To the uninitiated, it might seem as if they'd stumbled into some kind of bizarre '50s time warp.
The stage is littered with a few pieces of drum kit, a hollow body Gretsch, some Fender amps, and a big
'ol double bass. But for those expecting a little Fabian, something has gone horribly wrong . . . .
The drummer starts to pound out a tribal beat, while the guitar spits out twisted Link Wray riffs, the
singer howls like a gut-shot dog, and the bass growls out some kind of demented hillbilly hoe-down. If
Elvis had grown up on beer, burritos, and cheapo monster movies; if the Stray Cats wanted to be the Ramones;
if Johnny Thunders jammed with Screamin' Jay Hawkins; it might sound something like this.
The Spectres got started when singer / guitar-slinger Jesse met up with Eastern-Washington-farmboy -
turned-slap-bassist Austin at a rockabilly show. After a couple of months of songwriting and a few false starts
in the drum department they finally hooked up the former child prodigy J.R. through somebody's girlfriend's
roomate's best friend's babysitter, and things began to roll. United by a love of old hot rods, Johnny Cash, and
grade-Z horror flicks, the Spectres began to pound out their own brand of frantic rockabilly, manic punk, and warped
trash-o-rama, distilling it down to a pure voodoo sound.
The Spectres may not be purists, but they stand at the modern end of a long tradition that stretches from '50's
rockabilly to '60s garage to '70's punk, a tradition of desperate kids, burning with boredom and booze, rippin'
out nitrous-burning' slabs o' music like there was no tomorrow. 'Cause who knows,
there may not be . . .
