OUR HISTORY

Formed Summer of '82 by 4 rockabilly freaks: Jimmy Searles on rhythm & vocals, Ed Dwyier (aka "Romero Valens", "Ed Jon Valentine", among others) on lead guitar, Bob Clark on electric bass & vocals, who was, at the time, a DJ on the oldies show on our WTUE-FM, and myself, Skyp (Dr. K) Krantz on drums.

We were a purist Rockabilly combo, Buddy to Elvis to Jack Scott to Stray Cats, Carl Perkins, Charlie Feathers and the like. Did a few small gigs, Jimmy & Bob left, me & Ed joined with the singer and upright bassist from Nelson & The Rockafellas and played as The Royal Heirs. More personnel changes over the years as The Jitters led to our best format with Frankie Leigh on vocals as a front man, and Steve "Cook Jones" Danelak on bass & Kevin Schirmer on rhythm. Did really well for a couple years. Frankie quit, we were dead for a while, only to be revived later with new guitarist, Jeff Bottorff and Mike Layh on bass & vocals. Saw good success with that membership till '89, when I quit 'cause we got stale and delved too far into the 60's for my liking.

They continued without me for a year or so, then dissolved. Me, Kevin & Ed revived the band again in '96 with a new bassist until Ed passed away in Feb. of '97. Later that year, we found a replacement for Ed in Steve Hook, a real good guitar player but unfamiliar with rockabilly music. He learned fast, though, and is now a permanent member of our current line-up with me, Kevin & Steve Danelak, our original rhythm section, and we added a keyboardist, Jeff Beeba. And now I do some lead vocals, too. In most of these line-ups we had some originals.

This line-up works very well, we're all good friends and have a great time. Steve H. & Jeff were new to this kind of music, but I got them into it real fast.

We still do a lot of the old stuff that the older forms of the band did, like Blasters and other rockabillies, but we also do some surf instrumentals and more roots rock n' roll stuff, even some John Prine, Wilson Pickett and Traveling Wilburys. Even played The Monster Mash at Halloween! We can adjust our shows to fit the particular audience we expect -- all-rockabilly concert, or heavy on the familiar oldies for events like car shows. We just get such a kick out of playing this kind of music, and it shows in our performances.