#human skab

[grovygrunge]

Thrag’s Tale

Just a small little background thing for an upcoming Pathfinder lad. A Half-orc Brawler raised in an arena.

My uncle Skab always said “You got to remember who you are, Thrag. You got to hold onto that. Never let go. Grab it like a rope and let it tear up your hands, but don’t ever let go.” He said that’s where freedom comes from, knowing who we are. That’s why I’m writing this down. First thing I’ve ever properly sat down to write actually, knew how for a while, just never had any reason to I suppose.

He also said “I have big hopes for you, Thrag. You came into the world fighting, and maybe someday you’ll get of here the same way.” He weren’t actually my uncle, fact is he always wanted me to call him my godfather, but he did raise me. See, I never met my dad, but I suspect he was a proper orc, and my mother, bless her soul, was a human. She didn’t survive my passing into the world. Uncle Skab always told me I shouldn’t blame myself for that as there was nothing anyone could do. He said it was the conditions what killed her. No place to have a child, surrounded by muck with coarse straw and a soiled sack to rest on. But that’s the pits. They ain’t kind, nor fair, but they were home.

I was about four years old when I was first hit, was the owner, he was doing an inspection of the stock and apparently I wouldn’t stop wailing. Apparently I had found some rock to play with and had lost it somewhere or something. Didn’t have much to play with when I was a young one, had to make do with whatever I could get my hands on, but I had a good time. But yeah, the owner didn’t like my hollering, I guess, so he walked up to me, reeled back his big flabby hand, and whalloped me right across the face. Even chipped my tusk. After that, Uncle Skab taught me to not cry anymore so I wouldn’t get hit again. A few years down the line, Uncle Skab hit me, and then told me to hit him back. Said he was going to teach me to fight, so I’d be good and ready for when I’d have to. He would always say that I had a good whack, even back then, always made me smile.

On my twelfth birthday, Uncle Skab had convinced everyone down in the pit to celebrate. We didn’t have much, so we didn’t have no cake or nothing, we just sang, and put a stick in my gruel to light as a candle. It was fun, bit strange though, we didn’t celebrate birthdays often down there. Uncle Skab later told me it was because it was my last birthday before I’d be expected to fight, and he wanted it to be special. The next day I did have to fight, young lad about my age, human boy, small thing. It ended pretty quickly, there were so many people, and they were all so loud, and everything was so bright. I panicked and the little pipsqueak didn’t last very long. They didn’t let me fight people my age after that, said it was boring.

I didn’t train for a little while after that, people were always going on about how orcs were ferocious and violent, but I didn’t feel very good about smearing killing that kid. Uncle Skab helped. Told me all about Milani, and freedom, and how at least it was quick and now that boy was free instead of stuck like us. That’s why he wanted me to call him my godfather, cuz he helped me find my god. I always thought that was dumb, so I just kept calling him Uncle Skab.

Not much happened for a few years, I fought, I won, I somehow managed to not die from any of the many things, from untended wounds to infections. Until I was about eighteen. That’s when they sent me out with nothing but my hands to face some big bastard with this big hunk of metal he called a sword. Huge thing, it was. Started off simple enough, I traded some blows with him, tried to stay too close for him to swing it proper-like. Problem came when he kicked me in my jewels. Everything went white for a second, and I got angry. I beat the man blind, punched his eyes right shut. And whilst he was flailing around, I noticed something grey on the ground, and I felt faint. Next thing I know, I woke up back in the bit, Uncle Skab going on and on about something. Something about how much “they” were willing to take or something. I could quite make it out, but his face was red and he was kicking things about the place, and everyone else seemed to be keeping away from him. Never saw him that angry before. When I tried to sit up, I noticed something weird. My hand hit the table, but I didn’t feel it. That’s when I noticed it had gone, and was now made of steel.

A few months later, Uncle Skab lost his leg in a fight, they brought him back in to the pit, stuck a hot rod against it and covered it in bandages, but then they tried to leave. When I tried to stop them and ask why they didn’t give him what they gave me, they just said he wasn’t “worth enough”. Not long after, he got sick, and then he passed on. We didn’t hold a funeral, folk like us didn’t get those. They just came for him and threw him out, and that was that. It wasn’t too long after that when some strange people stormed the place, told us to leave, told us we were free. They said they were the Eagle Knights, or something, and they were shutting the place down, and we could leave now.

