Happy birthday Kevin Monahan and my final Blogspot blog entry!

 

Happy birthday to one of my closest comrades!  He is 420 months old!  Here he is one video of him performing stand up live!  I have more of him performing stand up comedy live. Watch this vid!  He is my bassist of our band Satanic Lust.

I have decided this will ultimately be my final Blogspot blog entry.  I feel this blog has served its purpose for me and there's really not too much this blog has to offer.  I remember writing I would end it and it is.  Wanna stay in touch with me?  I am mainly active on Discord.  ChaosDevin #6944.  I also have a Tumblr.  Yeah, I'm a Tumblrina!  Hahahahahahaha!  I might or might not be so active on Tumblr.  Your best bet is Discord.  I got other socials and you may ask if you wanna be in touch with me via Discord.

Arrivederci!  Or more appropriately... adio!

My father died five years ago

 

I usually don't get too personal with my blog entries and I especially don't talk that much about my family.  Not that my family is bad or anything, it's a wee bit too personal.  Today's blog entry is different and perhaps I may write more blog entries about my family in the future.  On this day five years ago, I lost my father Carlo "Carl" Palladino.  Born on September 12, 1944, the youngest of 3 children.  My dad was a hard working man and all around good person.  He owned his own garage door business that he had since the mid-1960's.  I don't know much as else about his childhood or anything like that since he rarely talked about that.  I do know that my uncle (my dad's 2nd oldest brother) has shed some light about the Palladino family.  Unfortunately, I'm not in touch with my uncle anymore and I'll probably not get more information about the Palladino family.

As I said, he was a hard worker and I believe he also enjoyed installing garage doors, repairing garage doors and installing electric garage door openers.  His line of work was difficult and dangerous, so he didn't want me to get into it.  Besides work, he also enjoyed watching sports (baseball, football and tennis were his favorites if I remember correctly), spending time with his family and investing money on the stock market.  He was also a little bit of gamer too (my mother is a little bit of a gamer as well), he had an Atari in the 1980's.  I have fond memories of my dad such as playing video games with him, learning how to drive with his car and even working for his garage door company during the last years of his life.

I also have memories of him and I attending sports games at arenas and stadiums.  We attended games that had New York and New Jersey sports teams playing such as the New York Yankees and the New Jersey Nets (now the Brooklyn Nets).  He was a big fan of the New York Yankees.  I believe we also went to a New York Mets game.  Thanks to him I got to see one of the greatest athletes of the 20th century, Wayne Gretzky.  That was during Gretzky's last years in the NHL, he played for the New York Rangers.  We attended two New York Rangers games at Madison Square Garden.  Interestingly, the first time was the New York Rangers vs. Edmonton Oilers and the second and final time we attended a game together was the New York Rangers vs. Edmonton Oilers.

We also attended music shows too.  I went to Youthfest at RCC in the late 1990's, I went to my first live music show.  I saw Civil Descent (who later became Close My Eyes) perform live and that was awesome.  In 2001, we attended the G3 concert at the Beacon Theatre.  I saw Joe Satriani, Steve Vai and John Petrucci perform live.  He was quite cool with it, but he thought it was too loud if I'm not mistaken.  My dad had somewhat of an eclectic taste in music.  He liked The Beatles, Queen, Dion, Bob Dylan, Pat Benetar, Blondie and Cyndi Lauper.  He mostly listened to oldies, his favorite radio station was WCBS-FM 101.1.  He was a bit open to other kinds of music as well.  Here's why I say he had an eclectic taste in music,  I remember I made him listen to Metallica's Master of Puppets on the beach in the 1990's or 2000's and he shockingly liked it.  He liked the first track or the title track, I don't remember.  One time Slayer was blasting at Hot Topic and he even liked that!  True story!

My dad died of prostate cancer.  He also happened to die on his birthday.  He would have been 77 years old on this day.  Since he unfortunately died of prostate cancer, take a look at Prostate Cancer Foundation website.  Educate yourself about it and even donate to the foundation.  One day and hopefully soon, people will not have to put up with prostate cancer or cancer in general.  It's a shame that my dad had to go through that and I don't wish anyone to get it.  My dad got diagnosed with in 2012 and then it got progressively got worse in early 2016.  His brother was also diagnosed with prostate cancer as well, however they got to it in time and he's still alive.  If you suspect you might have it or know someone else that might have it, of course let your doctors know and also please visit the website for more information.

