BW&BK; has received the following:

"Rick Scythe here with another flashback.

"The year was 1997, February 22nd to be exact - a little over four years since USURPER formed and we decided to do our first 'official' concert.

When we formed in 1993, it took us a solid year to release our first demo, Visions From the Gods. Visions From the Gods was a cassette tape, mailed out old school style. 1,300 copies might not seem like a lot in the internet age, but back in the days of tape trading, it was a lot of envelopes, stamps, hand written letters, etc.

The Visions... demo was a big success for us [I will go into greater detail in the Flashback: July 1994] - but the release of this self-financed demo cassette lead us to inking a deal with Metalion's (Slayer Magazine) label, Head Not Found (Norway), which lead us to signing to Necropolis Records (USA) in 1996.

During those first few years, Usurper continued to gain recognition worldwide through massive tape trading, great reviews/interviews in many top magazines and fanzines, as well as locally with a bunch of wild parties in our 2,000 square foot loft. By the time 1996 rolled to an end we finished recording our Threshold Of The Usurper songs and Necropolis would later release it in May of 1997.

So early in 1996 we had our new drummer Andy Von Chaos (from Michigan band Pale Oracle) in the band who now lived in Chicago, literally living in our loft - right at ground zero, which became a complete maniacal party complex. Nothing but full on metal, pyro, fire breathing, and various intoxicants 24/7. During this time we had some wild parties, which were actually like crazy metal concerts. It was at this time Necropolis Records wanted to set us up on US and European tours, so we figured, we better set up a 'real' show somewhere before that.

In came Stan and Iron Tom from RIP Records. These two guys released a lot of great underground metal back in the day and were responsible for the Diabolosis gatefold vinyl re-issue of our debut 1995 CD. These two guys would set up the show for us which was this cool, old theater called Centrum Hall.

This place doesn't exist any more but it was never a typical venue for metal shows. It was a very elegant theater with a multitiered stage, plus a balcony and a very high ceiling. Our payment for the show was this heavy-duty banner (which Usurper used at nearly every show on nearly every tour of our career).

We were headlining our first ever show along with SEVERED, LORDES WERRE and SKULLVIEW... pretty much a bunch of bands that didn't fit into the typical Chicago scene at that time. I remember the turn out was pretty cool. The place held 300 people and we had well over 200 there - which is pretty good for a new band with no following and only word of mouth.

The coolest part is we did this show as big as we could. Not only the venue, but we built a custom drum riser with cool fog lights, we had a full on pyro show and Necromancer and Von Chaos both breathed fire during the night.

So 12 years later, after the dust has settled after touring 17 different countries and Usurper is no more I actually pulled out the video tape from that evening and watched a few songs to see if it was how I remembered things... Yeah, it was pretty much how I remembered things, except we were a lot better looking back then, plus me and Jon Necromancer just got our BC Rich endorsement deals but did not have our custom built axes in time for the show. I was playing my American Made Hamer King V and Necromancer was playing his Gibson Explorer bass.

If I can find someone who can help me convert these songs to digital format, I'll post a couple. I am even considering releasing a Best Of Usurper DVD. With tons of live footage, behind the scenes/studio footage and all the whacky road stuff... we'll see."