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Sunday 17 May 2009

Spitfire

Back into one-word band names again today with Spitfire. Coming out of the indie wastelands of Crawley, the band were another band formed by two brothers (Jeff and Nick Pritcher) and bulked up to the standard five-piece by Steve White, Scott Kenny and Matt Wise. Membership changes later in the band's life saw white replaced by Simon Walker (who latterly joined The Auteurs) and Kenny leaving the drum stool which was filled by Justin Welch (later a member of Elastica).

Formed in 1990, Spitfire released a good half dozen singles; leaving their shoegazing beginnings behind to go more indie pop/rock, a couple of albums (much delayed debut Fever eventually surfacing in 1993) and recorded a Peel Session in 1991. It's also suggested in a number of places that the band took the rock and roll lifestyle a bit too seriously with reports of less than subtle banging on in the NME and the like and freely handing out backstage passes to groupies; neither being particularly popular traits with their record companies needless to say!

This track "Rubber Rosie" is a bit of an odd one though. It's undeniably Spitfire (it appears on their 'official' site, but it doesn't get a mention in either of the places I usually look for background; discogs and in Martin Strong's Big Boys Book of Indie), so what we're supposed to believe I'm not sure. Maybe it's the rarest thing in the world ever? More likely it's just one of those things. This particular copy comes in a nice cardboard sleeve with Dickie Davies' World of Sport-esque "S" logo.









Right click, 'Save as...' to download

And of course, there's a wikipedia page as well. At some point I'm going to have to go through Wiki and update all these pages that are just bits and pieces memories and speculation. After all, this place must be all true by now...

9 comments:

  1. Hi there,

    There's a full discography on the MySpace page I set up for the band. You'll find Rubber Rosie on there - it was taken from the 'Bare Doll EP; which came out in 1994...

    http://www.myspace.com/spitfirerocksoffbaby

    I started submitting their releases to discogs.com but haven't finished yet. It's here -

    http://www.discogs.com/artist/Spitfire+(3)

    Oh, and here's a thing I wrote about the band on my blog -

    http://www.thewhitenoiserevisited.co.uk/2006/08/rock-and-roll-part-rocks-off-baby.html

    They are a criminally unloved and underrated band so props for writing about them!

    Cheers,

    Joe

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  3. I had a copy of this. I could not decide whether it was Spitfire or not. It was not catalogued at all. Thanks for putting my mind at rest.

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  4. Spitfire is an awesome band, though not a lot of people heard of them, they sound good to me.thanks for sharing one of their tracks here.

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  5. another cracking band

    loved the first 2 eps, in fact listened to translucent today

    saw these supporting lush i think at the roadmenders northampton

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  6. I was trying to remember the name of this band last week - but just couldn't find them - I have vague memories of seeing them do a photoshoot by the pier in Brighton - or maybe that was someone else. I had a single or two but couldn't find them because finding anything is easier if you can rmember their name!

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  7. The band's previous incarnation was Bobby Scarlet in their Crawley days and they were cracking from the start - you can still get hold of their early single (an e bay record seller from memory) - The Friendly Fires were another contemporary local band were listening to.

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  8. All the SPITFIRE EP's for Eve Recordings are now available again for digital download… 'Translucent' & 'Superbaby' are bundled together as 'Feverish' and 'Free Machine' are all on Bandcamp… check them out here on the official Eve Recordings Bandcamp page… https://spitfire-uk.bandcamp.com

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  9. PLUS the SPITFIRE video for 'Wild Sunshine' is here on the Eve Video Productions YouTube channel… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3aVL-DZJzOw

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