Jenny Don't and The Spurs Bring Western Swing to Phoenix Next Week

When many people think of the rich music scene of Portland, Oregon, they may think of bands like Dandy Warhols, Poison Idea, and Wipers — all seminal and genre-defining in their own way, but also just a drop in the bucket, really, of what the Pacific Northwest city has to offer.

Case in point, for the last decade or so, Jenny Don’t and The Spurs have been cranking out wildly fun, garage-infused western swing music that sticks to the brain like a wad of delicious country-fried bubble gum. If that doesn’t get you ready to dust off a mechanic's shirt and roll up the legs of your best Levi’s, perhaps you can get motivated by this: The Portland-based band plays headlining shows in Scottsdale and Phoenix this week, and you can get into a double dose of good, weeknight trouble if you dare.

“We like Phoenix. I feel like we’ve broken down in Phoenix. We’ve always had shitty vans. We’ve toured through there a few times in the summer with no AC and I would just buy a bag of ice and drive around and hold it while we’re there,” says lead singer and guitar player Jenny Don't, a.k.a. Jenny Connors.

The band started as a project for Don’t and her husband, bassist Kelly Halliburton, and eventually included drummer Sam Henry (formerly of Wipers, The Rats, Napalm Beach, and others) until his death in February 2022. Halliburton played drums in Pierced Arrows with Portland legends Fred and Toody Cole until Fred Cole died in 2017 and played bass in the punk band P.R.O.B.L.E.M.S as well. Don’t and Henry played together in the aptly named band Don’t prior to putting The Spurs together.

“Fred and Toody (Cole) booked Kelly and I to open for them on a small tour. I was like, ‘We don’t do that’ and Toody said, ‘Well, you better figure it out because you’re opening for us next month,’ so that was really what lit the match for us. We tried to do it as a duet and it was terrible, so we asked Sam [Henry] to play with us, but we still needed more, so we tried to find a guitar player,” says Don’t.

The band played with several different people until finding guitarist Christopher March about five years ago. According to Don’t, it was hard finding people who liked to tour as much as she and Halliburton do.

“Initially, Christopher was just going to fill in, but Kelly and I were not really looking for someone to just fill in. It’s very difficult to keep looking for the right people and then teaching them your songs. Unfortunately, Sam got sick last year, so we were kind of in the same boat with drummers. This run coming up will be our first with [drummer] Buddy Weeks,” says Don’t.

With Weeks rounding out the lineup, Jenny Don’t and The Spurs will be appearing at Handlebar J in Scottsdale on Monday, February 6, and The Dirty Drummer in Phoenix on Tuesday, February 7.

After years of playing primarily punk venues in their previous bands, Don’t feels the creation of the Spurs allowed them to start playing a wider range of venues. The band has a versatile sound, which allows them to swing back and forth between a rowdier, punk-style scene or something more laid back like a brewery or hip coffee shop.

“The era of Western music we draw our inspiration from is from the 1940s, '50s, and '60s, but we all draw from different musical backgrounds. Christopher used to play in punk bands, too, but he has a lot of experience playing in the western genre. He does a lot of that really fast picking and has the western-swing style. Kelly and I were doing more punk stuff and garage bands. Kelly has a huge collection of music from all kinds of genres. There is no genre of music that we’re not interested in,” says Don’t.

With quite a bit more swing in their sound than the average garage band, but a lot more fuzz than the average western swing band, Jenny Don’t and The Spurs never fail to delight audiences. Their latest EP, Lovesick Crawl (2022), is nothing short of killer, and the standout track, “Black Cadillac” is a sweet ode to America’s finest four-door cruising vessel.

Don’t has a memorable voice and the charisma to charm any crowd. March’s guitar work weaves effortlessly in and out of Halliburton’s bass lines on Lovesick Crawl, which features some of the last drum tracks Henry recorded. Don’t, who was born in New Mexico, mentioned the band has gotten much more comfortable with live performance over the years and bring quite a bit of energy to their shows.

“It’s really fun and it’s been a really cool thing that we still want to do. I like my bandmates. When we first started playing with Buddy, it was really fun and we like playing music together. We are going to work on a new record and we hope it will work out for Buddy to play on the record. We are doing this tour and a tour in Europe. It will be a great trial run to see if it will work out for the long term,” says Don’t.

Jenny Don't and The Spurs. 7 p.m. Monday, February 6, Handlebar J, 7116 East Becker Lane, Scottsdale. Tickets are $20. Visit the Handlebar J website for more. 8 p.m. Tuesday, February 7, The Dirty Drummer, 2303 North 44th Street. Tickets are $5. Visit The Dirty Drummer website for details.