EDITORIAL This is a general blog post to help inform readers, press contacts, bands and the general public about the upcoming and ongoing changes to Grizzly Butts. This will include a new site name, some changes to the look of the website, and coverage changes as GrizzlyButts.com becomes MystificationZine.com. Feel free to contact me with any questions here: grizzlybutts@hotmail.com

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MYSTIFICATIONZINE.COM is live! You’ll notice your usual cruise through GrizzlyButts.com will look different from now on and many more changes are coming to both the appearance and functionality of the site. That is more or less what I’ll detail here today.

QUICK SUMMARY [CLICK HERE]

We will still be using the same e-mail for submissions and contact: grizzlybutts@hotmail.com

All of the old GrizzlyButts.com links will still work, still show up in Google searches, and they will forward automatically to MystificationZine.com URLs ad infinitum.

The aesthetic of the website will change in 2024, including a new logo.

Coverage will not change drastically in 2024, but regular band/artist interviews and more weekly features will be instituted.

A monthly recap with exclusive content will be available for purchase as a PDF zine at the end of each month starting in January 2024.

GRIZZLY BUTTS, A CORPSE

Despite having written for print publications as far back as 1998 and participating in online heavy music communities since the early 2000’s it wasn’t until 2017 that I’d begin aiming for something I could no longer find anywhere else. Choosing the site name “Grizzly Butts” was intentionally strange but not without meaning, it more-or-less functioned how I’d expected in keeping the pretentious and self-serious bores of heavy music fandom at arm’s length. A dumb name, sure, but no less ridiculous than “Toilet ov Hell“, “Angry Metal Guy“, “Invisible Oranges” or whatever. Anyhow…

Only a vacuous fool believes their identity is fundamentally attached to their purchases, much less their consumption of art. The idea behind GrizzlyButts.com was to provide an example of a different type of fan. A consumer? Sure, necessarily so, but one that takes heavy music and musicians seriously enough to gather a keen grasp of the details, find some humanity behind the work, investigate the greater canonical traditions of the sub-culture (or, former counter cultures) and convey knowledge and inquisitive, open-minded exploration in an entertaining but highly methodical way. The hope was that something a bit different, detailed, and expressive might help ailing illiterate minds foster critical thinking skills reinforced by methodical, emotional, abstracted, and learned observations. I claim no success in this regard, only intent.

Grinding against the corporation-juiced and fragmented psyche of the heavy music fan every day is worthwhile when the reward is illuminated nuance, inspirational thought, and personal experience gained from earnest artistic perspectives when they haven’t been cut down to small digestible bits. This’d been one of the main driving thoughts as I stumbled and buzzed through the first few years of the site. Having just moved to Seattle in mid-2017, I had some time to think about these things before starting a new job and the site soon materialized in haphazard fashion. From there I suppose starting Grizzly Butts was a matter of setting a personal standard for efficiency and aiming above that bar until about 2021 when I felt I couldn’t push the time investment anymore. At that point I began to pursue other ideas, such as a short-lived label (Spirit Coffin Publishing, 2021-2023) and its sole print publication Mystification Zine #1. In the process of developing those projects I realized I had outlived the Grizzly Butts name and wanted to present an aesthetic and statement which was more in line with the tone of the site and in touch with my enduring interests.

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The name was chosen in tribute to my favorite heavy metal band, Manilla Road, and the original logo was meant to combine elements of two more foundational favorites, Sarcófago and Sacramentum per their logo designs.

MYSTIFICATION

The switch to MystificationZine.com isn’t for the sake of “rebranding” so much as it signifies a much needed change in terms of being inquisitive to a degree that matches the informative intent of the site. Asking more questions, demystifying the separation between fan, musician, label, etc. and this means five fundamental changes will occur in terms of the website presence: [1] Doing in-depth interviews more often to better match (or extend) the depth of written reviews. Likewise the last year I’ve spent time getting comfortable with video reviews in preparation for [2] Expanding the video medium and presence into exploratory features and interviews. The intent is that I might still cover 6-7 notable releases per week but also attempt to pair those with interviews and ongoing video series, all of which will have a written component. So, this might not appear to break the mold but it will make for a more interactive presence. With this in mind look forward to review features changing wherein the [3] In-depth written review format will continue to change to offer both quick reads, longform content, and in depth listening/recommendations. If you always skip the discussion of a band’s bio/discography in my reviews that’ll be easier to do in the future if you’re looking to get right to the subject of the album at hand. [4] An Exhaustive Study has been buried for too long. For many people it was one of their favorite draws to my writing on other sites as well as GrizzlyButts.com but those entries are in disrepair or have been deleted in some cases. I will be able to fit these features into my weekly schedule but it will only be six releases at a time and it will mean that [5] Endtymer will now no longer serve as a “News/New Release” feature and instead a Friday recap which collects all articles, some favorites, overlooked stuff, and any videos published that week. Some of these changes will implement before 2024 but all of them will be in effect as of January 1st of next year. The “rebranding” of the site is already in motion on social media and the site itself.

Donations, subscribing (YouTube, etc.), following on social media, and such will help make this transition easier as I will be interacting on social media more often, yes, I’ll even be tagging bands/labels when I post reviews. I am not sure that I will implement a Patreon since those tend to be more about exclusive content and such but it might be a good alternative to enabling advertisements on the site. The main reason I will be attempting to monetize the site and such is for the sake of spending more time on it and ideally putting out at least one print publication per year. One of the main attempts to monetize will be [6] A monthly PDF zine which I will build throughout each month and include some exclusive content. It will be for sale digitally through the website each month starting at the end of January 2024. I’d mentioned some details about this back in August but in the process of preparing the format, content, etc. it became clear I would need to make the switch from GrizzlyButts.com to MystificationZine.com for all of this to be a bit more approachable and easier to seek out. I’ll have more details for this during late December and throughout January.

Thanks for your time, your support, and your feedback. More to come.

Josh / “terraasymmetry” / Mystification Zine / grizzlybutts@hotmail.com

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