The Mexican Spitfires

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The Mexican Spitfires were a Sydney-based Australian indie rock/indie pop band formed in suburban Strathfield in Strathfield Municipality in the mid 1980s.

Contents

1 History
2 Discography
3 The Mexican Spitfires
4 Compilations
5 Groups featuring members of The Mexican Spitfires
6 The Elementals
7 Further reading
8 External links

History

The band formed in the mid 1980s. The original line up comprised Tim O'Reilly (musician) (bass guitar/vocals), Michael Quinlan (musician) (rhythm guitar/vocals), Stephen McCowage (lead guitar) and Price Conlan (drums). O'Reilly, Quinlan and McCowage had previously played together in the psychedelic 1960s-inspired indie-pop band Prince Vlad & the Gargoyle Impalers.

The Mexican Spitfires were a quintessentially inner-city/suburban Sydney band with an evocative collection of songs about Sydney, living in Sydney and its surrounds. Their songs dealt with typical aspects of daily life in Sydney: from romance on Ivy Street, Redfern - a dilapidated street very familiar to Sydney University students who walk it on the way to and from Redfern Station ("Ivy Street"); to treading the moral tightrope between the City and Kings Cross down Park Street ("Sydney Town"); to meeting on the steps of Sydney Town Hall ("Town Hall Steps"); to spending time in Katoomba in the nearby Blue Mountains ("Until"); to Rookwood Cemetery ("Rookwood"). Similar lyrical territory was being covered at the time by Paul Kelly (musician) & The Coloured Girls and John Kennedy's Love Gone Wrong.

Blessed with three prolific songwriters in O'Reilly, Quinlan and McCowage, the band had no shortage of original material and right from their first performance their set list was predominantly original material. Harking back to their earlier experiences in Prince Vlad & the Gargoyle Impalers the band did display a certain 60s pop sensibility with the strong harmonies of Quinlan and O'Reilly and occasional inspired covers of tracks such as The Beatles "If I Needed Someone" and The Monkees "Mary Mary".

The Mexican Spitfires played their first gig to a packed audience at the Lismore Hotel in Pitt St., Sydney in July, 1986 and were "discovered" by Red Eye Records that very night. Subsequently signed by that label, the band's debut 6-track 12-inch EPLupe Velez was released in 1988. The EP was produced by Jon Schofield of the Coloured Girls, engineered by Phil Punch and featured the extraordinary keyboard talents of Russell Parkhouse (ex-The Riptides). It was an immediate success on the independent charts, moving straight into the top 5 in Sydney and scoring the band significant airplay on 2JJ(now 2JJJ), particularly for the songs "Sydney Town", "You Can't Run" and "Town Hall Steps". Lupe Velez received favourable reviews in NME and in the Australian music press of the time e.g. "Impressive songs in the Kelly/Kennedy vein with a slightly English sounding pop touch." (A.Mueller)(Source: "Who's Who of Australian Rock" Spencer, C.,2nd ed.,1989 The Five Mile Press pg 506).

The EP was also favourably received in Scandinavia, Germany and in Italy, where "You Can't Run" received significant airplay on Radio Marte, Radio Luna and Radio Delfino in Catania. Fittingly, the video for the band's "Sydney Town" made its debut on SBS's legendary world music show Rock Around The World before featuring on the ABC's Rage. The Mexican Spitfires also performed "Ivy Street" on the Network TEN programme Ridgey Didge.

After the success of their debut, The Mexican Spitfires returned to the Electric Avenue Studio of Phil Punch to record their second 6-track 12-inch EP Elephant during 1989 and 1990. Unfortunately, that EP has not been released in any format, and despite interest from indie pop labels such as Catania's No Tyme Records, only the tracks "Sydney Town" and "You Can't Run (Forever)" have been released on CD as at the date of this entry. Those two tracks feature on the compilation of Red Eye Records artists Asides and Besides whilst "Sydney Town" features on the Sony Music double CD compilation Somewhere in Sydney 30 Songs from the Harbour City released in 2000 to coincide with the Sydney Olympic Games. At the date of this entry both of those compilation CDs are out of print.

During the mid to late 1980s, The Mexican Spitfires played most of the legendary Sydney pubs of the time - the Hopetoun, the Sandringham Hotel in Newtown (the "Sando"), Paddington Green, Harold Park - and with other Red Eye acts The Crystal Set,Curious (Yellow) and The Bhagavad Guitars, toured Melbourne in 1988. As well as their label-mates, the band played with bands like The Triffids,Roaring Jack,Penguins On Safari (later The Whitlams), The Wet Taxis, The Last Metro,The Upbeat, Billy Baxter (musician) and The Hollowmen and John Kennedy of John Kennedy's Love Gone Wrong.

Following McCowage's departure in 1989 C.T. Wally O'Cool joined the band on lead guitar. That line up supported The Proclaimers on the Sydney and Canberra leg of their 1989 tour supplemented by Dominic Killalea(The Upbeat) filling in on drums. O'Reilly has since gone on to perform with the Sydney Gospel Music choir The Elementals.

Whilst The Mexican Spitfires have not played live as a band together since early 1989 their music continues to feature on radio stations such as 88.1 FM WMBR Cambridge, MA, and fans of their music can be found not only in Australia but also in Japan, Germany, Italy and the USA.

Discography