I did mention about his death in an early blog entry I created in 2019.  I originally wasn't going to write a blog entry about the passing of my father, however I figured since it's 5th anniversary... why not?  I also wrote this blog entry to spread more awareness of prostate cancer as well.  It's sad that people nowadays are against the patriarchy and fathers nowadays set a bad example for people.  My dad was a one of kind father, he did his best to provide for his family.  He wasn't a deadbeat dad, alcoholic, womanizer, etc.  He was loved by many and he was a good person.  Sure, he wasn't perfect like most people in the world.  Whenever he was present, he brought good vibes with him.  People who know him still say good things about him and they remember him well.

In case you want to read it, here is his obituary page.  The photo I used above comes from that obituary page and there's also a couple more photos of him as well.  Technically those photos originate from my personal archive of photos.  R.I.P. dad, I miss you and so does everyone else who knew and loved you do as well.

I don't do the horns gesture

 

I've been a metalhead since my single digits.  I loved it every time I heard it, I didn't know records of metal existed.  I was not exposed to it since I grew up in a conservative household.  I'm not rightist/conservative/Republican nor leftist/liberal/Democrat, I'm more independent in case y'all are wondering.  I didn't get an actual physical copy of a metal record until my 10th birthday.  I received Metallica's Master of Puppets on CD as a gift from my twin cousins Brett & Christopher.  They also gave me Pearl Jam's Ten.  I disliked that album majorly, I was happy to give that away to my brother's friend Mike. Anyhow, why I am against horns?  Now I will say this, I personally do not do the horns ever.  If you do the horns, I'm not gonna stop you from doing that.  Go right ahead, do the metal horns gesture.  There's actually only one known picture of me doing the horns (see below) and that was when my close friend Kevin Monahan was passed out.

Now why don't I do the metal horns gesture anymore?  I feel it is used way too much and it looks super cringey when I do it.  I will do the peace sign out of shear rebellion.  I'm a peaceful person and I'm at peace.  Here's one huge major secret that I need to confess to you all.  I am a hippie.  I happen to be a hippie who loves heavy metal (especially the more extreme side of metal).  There ya go!  I know in a past life I was a hippie since I remember being so attracted to hippies back when I was around 4 or so.  Amazingly my hair was a bit long when I was around the ages 3-5, my mother simply loved my hair a lot and didn't want me to get it cut.  I did get it sadly cut over time.  Remember, I grew up in a conservative household.  I also happen to have very curly/frizzy hair.  Now of course, you are still metal if you have short-medium length hair.  I know older metalheads with no hair at all or a little hair due their genetics not allowing them to have hair due to balding.  I'm sort of balding now as I'm getting older, my hair is getting thinner.  My mom used to cut my hair to make it look good.  I'll have to share those pictures if I can find them.  They're in boxes somewhere in my garage.

Of course, you might call me the biggest poseur in the whole entire universe for admitting/confessing the stuff I said above.  Oh well, too bad.  You are most likely calling yourself a poseur while are you calling me a poseur.  I guess I'm highly based person.  Sorry, but there was a point in time where metal didn't have this horns gesture.  I do know that Geezer Butler is one of the first, if not the first metal musician/figure to use the devil horns.  However, it didn't catch on.  Then it got popularized by a certain singer us metalheads know and love.  For some weird reason, this hand gesture blew up and become the universal sign of metal & rock.  I know it was due to Mr. Ronnie James Dio (R.I.P.).  He would use this hand gesture on stage at his live performances.  The audience noticed this and then they started doing this hand gesture.  I think he told his audience do it.  I dunno, I'm not a Dio expert.  He rocks, love his music.  However, he started something that spiraled out of control.  I know he learned this gesture from his grandmother and he thought it was cool if I'm not mistaken.  That's nice.

When I viewed a photo of Justin Bieber throwing the "rock sign", this majorly influenced me not to throw the so-called "rock sign" anymore.  Of course in the metal world, he would be called a poseur.  Bieber is a poseur, definitely a poseur for doing that since he's not actually a metalhead.  I don't know Bieber personally, but maybe he's a metalhead.  I have no idea.  If he is a metalhead, cool.   Now I'm Italian and I do know it is an Italian thing.  I'm not 100% sure, but it wards off evil spirits or something?  I forgot exactly.  I was told never knew to do this wicked hand gesture by mother and I guess I listened to her too much to the point where I didn't do it.  I did do it out of rebellion though.  She grew up with Italians since her family married into Italians.  Then she wound up marrying an Italian man (my father).  I'm not sure if the devil horns is a good thing with Italians or is it a bad thing with Italians?  Someone please let me know in the comments.  Thank you.  I would say nowadays it has become a positive thing.  It lets other metalheads know you're a metalhead.  I'll simply wear a metal shirt or something else that will identify myself as a metalhead.

