Happy bleedin New Year! Seeing as heads are beginning to de-fuzz, folks are going back to work and stomachs are beginning to return to a semblance of digestive normality we thought it was a good time to do the first SONIC BOOM SIX mail-out.

Anyway I guess it's been a productive eight months since our debut gig last April. From the beginning the idea has been to mix some crazy-ass urban sounds with hardcore punk (why just ska y'know?) and in terms of songwriting we are finally beginning to see how it could work. After the first few gigs there were many puzzled faces and the description of us ranged from the undecided ('a bit weird) to downright derision ('terrible racket'!) Our favourite was 'Skindred meets Ms Dynamite' Its all constructive!!! Apologies to those who have come up and grumbled about the fact that we are constantly changing the tunes from the recorded ones (or as we recently had that the recordings weren't the same as we played live). Were still trying to make everything work together so bear with us. I swear to God we are nearly there!!

October saw us record and release the six-track mini-album which is available through the website, at gigs and at Sabotage Records (2nd Floor Afflecks Palace, Manchester) which represents the first six tunes we wrote. If you picked one up at the gigs let us know what you think.

The 'Lessons From Chapter One Tour' ended the year and a big thanks to all those who watched, cheered, clapped and geered. Plans for further dates to be confirmed soon. Touring gave us the chance to talk to the crowd and figure out what aspects of the band and sound were coming through and what was lost in the ether so thanks to those who gave us an honest opinion (but not to the bottle-thrower in Milton Keynes, that was going too far...)

We would like to say a special thanks to those who turned out at the SONIC BOOM COLLECTIVE nights early on. Recording and touring has meant that putting on gigs has become slightly more difficult. There are plans for new events soon but knowing us it won't be that bloody simple. OK now for some thank you's. First of all we need to thank Liam 'don't call me manager' Feekery for having enough faith in us to get the ball rolling and actually get us doing stuff. Thanks to Christophe at Oxygene for being so accommodating to our 72hr recording marathon and of course Jerry for running it (I guess its Barney and Ben's turn to supply the 'pick-me-ups' next time.) Thanks to all the bands we have played with and a special big up for THE TOASTERS and KING PRAWN for being so cool about putting up with our lame arses and being plonked into the bill at short notice. The final and biggest thanks to anybody who would have the tenacity to call themselves an SB6 fan (honestly some people do...) We won't letcha down! The support and nice comments really mean a lot. Shout outs to Scotty, Jonny, Loz and Alan n' Shelley for bein one step beyond.

So what does 2003 hold for SB6?? Initially we have further tour dates soon to be announced. We may wait a while before recording an album, we need to be sure that we aren't STILL changing all the tunes when it comes to that. Finally please take the time to have a look at the details for a national demo against war on Iraq on 15th Feb in London at http://www.stopwar.org.uk Hope to see you there. We are hopefully sorting a gig out in London too for the 16th (Sunday) so if you find yourself detained at her Majesty's pleasure after one middle finger at a copper too many at least you can catch us the next day... From there who knows? But if we find anything out then we'll let you know I reckon.

Sorry for going on a bit but there we are.
Fucking Happy New Year from the SB6 camp.
Be in touch.

Visit us at:
sonicboomsix.co.uk

To get a copy of our last recording send a cheque for £6.00 to D S Kelly, 18 Henshaw St, Stretford, Manchester, M32 8BT