John Ybarra Menchaca

I write this from a place of Hardcore Punk Joy! It’s time to give Mark McCoy and his record label Youth Attack Records their flowers. For over two decades, this human has been releasing some of the most important bands in the underground. McCoy doesn’t do this label for clout, he does it because of his endless passion for the culture. His attention to detail is spot on, and you can see it in his design work and packaging.

The easy thing to do here would be to try to redeem Nu-Metal. To try and convince myself and then you, dear reader, that, I don’t know, System of a Down’s album Toxicity sounds as good now that I’m thirty as it did when I was sixteen, when I’ve heard everything from Isis to Sunn 0))), Revenge and The Body since.

There were nearly 30,000 deaths on Texas roadways between 2010 and 2017 and we are trending in the wrong direction. From an all-time low of about 3,000 in 2010, traffic deaths, according to the Texas Department of Transportation, have climbed back up to about 3,700 in 2017. Pedestrian deaths in particular have increased a staggering 70% in the eight-year period. We are senselessly losing our family, friends and neighbors. A teacher beloved by his students and admired by his peers.