Never told anyone this, but on my way out, I saw the round bastard of an owner trying to hoist himself over a wall. I stepped up behind him. He didn’t notice me. I place that cold, metal hand on his shoulder. He stopped climbing and looked at me, dead in the eyes, and he sobbed like a babe. My uncle Skab had once told me, “If a man is always controlled by his emotions, then he is now more free than the two of us”. So I didn’t hit him. Instead, I went and found work, and now I’m sitting at this table, writing on this page, in a little tavern, paying for a drink with coin I earned myself. I even have another job coming up, sounds pretty lucrative. That’s a new one I learned! Lucrative. It also sounds pretty dangerous, but that’s why I think I should do it, so other people don’t have to, and I can help the others who go and do it. I think that’s what Uncle Skab would want, now that I’m a free man. Oh, food’s done. I should stop writing so I can tuck in, turns out when a human knows how to cook it tastes pretty good!

[acr666]

Human Skab #humanskab #onerecordaday #music #records #vinyl #vinylcollection

[ozkar-krapo]

HUMAN SKAB

"Thunder Hips and Saddle Bags"

(LP. Family Vineyard. 2010 / rec. 1985-86) [US]

[dogembassy]

Song of the Day #103

Human Skab - "Drunk and Staggerin' Around" (Thunder Hips and Saddle Bags, 1986)

Human Skab was a 10-year old kid. In 1986 he made this tape of songs using found sound and broken, detuned instruments and it got passed around underground radio stations. It got compared to Captain Beefheart a lot and that makes sense because this kid really really sounds like a tiny Beefheart, and he was equally passionate about the death of the dinosaurs, John Wayne, the Cold War, nuclear power, throwing rocks at stuff, and most importantly, making music. The way he self-mythologises is really reminiscent of blues musicians and his use of musique concrete is, I think, really developed and I think the album is an essential document of outsider art.

"Drunk and Staggerin' Around" is a remarkably sophisticated song too, based around a skeletal, abrasive prepared guitar part (and look I know the kid doesn't know what prepared guitar is but he's hitting and scraping the guitar just like Sonic Youth or Glenn Branca do and to achieve the same things so I don't see why I shouldn't treat it as a deft artistic decision), with a snarled-out minor key melody - you have to wonder which figure in this kid's life is the neglectful, irresponsible husband. "Staggering around / Doing nothing except worrying the drivers / Your heart is pumping slow / Your wife's almost a widow but she doesn't know it..." - jesus christ this kid...

This record is important to me because it shows how creative and artistic kids are, how they can pick up on all the artistic effects of really weird sounds and ideas and express themselves in such an unselfconscious way. But I guess when we grow up we have to abandon that lack of self-awareness and become less weird.

[aliendeathspike]

Human Skab

Is this music? Alot of people have told me to turn this off immediately,  saying this is horrible.  Well, it is, but it's very, very interesting and even though its quite old its seems to have re-surfaced more recently with a newer release on Family Vineyard. Here are two tracks and a very interesting listen from WBC Radio 1987, giving more of a clue to the background of who Human Skab actually is.

21_-_the_human_skab_peeled_back_(wzbc_1987_radio_special).mp3 Listen on Posterous

"Well, there's this 10-year old singer from Elma, Washington. He's really cool. His mom calls him Travis but his real name is Human Skab. Picture this: the Skab zips around the living room shooting toy guns. He hits the family piano with his fists. He tries real hard to play guitar. He makes up songs about terrorism and radiation and throwing rocks at windows. Cool!" -- Bruce Pavitt, Sub Pop Zine 1986

"If Captain Beefheart were ten years old, this is what he'd probably sound like" -- Spin March 1986

"Human Skab is a ten-year old boy who plays African music with buckets and spoons. He story sings about his life and the things he sees. His musical influences are big time wrestling, He-man cartoons, and Moltey Crue." -- KAOS Radio magazine, Olympia, WA, 1986

"I'm not doin' this for the money. I'm on a mission. I have a message for the world. It's not just playin' guitars good that is important. It's all the things that you do." -- Human Skab, interview 1986

FV27 Thunder Hips and Saddle Bags CD [2009]

myspace/humanskab

  Family Vineyard Discography

via family-vineyard.com

  The thing about the time scale of this stuff is that Human Skab is still going. Though if you check out some of his gigs on youtube then you will see that the novelty of these recordings were centred around the fact it was a 10 y.o. spurting political and cultural obscenities, not a middle aged man. However, Travis Roberts has emerged from a colourful life between now and the 'Skab' years, serving an extended military service before becoming a contracted mercenary in the middle east, suffering PTSD and finding himself sleeping rough back on US soil, as we can read here page 4.... http://www.counterpointjournal.org/sites/default/files/issue_pdfs/counter-point-journal-02.pdf (Thanks to The King of all Social Media)