Now here's where it gets strange for me.  I'm a Satanist.  I'm actually a spiritual Satanist if you wanna be precise.  Satanists (in most branches of Satanism?) do throw the horns.  I know they do this in the LaVey  branch, which I have very little to no respect for, to me it's atheism with extra steps and it's lame.  I think that weird wacky Satanism branch that caused some controversy years ago with their statue also throw the horns.  I dunno, whatever.  There's other contexts with this horns gesture.  Like I know the "Illuminati" (which I don't believe in) does this.  I have a circle of friends that are against "the illuminati".  I look absolutely ridiculous throwing the horns.  Texas Longhorn fans throw it up at games to show support for the Longhorn players.

Here's the thing.  You can still be a metalhead and not do the horns.  There is an alternative hand gesture which is called "the claw".  Very little documentation exists of the claw hand gesture.  I do that instead of the horns gesture and I encourage all metalheads to use this as an alternative.  It looks much cooler to me.  In the very deep dark depths of the underground metal scene, they would do this instead of the devil horns.  The devil horns is more of mainstream thing.  The underground metal listeners did/do the devil horns, but then I would guess there's others who don't.  I have to be in a small minority of metalheads who do not throw the metal horns at all.  I know the last time I did was at an Atheist concert back in 2009.  It was due to the energy and so many other people doing it at that concert.  I did not do it too much though.  I have zero intentions on throwing the horns from now on.  I recall my friend Marshall in the late 2010's back in the late 2010's sort of forcing me to do the metal horns gesture outside of a bar we frequented, but thankfully it was never capture on film.  Hah!

I have a feeling a lot of so-called metalheads do this hand gesture that makes think they are metal.  Then in their hearts, they are not.  I'm ultra based for not doing this gesture.  If you are a true metalhead, make sure it comes from the heart and stuff.  Throw those horns.  I have zero problems with people using this gesture.  It easily lets me know they are into metal.

That's pretty much everything I wanted to say on this topic.  I might have to edit some things since the grammar and spelling might not be good.  Do you do the devil horns?  Why?  How come?  I have nothing against you if you do.  Got a story you wanna share?  Please comment, thanks!  I love feedback!  Have a rad day/night!

DaBaby, gotta love him?!

 

I am having a real hard time writing anything for this blog.  Writer's block and too much stuff going outside of the net.  I have no concrete and marvelous ideas for this blog right now.  I actually might (keyword: might) stop writing entries.  I really don't want to stop though.  This is a great blog, even though I don't get much readers.  I'm surprised I managed to write something in the first day of a month.  Geez... I have no idea what to write...

 

...OH!  DaBaby's homophobic comments are out of line... I'm glad he's not going to be at Lollapalooza. More like Lolololololololololololololollapalooza...  He's DaBaby, gotta love him!  Nope!  No love for him!  A foolish homophobe.

I have no idea if I'll jot anything down for another entry.  We'll see.  Thanx for reading this!

Hope you all had a good July!

 

I've had a busy July and that's why I haven't written any entries.  I hope you had a productive July!  Maybe I'll post more in August.

Oh wow a new entry

 

I've been listening to psychedelic rock bands such as Strawberry Alarm Clock, Art and even The Beatles.  I also watched the Death by Metal documentary about Death and Chuck Schuldiner last night.  I thought it was pretty cool.  I almost forgot about this blog.    I know not too many people read it.  I guess I've been having writer's block with this blog.

Rockland County Heavy Metal

 

I will briefly talk about heavy metal from Rockland County.  The heavy metal scene was quite heavy and it started some time in the 1980's.  Was it around in the 1970's?  Not sure.  My favorite bands are Malicious Onslaught, Bar Sinister, Syianic and Killpower.   These bands are terrific and I highly recommend them.  I used to be friendly with Malicious Ted (vocalist/guitarist/bassist) of Malicious Onslaught when I was living in Rockland County.  He had some cool stories about the heavy metal scene in Rockland County. 

