Ratskyn made their big comeback last night at the newly-opened Club Octopus on West Bay Road. This is the bar that was “upstairs” and used to be called The Next Level (before they moved to the old Pagoda Takie-Outie place) and before that (for the old-schoolers) it was called Tabu. Back in those days it was as close as you got to an “Alternative Lifestyle” bar on this island. Thursday nights were pretty good back then, eeeeverybody would be there on those nights, not just those leading “alternative lifestyles”.

Club Octopus has been open only a couple months. It looks a lot bigger inside now than it did back in the Tabu days, because they tore out a lot of walls and made space out of clutter. now there's banquettes along the wall, a bigger bar in the middle of the other wall, the stage at the very back and pretty much one big dancefloor in the middle of the room. It works good and sounds great. They're doing “Absolut Rocks“ Thursdays with live bands from around the island, so it looks like we'll have somewhere to go and listen to live music again.

Ratskyn lost a lot of equipment during Hurricane Ivan. We saved all of Zac's guitars when the window exploded in his bedroom at The Ranch, but a lot of their PA equipment and amps and things like that were in their storage locker which got flooded out. They've been trying to get new stuff for the last five months and started practicing together again about a month ago in preparation for getting back out there and Rockin' The Rock.

There are other bands on the island, different styles, different audiences, but there aren't any out there as polished as Ratskyn.  I've had the good fortune to hear them evolve over the past few years and they really have come a long way. Ratskyn has been around, rockin Grand Cayman since the dawn of time and have gone through a few iterations of band members, and even released a CD five or six years ago called “It's About Time” and as with all bands, always have new stuff in the works.

I don't know why, or how it happened, but apparently I had a “Girls Gone Wild Photographer” T-shirt on last night. For about 20 minutes everytime I pointed the camera at someone, they pulled their shirt down, or up, or something like that. Whether or not they remember it this morning is another story...

Mark says:Hey Bucket!
Bucket says:Hi!
Mark sends:2005-02-24 RatskynClubOctopus0067.jpg
Bucket says:Noooooooooooooooooooooooooo1
Mark says:hahahahahaha
Bucket says:OH MY GAWD!Q!Q!
Bucket says:OH F***
Bucket says:NO
Bucket says:oh s***
Bucket says:oh my gawd
Bucket says:BURN THAT
Bucket says:oh man
Bucket says:I can't go out
Bucket says:OH MY GAWD

She *BEGGED* me not to post the picture of her... and I've honored that request. sort of. (evil)

The rest of the pictures (close to 50 of them) are posted to Flickr, and there's a set of some of the highlights grouped as a set called Ratskyn, or you can just search Flickr for Ratskyn and find em there.