A musician with a short beard and headphones is performing at a music festival or concert. DJ equipment (Pioneer CDJs) is visible on the tables behind them, and warning signs reading "MANDATORY FUN ZONE" are visible on the speaker and surrounding area.
Rusko Credit: ruskoofficial / Facebook

Fifteen years ago at long-shuttered Ybor City club The Amphitheater, Christopher Mercer chugged a liter of Grey Goose (or was it Ketel One?) while delivering an ear-splitting set of dubstep that was then still brand new to most American audiences.

Miraculously, the U.K producer better known as Rusko not only survived that night (he was diagnosed with gastric lymphoma two years later), but the evolution of EDM at large. He’s back after a two-year hiatus with a new EP, 1 Man Army, that still wears a lot of the grit from the genre’s earliest days, but is more polished and poppy for modern audiences.

Tickets to see Rusko play The Ritz in Ybor City on Friday, Dec. 12 are still available and start at $20.77.

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This article appears in Dec. 04 – 10, 2025.

Read his 2016 intro letter and disclosures from 2022 and 2021. Ray Roa started freelancing for Creative Loafing Tampa in January 2011 and was hired as music editor in August 2016. He became Editor-In-Chief...