Midterm -- GRINCHFINGER back in business

Midterm for university students sucks, and that is all I have to say on the subject.

In different news, we are in the process of writing the new Grinchfinger EP, tentatively titled "SCUMBAGS", to be recorded in the Spring. Pure hemp-grind insanity for your virgin ears, plus a cover medley including our interpretations of Cripple Bastards & Mesrine. For more info email us at grinchfinger@gmail.com

Caught the Impaled/Phobia/Malignancy/Illogicist set in Atlanta on September 6th. All those bands kicked ass but the 3 openers were HORRIBLE. Randy and Stu and I are going to catch the Today is the Day/Weedeater/Black Cobra set at the Drunken Unicorn in ATL on November 5th. I haven't been to that club yet, so I'll definitely report back.

I recently found my digital camera and have been taking a lot of pictures, so once I find the right cables I'll have some great freeboarding, pipe soup, kitty, and grindcore pictures for your viewing pleasure!!

Been a long time...

So Stuart and I went back to San Francisco at the end of June for the At the Gates/Repulsion/Darkest Hour/Municipal Waste tour stop at the Fillmore. Municipal Waste sucked as expected, but every other band KILLED IT. Even Darkest Hour, whose latest two albums have sucked, and hard. I picked up some more sick vinyl, too:

• Lack of Interest - Never Back Down on red vinyl
  
• Unholy Grave/The Grade Grubbers split on blue vinyl
  
• Agathocles/Black Army Jacket split
• Insect Warfare/Flagitious Idiosyncrasy in the Dilapidation split
• Rudimentary Peni - No More Pain EP on clear vinyl
• MK Ultra/Seein' Red split
• Los Crudos/Spitboy split

I swear Thrillhouse is my new favorite record store. Every time I've been in there I have found a trove of awesome shit these bay area "punks" don't even know about! Check out the rest of my collection, and trade or sell me your grind/punk/hc records.

With classes resuming today, summer is officially at a close. I'm back in school, still working in the library, still trying to keep Grinchfinger's momentum going. I moved in with my new room mate, Juan, on Saturday. We have a sick studio with a kitchenette and bathroom, but these IT folks did not bother putting in our ethernet ports, so we are temporarily without internet access... My schedule this semester is:

• Eng1101
• Urban Ecology
• Astronomy
• Environmental Sociology

I really couldnt ask for a better schedule- my earliest class, I think, is at 10:45. The only thing I'm really dreading is the 4 hour astronomy lab every Thursday nite. I think I will be a successful Sam this year though, I can feel it in my bones. I learned the secrets to success by nearly failing last semester, and I will be able to apply them this year.

I also found my camera and its charger this summer. Soon these will be REAL blog posts, with PICTURES!!

Hangin Heads Heading Home

Checked out tha new Shaxul Records today in SF. They had ONE decent record for an acceptable price. I do not recommend unless you have a black metal or thrash craving that can only be satiated by burning obscene amounts of cash. I did score a Dropdead & Totalitar split from Amoeba and some good pot, however, so the day wasn't a huge bust.

Curley and I, and our mom, are heading back to Atlanta on Thursday. I have to go back to Macon on Friday to get my check before 6, or else they hold it until Monday.

San Francisco - Summertime - School - etc

I finished my summer classes last Wednesday, which sort of sucked. For one, my teachers recommend that students take only one summer class. I understand why now- almost a semester of work crammed into a month is INSANE. Another, both the syllabi read that finals were on the 20th. SO I definitely showed up to Sociology without having studied... for my final. I passed Spanish with a 68 and I'm sure I did considerably better in Sociology, but my GPA is still very crippled. I need to pull some A's this fall semester.

So I moved out of the Hall the day before I came here to San Francisco. I got here on Friday and I leave on Thursday. My brother and I have hit most of the record stores and chilling spots in the city. I spent most of my check before I even got here, so I had to choose my purchases wisely. I snagged the Appalachian Terror Unit 7" and a repress of His Hero is Gone's "Dead of Night in 8 Movements" that Prank just did. The ATU record is fucking awesome, it came with a folded lyrics booklet/poster with sick artwork and a resealable wrapper. The whole thing is nicely packaged with an actual sleeve instead of the usual folded covers. The HHiG EP isn't anything special, but I had to buy it for nostalgic purposes. That shit still isn't dated, ten years later. The only bummer was having to decide between the HHiG or SFN's nasty new demo.

We decided to forgo the MDC set in Berkley because the train ride is a hassle and they didn't book any other good bands for the show. Plus it sucks having to absorb the cost of admission + a "membership card" (fee) every time I go to Gilman to see some punk bands, but that's how it goes.

Food for Thought

"Every one suspects himself of at least one of the cardinal virtues."

-F. Scott Fitzgerald

Summertime

After finals, my grades were not bad enough to cripple my academic career, after all.

LSK-Pass
SCI-B
PSY-C
MAT-C
ART-B

This year I feel I am robbed of a summer break, at least partially, for the first time. No longer do I have three months to ramble aimlessly, driving the wheels off my car, and working fast food jobs to support adolescent drug habits. Being now content to live a life of the mind, as close to the Frankensteinian lifestyle as possible, I will be working, living, and attending class on Mercer's campus over the course of the upcoming summer. The last vestige of my youth will be a trip to San Francisco to visit my mother, acquire new long players, and finally relax. I have two tickets for the At the Gates/Repulsion/Darkest Hour/Municipal Waste set at the Fillmore in SF on July 25th. Though the AtG "Slaughter of the Soul" lineup/album is not my favorite, Darkest Hour is trapped in Boring Metal Land, and Municipal Waste shamelessly apes D.R.I., I expect the show to be good. I am most looking forward to the Repulsion set, which 5 years ago I never believed would happen. Hope springs eternal.