 Want to find out out more?  You will find a wealth of information about the heavy metal scene in Rockland County by visiting Rockland County NY - Heavy Metal on Blogspot.

Happy birthday to Nick Hexum!

 

Happy birthday to Nick Hexum of 311!  I wanted to write a blog post today and I had no idea what to write about.  Then I noticed 311's Facebook page had a video wishing Nick Hexum a happy birthday.  Well I want to wish a happy birthday here on my blog.  He is 51 years old today.  Have an awesome day, Nick Hexum!

Remembering Nick Hexum's birthday is not difficult, after all he says "my birthday happens to land on April 12th... whack" in the song "Welcome" off their first major label album Music.  If you're new to 311, check out this song first and then go from there!

Putrilage, great band!

 

As I wrote this, I'm listening to this cool brutal death metal band called Putrilage.  Don't know them?  Of course, you don't!  Unless you're a death metal aficionado such as myself.  They're a great band.  I first listened to them in December 2019, but only the first couple of tracks off their album Devouring the Gutted.  Then I decided to check out the other tracks.

 

Want to know more about them?  Check out their page at The Metal Archives.  If you're into death metal that's on the brutal side, I highly recommend them.  Got an open mind and like any music?  I recommend them.  Look for more of their tracks on YouTube/YouTube Music.
 

The Faceless, an excellent band!

 

Today's blog entry is about a technical death metal band I love called The Faceless. What happened to them?  Will they ever get their shit together?  I have no idea.  I started listening to this neato band circa 2007.  I absolutely loved the album Akeldama.  The song "An Autopsy" is a brilliant song and it's my favorite song by them.  It's fast, technical and awesome.  This was back when they were more of a deathcore band.  Back then, I didn't care if they were a deathcore band.  I listen to other deathcore bands such as Arsonists Get All the Girls, Dr. Acula and Brand of Sacrifice.

They became more of a tech. death metal band with their sophomore effort Planet Duality.  Then they released a couple of more albums after that one.  I was lucky to witness them live in person in 2009.  They were touring with Atheist.  I loved that they played "Prison Born", which is probably my second favorite song by them.  They really knew how to put on an awesome live show. 

R.I.P. Lars Göran Petrov

Unfortunately, we lost another figure in the world of music.  I know I'm a bit late, but yeah I had to report this unfortunate death since he's a fellow death metal musician.  Lars Göran Petrov was a death metal musician who was in bands such as Morbid, Nihilist, Entombed, Entombed A.D. and Firespawn.  He drummed for Morbid, which I did not know.  He went by the stage name Drutten when he was in Morbid.  Petrov died of a rare form cancer, duct bile cancer.  He was diagnosed a year ago.  My condolences go out to his family and bands he was involved in.  R.I.P. L-G Petrov.

Happy birthday Tony Iommi and Prince Markie Dee (R.I.P.)

 

First I'd like to wish Tony Iommi a happy birthday.  He is now 73 years old.  Of course, he's one of the most influential guitarists in the history of heavy metal.  For those who don't know, he's the founding guitarist of Black Sabbath.  He was also involved with other bands such as Velvett Fogg, WhoCares and Heaven & Hell.  He was even in Jethro Tull at one point.  His band Iommi is currently on hold and hopefully he continues that soon.  I hope he has an awesome day today!

I'd like to also wish Mark "Prince Markie Dee" Morales of The Fat Boys a happy birthday too.  Unfortunately, he didn't make it to his birthday today.  Not only is it sad that he died, but it's also sad that he died a day before his birthday.  He was 52, so today he would have been 53.   An unfortunate loss in the world of hip-hop/rap since he was part of a pioneering group of the genre.  I liked his approach to rap.  I didn't know him too well, but I did enjoy the music he recorded with The Fat Boys.  For more on him, check out this article by The A.V. Club.

The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band

 

I've had a few blog entries about rock and metal musicians/bands.  However, I have not posted about a psychedelic rock band.  I love psychedelic rock, one of my favorite sub genres of rock music.  Today's blog entry is about The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band.  They're a terrific band that you ought to know.  I'm not going to get into their history since you can find that on Wikipedia or Last.fm.  Here you'll find songs I like and my thoughts on them.

Here's an awesome song by them, one of my favorites.  It's off their album Vol. 2.  Groovy stuff and you should check it out.  I remember listening to this on the Garden State Parkway a few years ago.  One of their best songs.

