Usman's Staff Pick: September 29, 2022

Hi, and thanks for reading. I was out of town last week, but I am back today to talk about nothing in particular, really. I guess I do have a bit of a focus that comes later, hence the photos of my RATTUS records. But to start, I have to describe how I even got there to begin with. I don’t think I ever mentioned anything about SCARECROW’s tour in Europe that we returned from in August. I miss being there still. It was life changing for so many reasons. Anyway, I was really happy to meet a few pen-pals (or my European boyfriends, as my partner calls them, haha.). That may have been the greatest part. One of these pen-pals was Mattis from Skrammel Records. He actually got in the van with us in Uppsala and rode with us for a handful of shows all the way to Hamburg, Germany. It was sooo much fucking fun. It was great to hang out, drink pretty much all day, and exchange stories. Most of the storytelling came from him though, as he has far more interesting stories than me. One of these was the “No speed, no punk” story. That story was about SKITSYSTEM playing Poland 2007. He was pretty surprised I didn’t ever hear about it, especially cos it was caught on video. I think we were talking about speed or something before he brought this up. I finally got around to looking this video up last night, and I lost my mind. Part of me feels bad for enjoying it so much but fuck it. I saw in the suggested videos that the same user uploaded the entire set in two separate videos. I was surprised they played for so long leading up to the point that I linked above, haha wow.

Alright, so the YouTube suggested videos gets me closer to what I am writing about I guess. Another suggestion was a video of a guy doing a SKITSYSTEM drum cover. I recognized the channel, so I clicked on it. The channel is called D-beat Dad. Maybe you’ve heard of it? It’s a video of a guy playing covers from mostly D-beat bands. I remember when I first saw this channel, I clicked on it expecting the guy to suck like most of the drummers with D-beat videos on YouTube. But regardless of his electronic drum set, the dude knows what he is doing. On his channel I see cover songs of a bunch of bands I don’t care for at all, alongside some other well-known bands who rule like GBH, ANTI-CIMEX, DISCLOSE, etc. After watching a few covers of shit songs, I threw on his DISCLOSE cover to “cleanse my palate.” I was surprised to see the dude wearing a RATTUS t-shirt, which unfortunately is judgmental of me... Regardless I instantly I searched for RATTUS on his channel. I definitely want to see this guy play some RATTUS. Not only did I find a few covers, but I found a recent interview with the drummer of RATTUS, Veli-Pekka! Aside from being a bit awkward at times, I thought the interview was really cool. He explains some early history of the band and essentially how DISCHARGE changed their entire musical direction. Previous to DISCHARGE, he said they were mostly influenced by SEX PISTOLS, THE DAMNED, and THE STRANGLERS. I guess that’s not the first time I’ve heard that about an early punk/HC band, though. Anyway, yeah, I’m sorry to not be writing about anything cooler today or a hot new release. I’m not sure if this interview is very popular, so I thought it could be worth mentioning. Alright, thanks for reading everyone and thanks for the support!


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