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Welcome back to Spud Underground! Within these pages, you’ll find a big party. Everyone who isn’t a dork is invited. Everyone who is, suck eggs. You aren’t welcome here. Take your sad-sack attitude someplace else. All you dorks, all you miserable and insecure slimes who suck the fun out of a room like an open airlock door- go find a different place to hang out where you can suffocate each other with boredom.

I’ve been covering music in this town long enough to know that the vast majority of the people involved just want to have a good time. Music, drinks, a little snortsky, good people and good vibes. Our day-to-day gives us enough to worry about. When we get together at this big party we want to have fun and reset so we can face the hassle on Monday,  refreshed. But dorks keep showing up like seagulls to a picnic, completely unable to let go of the misery that binds them, spreading it to the rest of us like a weed.

Being a “dork” boils down to how miserable and scared you are. Cool people do cool things and have cool stories to tell. Dorks do nothing because they refuse to leave the comfort zone. It doesn’t do any good to get into it, because these people just stick fingers in their ears whenever this topic comes up. Everybody who knows that danger makes you a better person is already here. The dorks who don’t are sitting outside, wishing they could come in. They’ll spend the whole night hiding their envy behind complaints about something offensive we did.

I cannot be sterile. If I could sand down the rough edges of this magazine into an unabrasive surface; if I could replace this iconoclastic decor with the linoleum tile of inclusivity; if I could tear the soul out of my words and write about music with textbook banality like every other fucking music magazine on planet Earth; I’d be a millionaire by now. And it’s a good thing I can’t, because I’d be bored, and you’d be bored, and the color scheme of this party would be a dull, corporate, off-white. It’s shocking to me how many people prefer that to seeing a stranger upset.

If you can’t handle swear words, go away. If you need your identity recognized at all times, get lost. If you tie everything back to politics, pound sand. If you’re here to laugh and maybe learn a thing or two, welcome aboard! There’s beer in the fridge and pizza on the table.

This month’s issue of Spud Underground covers the best albums of 2022, both foreign and domestic. We take a look at pros and cons of weed getting stronger (not that anybody in Idaho imbibes, tsk tsk). We have a lengthy investigative piece on if hitting on girls at work is really that bad. Some comics, a live music calendar, new music releases, all sorts of stuff. Thanks to our Patreon supporters listed above, and thanks to our sponsors: Jam Session Record Shop and 5 Kings Recording.

Stay dangerous, my friends

RJ, Editor