...any place beyond the existing frontier.
...any place beyond the existing frontier.
BRIEF BIO
Steve Schecter has performed as the strip-down American-roots act Ghostwriter since 2002. Wielding primarily a guitar and homemade foot-percussion device, Schecter melds influences spanning country-blues to post-punk, creating a lyrically driven, original portrait of gothic Americana.
GHOSTWRITER DISCOGRAPHY
Ghostwriter Albums:
Ghostwriter Singles & EPs:
Compilations featuring Ghostwriter:
GHOSTWRITER FULL BIO:
Steve Schecter was the last person born in the ghost town of Friend, Oregon, a homebirth in November of 1976. From a young age, Schecter worked at a family run sawmill, enabling him to purchase his first electric guitar at age fourteen. By age fifteen, his first band was playing at The Satyricon and X-Ray Cafe in Portland, OR.
In 1996, at age nineteen, Schecter moved to Austin, Texas, where he fronted a handful of bands, most notably the young rockabilly outfit The Standards (originally the American Standards). By 2002, Schecter began recording and touring under the name Ghostwriter with little more than a guitar, homemade foot-percussion device, and Nissan pickup.
In 2003 and 2004, Ghostwriter toured with Dex Romweber (Flat Duo Jets), a primary musical influence on Schecter from an early age. Together, the two played shows up and down the East Coast, and throughout the Midwest. During those same years, Ghostwriter would be featured consecutively at the festival Sleazefest in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
In 2005, Ghostwriter was invited to play the Not the Same Old Blues Crap festival in London, England, opening for T-Model Ford, where he took the audience by storm, and was later featured on the compilation This Is Punk Rock Blues alongside a number of emerging roots artists.
By 2008, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds had caught wind of Ghostwriter and invited him to open for their Dig Lazarus Dig tour at the Crystal Ballroom in Portland, Oregon, where he again "reduced an unsuspecting audience to open-mouthed shock and awe."
Throughout the '10s and into the '20s, Schecter has continued down his self-forged, DIY path, now with nearly fifty national tours under his belt, and over ten albums released on his own label, End of the West Records. Ghostwriter's most recent effort, 2022's double-release, The Antique Tractor Pull & Last Hayride, is a collection of new originals celebrating rural fortitude, accompanied by an EP of '50s Rockabilly, a tribute to the often-misrepresented Hillbilly-Wildman.
Beyond a catalogue of over one-hundred published songs, Steve Schecter's first book, No One at the Circus: The Story of Ghostwriter through Place and Song, was published in 2022 by Gob Pile Press, followed by a short piece, No Funeral: The True Story of Richard Petrowski, published in 2023 by in the literary journal The Writing Disorder.
Outside of Ghostwriter, Steve Schecter formed and fronted Austin bands Billy Swamp, The Standards (originally The American Standards), End of the West, and most recently, Beautiful Delilahs, who performed around central Texas from 2016 to 2021 and released an EP and a full-length album during that time. As a guitarist, Steve Schecter has played on recordings by Walter Daniels, and Mal Thursday Quintet, and is currently the lead guitarist in the Austin bluegrass power-trio Bluebonnet Plague.
PRESS FOR GHOSTWRITER:
Ghostwriter's sound ranges from bombastic Southern rock and boogieing punk to troubadour folk storytelling and lo-fi bluesy rockabilly. His brilliance is made all the more impressive due to the fact that he performs as a one-man band, emphasizing his undeniably visceral songwriting and DIY rock and roll sensibility.
- Tom Hilton, Aldora Britain Magazine
To these ears, one of the best purveyors of down and dirty blues triumphalism.
- Robert Ham, Willamette Week
A one-man junk-folk-blues act with knitting-needle guitar, footstomp percussion, and a holler that sounds like a less lysergic Captain Beefheart.
- Ned Lannamann, Portland Mercury
"A raw blast of primitive rock ’n’ roll... recommended to me on the basis of an intense and moody live performance that saw an unsuspecting, trendy London audience being reduced to open-mouthed shock and awe."
- Whisperin' and Hollerin' UK
Live, Ghostwriter can put the fear of God in you... unleashing some serious power through his minimalist approach.
- Mark Lore, Chico News & Review
A haunted road hog with a brimstone growl and guitar mixed hotter than Lucifer... imagines Nick Cave waking up on the wrong side of the bed, fighting cottonmouth and arrest warrants in several Southwestern states.
- Christopher Grey, Austin Chronicle
If some voices can be described as fingernails on a blackboard, Ghostwriter’s voice can be described as the sonic equivalent of fingernails digging their way out of a grave. And every one of his creepy, haunted folk songs has the weirdly thrilling impact of that moment when the hand bursts through the dirt, looking for revenge!
- Roctober Reviews
A raw, gritty, organic sound, full of heart and guts, and sweat and spit and backbone... referred to as "anarcho cowpunk," "blue-collar blues-punk," and a "one-man existential blues machine." Not the most fitting descriptive terms, to be sure, save perhaps for "blue-collar blues-punk," which at once sums up the man and the artist pretty accurately.
- James Carlson, National Examiner
GHOSTWRITER - Honor the Dead
Upcoming Shows:
Fri. Nov. 7th: The Wild Mare - Marfa, TX, 8pm
w/ Stevie Tombstone
Sat. Nov. 8th: Whiskey Creek Zocalo - Silver Springs, NM, 8pm
w/ Stevie Tombstone
Sun. Nov. 9th: The Rithey - Alpine, TX
Sat. Nov. 15th: Little Darlin' - Austin, TX, 2pm Brunch Show
EMAIL: Booking@endofthewest.com