This one is taken off their album Part One and it's a good one.  I don't think it's better than "In the Arena", but it's also groovy.  This song was recorded earlier and it appears on their Volume One album.  I think the Part One recording is superior.

Another off Vol. 2, of course it's awesome.  Ya gotta love anti-war songs of the 1960's.  There's usually always something special about them.  This one in particular is one of the best anti-war songs and it's a shame not too many know about this one.  Check this one out!

Last, but not least... a cut off their final album Where's My Daddy.  I listened to this one as I wrote this.  It features fantastic piano and guitar work.  Brilliant vocals in this song as well.  Fantastic track overall.

Like them?  I highly suggest you search 'em up on YouTube.  If you wanna go the extra mile, buy one of their albums!  Have a good day/night!

A year ago since Kobe Bryand Gigi Bryant passed away

 

Unfortunately, it has been a year since Kobe Bryant & GiGi Bryant passed away.  The toughest deaths of 2020 and it hit me quite hard.  Yes, the deaths Sean Reinert, Neil Peart, MF Doom, Frankie Banali and Eddie Van Halen in 2020 were hard to digest.  However, to me the deaths of Kobe & GiGi are by far the worst of 2020.  I totally miss Kobe.  Despite the fact that I didn't know his daughter GiGi that well, I miss her too and of course it's incredibly sad that she died at such a young age.  Plus it's also incredibly sad that she died along with her father.  I was at my computer a year ago, I noticed that TMZ had an article about Kobe dead.  At first, I was hoping it was a hoax.  I scoured the net for other sources, nobody else was reporting it.  I was truly hoping it was a hoax.  Other sources were not reporting it, so it had to be hoax.

As time went by, I unfortunately found other sources were reporting it.  To make matters, sources were later reporting his daughter also died.  A horrible day.  Well their memories will live on.  I'll always remember Kobe's amazing contribution to the world of basketball and sports.  I didn't know his daughter was a basketball player.  She had a ton of potential and I'm sure she would have been in the WNBA if she lived.

Well I'm not gonna write any more of these death anniversaries.  However, a big personal one for me is coming up and I already got it all written up.  You'll have to follow this blog to find out which death anniversary hits me the most.

A year ago since Neil Peart died

 

Well it has been a year since Neil Peart passed away.  Tbh, I never got heavily into Rush and didn't check  out more of their music after they retired from music.  However, it's still a shame that Peart died.  I don't have much to say on this, unfortunately.  He shared a birthday with my father, so automatically Peart was an awesome guy and I would have gotten along with him if I ever met him.  I did post about Peart's unfortunate death a year ago.  Here it is, if you wanna read it: R.I.P. Neil Peart.   Of course, expect a one year anniversary post on Kobe Bryant and his daughter GiGi Bryant.

R.I.P. MF DOOM

 

Rapper MF Doom unfortunately died on October 31, 2020 and his death wasn't announced until a couple of months later.  This was an absolute shock to me.  I was going to originally post this blog entry on December 31, but didn't get around to it.  What a sad way to end off 2020... announcing the death of someone who actually died a couple months ago.  It also happened on Halloween.  I have no idea why we didn't get to know this on October 31 or November 1.

I knew of MF Doom for years, but didn't start listening to his music until around 2016.  This was one of the most shocking deaths of 2020, due to the fact that he was quite young.  I honestly forgot about him until his death was announced.  I feel really bad that I didn't listen to that much and according to my stats on Last.fm... I had no scrobbles for him at all in 2019.  Then I find out he dies... well of course, I listened to him on December 31.  For more info, go to the Complex article about it.  I only listen to hip-hop/rap occasionally, but I'm thinking about listening to more hip-hop/rap artists in 2021.  We'll see, I'm guessing I'll still listen to my usual rock and metal.

Happy New Year (2021)!

 

Happy New Year to all who read this.  I don't think many of you read this.  If so, cool!  I hope you have the best year possible!  Of course, we all know that 2020 was an awful year.  The pandemic, the deaths and other unfortunate events occurred in 2020.  2020 had so much potential and then COVID-19 happened.  Now I hope the vaccine works for us all and we'll progress.  2020 had very little to no progression at all.  We didn't do much, we didn't work, we couldn't find any work, we lost lots of money, etc.  The disastrous 2020 presidential election (sorry, I will not touch on politics too much in this blog), Trump not conceding, which has complicated matters more with the 2020 election.  Yeah, 2020 was a bloody awful mess and I hope we don't repeat it ever!