SLASH # 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 are useless yellowing pieces of paper holding no interest but for the nostalgia buffs. A lot of work went into them but so what? There was nothing else to do with our time anyway, except to run around making a stupid living, mouthing stupid conversations and waiting for old age. Our standards of journalism had ups and downs and it showed. Our defense of the local scene was partial and subjective because that's the way we felt. SLASH never pretended (and never will) to be anything but what it obviously is: a passionate rag for today's kids, a monthly manifesto of off-the-wall beliefs and angry refusal, a desperate plea to musicians to bring back the fun and the madness, an amateur project to undermine a scene plagued by too many professionals. When SLASH stops being al those things it will self-destruct. It's been called everything from "commercial nihilism" to "groupie oriented" to "the Clash's house organ" and it will undoubtedly be called many others. And we will laugh every second of the way because everybody's missing the point. It may have been every one of those things 'cause we felt like that at the time. But that's in the past. And we don't know what the next issue is going to be made of.

The past is a bore, the future a mystery. So bear with us when we fuck up, insult or misunderstand. There just isn't time to be ponderous and thoughtful. All we can promise is as many reports, insights and visuals on the new scene as we can catch. Later, much later... when the whole thing has run out of breath and notes, we will get together and compile a catalog of absurd SLASH highlights, a portable anthology of what not to do with a magazine. But for now we're all too involved and excited to worry about our obvious weaknesses. There's only one standard that, no matter what, we will maintain, and that's the sincerity in whatever we say. And we meaaaaan it, man."