...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:
LISTEN TO GHOSTWRITER'S LATEST RELEASE:
GHOSTWRITER FULL BIO:
Born and raised in the ghost town of Friend, Oregon, Steve Schecter's first bands emerged in the Portland area, playing clubs like Satyricon and X-Ray Cafe when he was a teenager, just a couple years prior to moving to Austin, Texas, in 1996. By 2002, after stints with a handful of bands, Schecter began recording and touring under the name Ghostwriter with little more than a guitar, homemade foot-percussion device, and Nissan pickup.
Early on, in 2003 and 2004, Ghostwriter paired up with Dex Romweber (Flat Duo Jets) for a series of tours through the Midwest and East Coast. Those same years, Ghostwriter would be featured consecutively at the festival Sleazefest in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
BY 2005, Ghostwriter would be invited to play the Not the Same Old Blues Crap festival in London, England, opening for T-Model Ford, where he took the unsuspecting London audience by storm, and was featured on the compilation This Is Punk Rock Blues along with a number of other emerging roots artists.
In 2008, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds asked Ghostwriter to open for their Dig Lazarus Dig tour at the Crystal Ballroom in Portland, Oregon. Ghostwriter was hand-selected for this show by members of the Bad Seeds after listening to his 2004 album, Road Angels & Torrential Rain (Travel, Murder, and Loss).
Throughout the '10s and into the '20s, Schecter has continued down his self-forged, DIY path, with over forty-four national tours under his belt, too many miles and shows to count, and over ten albums to date 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.
Prior to Ghostwriter, Steve Schecter formed and fronted Austin bands Billy Swamp, The Standards (originally The American Standards), and End of the West. Between 2016 and 2021, Schecter's side project Beautiful Delilahs performed around central Texas, releasing 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 - The Last Leg Home
Upcoming Shows:
Thurs. Feb. 13th: The Carousel Lounge - Austin, TX.
Sat. March 1st: Vinyl Beauty Bar - Austin, TX.
Sun. March 16th: Load Off Fanny's - Lockhart, TX.
EMAIL: Booking@endofthewest.com
Voice and Text: (512) 554-4888