Homegrown Talent!

Blog Time! This week, yet again, I bring you another song and a new cover. Well, this cover is not exactly new but I’ll get to that in a bit. Let me first introduce the featured band this week, illScarlett. illScarlett are born and raised right here in Mississauga, Canada. I’ve had the pleasure of seeing this band perform countless number of times and they are one of the best live bands I have seen. They can play in a small room such as The Edge Studios to large capacity venues such as the Sound Academy to outdoor festivals such as the Freedom Festival. They just kill it every time; it’s incredible. They’ve even played at my school, Humber College, back in 2009. Unfortunately, I did not yet attend Humber at this time but to those that did see the performance, I’m sure it was a treat. I’ve found a video recap of that performance on YouTube, it can be viewed here if you want to check it out. illScarlett is a band that fuses elements of ska, punk and reggae into a package that is sure to please any listener’s ear. Their songs range from up-beat mosh-able punk songs to slowed down off-beat reggae songs that you would just want to kick back to. The song that I’ve picked by them is of course their anthem ‘Nothing Special’.

The song starts off with the intro backed by the typical ‘ska’ rhythm guitar the follows a D#m, A#, B, F# and A# pattern. This chord progression is used for the other three times the chorus is played throughout the song, as well as when the lead guitar plays the main ‘wah’ riff. There is a short octave fill between every transition of chorus to verse. The verses throughout the song are palm-muted with slight breaks in the chugging here and there. They follow a B, D#m, F# and C# chord progression. The transition back to the chorus is simply a B chord being rung out. The bridge or breakdown of this song follows a B, F#, A#, D#m, C#, B, F# and A# progression. This song was actually covered by the band I was part of in high school. Ever since everyone in the band figured out their part, we were playing this song at every show we played at because the crowd would always know and enjoy it. The video below is a cover played by my fellow guitarist band mate and I. I was almost certain my video would not have been anywhere close in quality and if I’m allowed to say so, I think we both sort of nailed our respective parts. Really good job on the cover and video work by one of my oldest friends and former band mate! (I’m not sure if he wants his name disclosed so that’s why I haven’t mentioned it lol.) Be sure to check out his other covers on his channel too! That’s all for this week, be sure to keep on checking back!