Check out Spitfire Bullets. Review by Surrounded by music

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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

  

A bit late but Happy new year / Spitfire Bullets at the Roxbury

Happy new year everyone we hope you had a great start to the year already!
i know we did!

Sweet Ammonia

Spitfire Bullets

We kicked off our 2015 with our first ever show in blyth supporting Sweet Ammonia the grungy rock band from Newcastle. we got down about 7:30 pm for load in, we got in very early as Vince the man who organises these great shows was still setting up the pa and the guys of sweet ammonia were busy setting up their amps ready for a sound check and to go through a few songs.

we set up our gear and had a quick sound check and had some spare time to chat to sweet ammonia who turn out to be Ramones fans, its great when we all have that favourite band to talk about.

so roll on 9:30pm and we go on and kick off with our set of covers and originals with only a few people in the room for our audience we shot through 13 songs within 30 mins kicking off with our usual intro song i'm not your stepping stone.
We finished off our set with our fun punk rock piss take cover of house of the rising sun.

Sweet Ammonia came on next with their full hour set of originals a few i reconsigned from listening to their sound cloud a few days ago you can hear them here > Sweet Ammonia's Sound Cloud
they are a great bunch of guys who enjoy what they are doing with a passion you should check'em out sometime. check out their Facebook page if you want >>> Sweet Ammonia Facebook

12-12-2014 Golden Lion Show and other news

With a early load in of 7:45 we were the first band there with all the gear guitar amp a bassist myself and guitar and bass but no drummer (he turned up eventually he got lost LOL) with only two bands on the set the boys from Black Bloc stepped in to do a short set of anarchic punk kicking off with Anti-nowhere leagues "So What"!!! mixing in originals and ending the set with sarin taking the vocals on SLF classic Alternative Ulster (which we covered but dedicated to them :-) ) we set up our gear and we got a lend of all out attacks bass amp we nearly ended up borrowing black blocs guitar amp to use as a bass amp we might have blown it if we did!. With a cheap karaoke microphone a really good PA system to use and the bars own HI FI speakers used for the bad and drunken karaoke singers for the sound we kicked off our set with stepping stone with feedback squealing from the mics we pushed on going through our set, until the microphone stand got tired and collapsed looks like my gaffer tape on the floor keeping the stand up didn't work sadly. we finished the set with a cover of house of the rising sun our own way which got the punters of jarrow looking confused bewildered and more drunk.

All out Attack took to the stage which now looked very crowded considering the stage is quite big they kicked off their set of originals and adding a Motorhead "class no class" they were loud and the PA some how managed to take the sound well but they were pulled it off well,

Spitfire Bullets

Black Bloc

All Out Attack

IN OTHER NEWS

i have been working on a side project blog called LOUDMOUTH  > http://loudmouthpunkzine.blogspot.co.uk/
the blog will be a monthly update on reviews local bands and whats on
I already kicked off the site with a blog review of Collisions EP released this year and it seemed to go off well so this january you can see a full page of local bands, reviews and local gigs and who to check out so keep your eyes open.

Up coming GIG Golden Lion Jarrow 12-12-2014

so with one week to go we will be down at Jarrow blasting out some fast Punk Rock fun of our usual set list of covers and originals in a supporting slot for the headlining Group "All Out Attack"

we're gonna get some rehearsals down in the Bunker and do a bit maintenance to our gear before the day comes, cause we don't want a G string snapping or an amplifier Blowing.

in other news Rob has been creating a new blog site called Loudmouth for reviews and news on punk and alternative bands you can check it out here >>> http://loudmouthpunkzine.blogspot.co.uk/

thats all for now folks!!

The Corner Flag 08-11-2014

Our second gig with our new Bass player Conner who fitted in perfect with the "bullets"

the bar was slowly filling up with punters misfits and the usual Uplifting Gormandizers. with the sun setting and the night coming in fast we loaded in to the Corner Flag at 7:45 and hung about waiting for the stage to be set

The night was kicked off at 9pm with sittin pretty playing a collection of clash inspired reggae style originals while adding a few covers including a Beatles one! with lead vocalist Raish with his joe strummer style playing on the strat while his boys complemented the sound of fuzzy bluesy riffs and heavy bass lines with a good strong drum beat, 

next up was Fire Lady luck a green day inspired pop punk band they were known as the Blitz before their name change they played a mixed set of Green Day covers and originals through a very loud wall of sound with their lead singer Billie Joe lookalike taking up center stage with his left handed les paul double cutaway.

soon it came to our time to shine, the stage was set and all was quiet with a loud 1234!!! we kicked off our set with a cover of a sex pistols cover version of I'm not your stepping stone then going to one of our originals Spitfire!!! a song dedicated to a familiar aircraft every body knows, the one that won the Battle of Britain. we finished off our set with a punk cover version of house of the rising sun.

but before we could pack up we got Raish up of sittin pretty to join us for a jam playing Beat on the brat and blitzkreig bop and tried a cover of anarchy in the uk before finshing off.

the whole night was a fun exciting and very loud! we didnt get home till about 1am 

our next gig is down at Jarrow on the 12th December at the golden lion supporting all out attack