IN THE 1980S, the Stray Cats, led by Long Island, New York–native Brian Setzer, were something of a time machine, transporting audiences to the bygone era of the 1950s, with its heyday of Sun Records legends like Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis. On their 1982 album Built for Speed, the band fused early rock and roll and rockabilly with more modern elements of punk music, quickly finding a place in a pop landscape that from the outside might have seemed a tad unwelcoming. After all, that year saw the release of seminal albums like Michael Jackson’s Thriller, Prince’s 1999 and Roxy Music’s Avalon. But with songs like “Rock This Town” and “Stray Cat Strut,” and their complementary videos in constant rotation on the burgeoning cable channel MTV, the…
