 piece band they kicked out some loud noises. their guitarist is one crazy guy.

round about 10:30 just as the iron hearts finished off their set in comes running a long haired person from the cold exhausted and tired, Connor had arrived. Late but least he was alive which is a good thing.

we started getting our gear set up on stage while connor caught his breath and had a quick rest, 

tuned and sound checked we kicked off with our adrenaline fuelled set one song after the other like a high speed train crashing through a station. During our song Head in the Toilet the ending solo i ended up walking off the stage to give it a bit edge since there was only a few of us in the room and plenty of space to walk about, The iron hearts guitarist came up to maybe give me a hug while playing (there is a photo of it further down) and his sister who came along shouting out "do a solo" so i gotta give what they want and a full blast guitar solo for the small audience was done!

in total for the show it was a great fun exciting and exhausting night with a band that only just got together in time on the night from work and university to play a 30 min set we some how managed it
and get some great reaction.

if you wanna check out The Iron hearts check out their facebook >> The Iron Hearts

myself and the iron hearts guitarist