Finals Week

Finals week begins Monday at lovely Mercer University and I am very much involved, albeit it largely under duress. I have to put the finishing touches on several design projects (and create a Joseph Cornell style box piece) as well as study for Psych and Scientific Inquiry. Naturally I am very anxious about how my GPA will fare this semester.

I was turned on to a Minneapolis (by way of Fargo) band called Hammerhead a couple of days ago. Pure AmRep goodness. Imagine Dinosaur Jr., Cherubs, and Helmet on a Birthday Party trip.

Fucking Assholes Don't Get It

FUCKING ASSHOLES DON'T GET IT:
How to tell if you or someone you know is a piece of shit.


By Gregory Mantooth
http://truespies.org/mantooth/



Reprinted without permission from MRR#298



THE ACOUSTIC GUITAR TEST:
Say you're at a party. Everyone's having a good time. You may or may not have had a few beers in you (although this is not a requirement for the test, simply an extenuation of the "good time" aspect). But you begin to get a little paranoid. "How do I know that these people aren't really assholes? Aren't really out to get me?" you ask yourself. These questions scratch at your brain so incessantly that you swear you'll break a bottle over some potential choad's face, jump out the window, or both.

But it doesn't have to come to that. The acoustic guitar is one of the best signs that you are in the midst of at least one extreme dickhead. If you can find a guitar in the house, place it in the middle of that crowded room. The first person to walk over to it and start strumming along is most likely the biggest douchebag at the party. And if people start cheering him on, feel free to lose your fucking mind and brutalize as many people while exiting through the living-room window.

There are a few things in this world that make me more nauseous than the sound of the acoustic guitar. It conjures deep repressed memories in my psyche, memories that are far too banal for me to face. Regardless, the acoustic guitar seems to be one of the main instruments for bringing most people's inner asshole to the foreground. I can only imagine their thought processes.

"Oh, woah, a fuckin' acoustic guitar! Holy shit! I'm fuckin' Neil Young! I'm motherfuckin' Willy Nelson! Fuck yeah! I'm never going to put this fuckin' thing down ever again! The wood fibers have fused with my palm! Me and this guitar are together forever!"

Oh yes, and I've heard the "electric guitars are, like, destroying the environment and exploiting people. Only with the acoustic guitar can we truly express ourselves outside the system." Noble sentiments for sure, but I'm willing to bet your persistence on strumming away at that thing is linked more with OCD and a wet dream involving you and Woody Guthrie. Sorry- for all your crooned rhetoric and generalizations and sentimentality, you do not resemble Woody Guthrie in any way. You always sound like that sweaty goon at church singing Kumbaya trying to lure the young to Jesus like the Pied Piper.




THE "I'M A NOISE ARTIST" TEST:
This time you're on a crowded bus and someone sitting across from you notices the pins on your jacket. This person will always point at them and say "cool band." Never will they actually say what band is on your pin. Beware, these people are like fucking born-again Christians and will use any means to start up a conversation with you. Before you can even say "uh, thanks" or ignore them, they will quickly segue into how they're in a band, but not really. "It's more, like, ambient noise stuff."

At this point you know you've been ensnared by an asshole. They will talk at you about how fuckin' sick their ring modulation is, how they circuit-bended some bullshit they pulled out of a dumpster, and how you should check out their MySpace. Somewhere in there they will talk about how they "used to be into that punk stuff, but it got old blah blah No Fun Fest blah blah Whitehouse blah blah blah Bastard who?"

Simply put- these Newjack Noise kids are no different than Christians or Army Recruiters who want to indoctrinate you into their cult of bullshit.




THE RON PAUL TEST:
Motherfuck every dickhead who supports this jiggling sack of black, oily diarrhea.

Shameless Promotion: Macon Venue Project

Macon, GA has one of the worst music scenes anywhere. Lots of bar rock & nu-metal artists, and more recently the hardcore and indie pop hipster groups. Some high school friends of mine are trying to open a new venue to try and revitalize the alternative musical scene in Macon that has been on ice since Liz Reed's closed in 2004. Though the bands that they have booked so far for benefits have been markedly generic and homogenized, the events have been well planned and promoted doggedly. If the project survives past initial stages, it could be a good step in Macon hosting large names and giving smaller bands a legitimate place to showcase their talents. Though hardly cutting edge or sensitive to diversity, Macon Venue Project is a great cause run by and for music fans.

http://www.maconvenueproject.com

The Two Man Gentlemen Band - Heavy Petting (2008)

A couple of years ago, the neo-Americana genre really took off with releases from O'Death and The Old Scratch Revival Singers. While championing a once-neglected, distinctly American/spiritual sound, the direction of the artists can become muddled- post-Squirrel Nut Zippers/Modest Mouse trappings, post-hardcore snarling, young white guys from the Midwest imitating old black guys from the South, etc. Fortunately for The Two Man Gentlemen Band, they have managed to avoid all these cliches with finesse. Dressed to the nines and kazoos in hand, professional buskers and raconteurs "Smilin'" Andy Bean and "The Councilman" Fuller Condon have crafted their finest album to date.

Released in 2008, Heavy Petting is the third album the Gentlemen have recorded for Serious Business Records. Sometimes swinging Charlestonian numbers, other times ragtime, or even a hint of Western flavor, the Gentlemen's "one style, all occasions" has found a definitive voice on this disc. Minimalist in every sense of the word (bass, banjo, kazoo, voice, and the occasional session drummer), the Gentlemen have most importantly converted an aging American form of composition to viable contemporary entertainment, complete with overt sexual innuendo. Stand out tracks include "William Howard Taft", "A Gentleman Knows How to Love", and "When Your Lips are Playing my Kazoo".