Twas the Night Before Grindmas

Twas the night before Grindmas, when all through the house
Not a creature was blasting, except for one mouse.
The records were placed on the turntable with care,
In hopes that St. Embury soon would be there.

The grinders were nestled all snug in their beds,
While The Inalienable Dreamless danced in their heads.
And mamma in her bass rig, and I in my cap,
Were banging our brains to the sound of Ablach.

When out from the boombox there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from the pit to see what was the matter.
From out of the speakers I heard a great smash
As Brutal Truth wound up and started to thrash.

The rattling sounds of Need to Control
Left its imprint on my young soul.
When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,
But a magically reunited Insect Warfare.

With a little old drummer, so lively and quick,
I knew he was blessed by the spark of St. Mick.
More rapid than eagles his blastbeats they came,
And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name!

"Now, Rich Hoak! Now, Proctor! Now, Dave Grave and Witte!
On, Fajardo! On, Max Ward! On, Walker and Harvey!
To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall!
Now blast away! Blast away! Blast away all!"

As dry heaves that before the Wild Turkey barf fly,
When they meet with that preachy straight edge punk guy.
So up to the stage-front the moshers they flew,
Before collapsing from heat at Maryland Death Fest Day Two.

And then, in the twinkling of "Dystopia Pt. 2"
I heard boots stomping on the top of my roof.
As I was banging my head, and turning around,
Down the chimney St. Embury came with a bound.

He was dressed all in black, from his head to his foot,
And his clothes were all stitched up with patches to boot.
A bundle of records he had flung on his back,
And he looked like a merch guy just opening his pack.

His eyes-how they twinkled! his bald spot how merry!
His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry!
He bounced like a kid at his very first show,
Though the hair of his head was as white as the snow.

Speechless I stood before this Napalm Death guy,
And he told me I suffered with no reason why.
He had a broad face and a little round belly,
That shook when he screamed, like a bowlful of jelly!

He was chubby and plump, a right jolly grind buff,
And I laughed when I saw him, so bloody fucking chuffed!
A wink of his eye and a twist of his head,
He told me that Relapse just signed Blockheads. (blurbed by some shitty, self-important blog)

He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
He pulled out his bass, then turned with a jerk.
And laying his finger aside of the strings,
He told the me the tale of the on-rolling machines!

He sprang to his band, to Mitch gave a whistle,
And away they all flew like a nuclear missile.
But I heard him exclaim, ‘ere he drove out of sight,
"Happy Grindmas to all, and to all a good-night!"

Five: Look Back in Anger

You're hurt because everything is changed. Jimmy is hurt because everything is the same. And neither of you can face it. Something's gone wrong somewhere, hasn't it?
John Osborne
Look Back in Anger
1956

Five. Fucking. Years.
It blew my mind when I realized that the blog's fifth anniversary was rapidly approaching. Holy shit. Some days it feels like forever. Plenty of other days it just feels like I'm a clueless n00b flailing about with no direction or purpose. But somehow another blogaversary is upon me.
So once again, I have to thank every single one of you who had dropped by, read my maundering, left a comment, sent an email, answered an email or shared a kick ass album recommendation. I've been listening to grindcore (probably more than is healthy for a well-balanced person) for a hell of a long time now and for some reason I just don't get bored with it. Not a day goes by where I'm not listening to it, thinking about or jotting down notes for stories and ideas I want to develop later, interviews I want to do, trends I want to dissect.
I've met some truly amazing people, interviewed some personal inspirations and found a fascinating community of like-minded freaks over the last five years. So that's what you've given me even though I've written some absolute bullshit over the years. In honor of my fifth anniversary, here's the top five failures I slapped my name on.

Something's Bugging Me

Hey let's start at practically the very beginning, my very first Grind in Rewind back in 2007. I'm not here to recant picking Pig Destroyer's Phantom Limb as album of the year (some of you hate it; I still really dig it). Nope, the facepalming failure comes further down the list where I round out the top five with Total Fucking Destruction, Sayyadina, Graf Orlock and ... The Locust. Yes, I like The Locust. I think they're completely underrated for how innovative they were. But 2007 was also the year Insect Warfare put out World Extermination, an undeniably kick ass album that I'm sure will be lauded as a genre classic with enough time.
Early on in my blogging career I fell into a pitiful trap: pointless contrarianism. I stuck The Locust on my best of list as a way of thumbing everyone else in the eye, but there's absolutely no way it should have been on the list lieu of Insect Warfare. Going against the grain doesn't mean you're an iconoclast. Sometimes it just means you're an idiot who's trying too hard.

Latin Implosion

I wanted the first story I ever wrote for the blog, about grindcore's relationship with the military, to be the template for everything that came after. I wanted to move beyond album reviews and band interviews (while I see the value in both of those to provoke fascinating conversations) to strive for something deeper and more topical. I wanted to do more stories about ideas and trends than necessarily about bands and their latest record. Not every idea was successful. Which brings us to the underbaked failure that was my story about Latinos in grind. It was a decent enough idea that just never really gelled into something more profound than ... hey look at all these latinos who grind. The only good thing I can say about that story is that it introduced me to Jerry Flores of Excruciating Terror/Bloody Phoenix who is one of the coolest, most helpful people I've met in grind. Lo siento, senores.

Feminism Uber Alles

And then there was the pointless sexism in the lede of my Infect review. That was just unforgivable, unfunny and a total asshole move. I'm better than that. I swear. For all our blather about how progressive and accepting we claim punk and grind are, women still have to put up with enough bullshit without me piling on with sexist bullshit in a lame attempt to be funny.

Your Album Reviews Suck

I've mentioned before that I suck ass when it comes to writing brutal reviews of shitty albums. It's actually something I've been consciously working on. I try to be more critical because everything can't be the most brutalest brutality that ever brutalized. Sometimes you have to point out that shit kinda sucks. But that was really hard for me at first. So I pulled punches on my reviews of albums like F.A.M., Confusion and Agenda of Swine (especially Agenda of Swine). I doubt I've listened to those three records a total of 10 times since I wrote my reviews. In fact, ever since then I've deliberately tried to slow down, spend a few weeks with an album before I even begin jotting down notes for a review so hopefully by then I can have some sense of how an album holds up to repeated listens rather than getting swept up in first impressions.

Punk Ass Bitch

Hey, the halfbaked assholery isn't completely behind. Here I was indulging in it as recently as July.
Like I said before, I'm constantly jotting down ideas for posts. Some of them need months (occasionally, years) to marinate before they come to fruition. A lot of them radically change from my first conception as I develop them. And then there was How Low Can a Punk Get?, a post I banged out over a weekend about punk tropes that really bother me. That was definitely a post that could have spent quite a bit more time in the incubator. Case in point, Trey Azaghthoth's Quake III Clan schooling me on how I had completely misunderstood Black Flag's "White Minority," which is probably something I could have figured out with like half a second of fucking Googling. And obviously, I completely missed that lighthearted, humorous tone that I was shooting for.
Luckily, you guys and gals are the kind of readers that will push back against my poorly conceived bullshit and keep me honest. I appreciate you calling me out and putting me back in my place when I've completely lost the script.

So there it is. Five years. Five examples of completely public failure. Hopefully the next half decade goes more smoothly than the first, but I guarantee I'll probably be able to write the exact same post in another five years. I'll just go ahead and apologize now.