The Specs
The Specs was a new wave cover band from Lincoln, Nebraska, featuring a teenage Matthew Sweet, that played together from 1978–1980.
History
Sweet grew up in Lincoln in a musical family, and as a child he learned to play multiple instruments; by his early teens he was already a very proficient bass player, having practiced the complicated bass lines of Yes records for hours every day. While in junior high school, he met some of the Specs' other band members, who were all college students, at a music store (Correction: he did not meet the other members at a music store but was invited to a band practice by David Snider, who was an acquaintance). The band had previously been called Spectrum and had been covering Top 40 songs. As the Specs, they started performing more new wave and 1960s music (Correction: these were songs The Specs were covering as Spectrum, prior to Mr. Sweet being invited to join the band), by bands such as the Jam, the Vibrators, the Yardbirds and the Who.
Although they were a cover band, in 1980 they did release one original song, called "Look Out Girl (You Need a Direction)", on the compilation The KFMQ Homegrown Album Though a popular local song and the most requested song on the compilation, many of the lyrics were criticized as being plagiarized from The Jam's album, "This Is The Modern World".
Podcasts:
The Specs
ALBUMS
- California Ska Quake released: 1992
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by Smoke Or Fire
The Speakeasy
by: Smoke Or FireI've got a lot of pain.
I've got some problems to sort
Some are in my body,
Most are in my head and my thoughts.
I see a sad world struggling
Everyday to be sane.
Wanting to be part of something good,
But where to begin.
A little taste of something bitter
Sure to kill off the pain.
We find remedy to separate
Our heart from our brain.
Can we change our ways?
As we waste the days,
This is better than you care to admit.
In the haze we live,
We all start to believe sometimes
Its better when there is nothing to feel.
This us all trying not to be sober,
Until we find ourselves a better way to live.
This us all trying not to be sober,
An remain indifferent.
Some are searching for the answers
In a bottle of pills, under religion,
Under bodies, or a pile of bills.
All affected way to easy
By the love and the hate.
Pick your poison, it the only way
We can pretend that we all have nothing to fear.
Because we all have someone to fear.
And on day you will see that your enemy
Is staring at you in the mirror.
Can we Change our ways?
As we waste the days,
This is better than you want to admit.
In this shame we live,
We all start to believe sometimes
It's better when there is nothing to feel.
This us all trying not to be sober,
Until we find ourselves a better way to live.
This us all trying not to be sober,