Beat is on the Brat is a CD compilation of out of print and vinyl-only material from Screeching Weasel. The majority of the CD contains their cover of the first album by The Ramones in its entirety. The band was approached to cover the album at a party for the completion of their fourth album, Wiggle. Having just lost bassist Johnny Personality, the band was unsure of its future, and they claim that the recording of these covers helped revitalize them.
The band mixed the album just like the Ramones record, with the guitar panned hard to one side and the bass to the other. Very little was changed in terms of the songs themselves, though all were slightly faster than the originals. The album was recorded in approximately fifteen hours and released on vinyl on Selfless Records in a limited run of 1700 copies, 300 of which were on white vinyl. Selfless re-pressed 300 copies of the album in 1993 with silkscreened covers. The remaining tracks (15-18) are from the vinyl-only EP Formula 27. These songs were outtakes from the recording of the 1996 album, Bark Like a Dog.
