Carnage Fucking Carnage

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Originally uploaded by Pmartino.

On my trip home this weekend for the Bocce tournament I finally picked up my flash card reader so I could upload the pictures I took of The Lord Weird Slough Feg show two Thursdays ago. I can also review what was a pretty decent show.

Crucifix was the first band on the bill. They are a local death / thrash metal band whose songs reminded me very much of Morbid Angel and Death. Fast, furious, and fucking heavy. My problem with a lot of newer death metal bands is just that they only focus on being heavy and throw away the thrash death metal needs. Changing tempos every 30 seconds does not make a quality track. Back to Crucifix though. The band's leader singer is fellow WITR DJ for the Heavy Metal show on Saturday night who actually told us about this show. This may make my interview a bit bias but they were a decent enough opening band, good for head banging, and didn't out right suck. Sadly I wasn't able to buy a demo CD and get a better taste of them since they left after we went to the ATM for cash.

Bible of the Devil was the next band. I assumed they were going to be straight thrash or a similar combo ala Crucifix before I heard them. Figuring I might as well hear some tracks before the show I downloaded a few and wasn't pleasantly surprised. They have a very AC / DC sound, duel guitar driven heavy metal. They also have a similar theme to AC / DC in their songs are about drinking, girls, kicking ass, and just being men. They started the show off with Guns, Germs, and Steel a song based off the book and the now PBS documentary. The song was long and awesome and I knew I was in for a great night. The lead guitarist was amazing with a fantastic stage presence and he definitely fed off the crowd that was very responsive to them (especially since this was most people's first time seeing them). The guitarist's parents were also in the audience. This led to an interesting tidbit when for their last song they were trying to figure out what to play. I yelled out Fuckin' A, one of the few songs I actually knew, to which the guitarist told me not to swear in front of their mother. They played Fuckin' A which was awesome. Combine this with the bassist laying on the ground floor and playing on his back on top of me. Why? Who knows.

The band I've been waiting for a month to see finally came on stage, The Lord Weird Slough Feg. I was not disappointed to say the least. They are definitely an interesting band and fit the stereotypical looking metal band. But there is a reason metal will never be big and its due to the flat out ugliness of metal bands. None the less, they make up in talent what they lack in looks, and the show proved this. Playing some of my favorite tracks - High Passage / Low Passage, Baltech's Lament, Eumaeus the Swineherd, Sky Chariots, Traders and Gunboats, Asteroid Belts, the Final Gambit, the Wickerman, and one or two more. I was hoping for Avatism, I Will Kill You / You Will Die, and Vargr Theme but I cannot get too picky. Sadly the temperature was horrible and Slough Feg ended the show what seemed to be a bit early. I also took almost no pictures and the ones I did were way too zoomed in to be of any worth.

Following the show I bought some merch - a sweet Slough Feg shirt, Travler, and Bible of the Devil's latest. Overall I give the show a 8 / 10, could have been better but it was good enough to be worth the ten bucks.

Bocce combines the strategic and intellectual demands of chess, the physical challenges of the decathlon, and the sublime poetry of Zen archery

I just want to say I love the game of Bocce. What was once an average lawn game to play with friends and family has become a competitive force to be dealt with. B.O.O.B.S. - Bocce Organization of Beer Swillers - is a league started up by my brother, Paulie, and Jim. Each week they get together, drink, and play bocce. To make matters even better a Rochester group is starting up - an East and West division, with the winner of that becoming grand CNY BOOBS' Champion.

I somehow was able to get off work on Saturday and able to go to the Bocce Tournament held at the fairgrounds. First game was at 9, we started drinking at 9, and lasted all day until 4:30. Sitting in the sun, drinking beers, and playing bocce all day is hard work. Sadly no teams from BOOBS received a trophy but we came close due to two games the Brothers Martino and Team Black Ball should have won. Lack of consistency and courts we were not used to were the real causes of our defeat. We made an impact however, with kids complaining that we were "wasted" and constantly being asked what the deal is with our official looking shirts. Raised some money for charity, played bocce, and drank all day is if you ask me a quality day and worth the trip home.

Meet the Mets

Just want to say the Mets are 4.5 games out of first and the wildcard respectively. The Nationals are falling apart like I've said for weeks (382 runs scored and 388 given up), we are tied with the Astros, and the Phillies are on our tail. Am I worried? Nope. We're going to the playoffs.

The Braves will probably win the East but I won't be surprised to see them collapse with as young as a team as they have. Right now I'm just excited about the wildcard spot. The Astros, Phillies, Marlins, and Cubs are the teams to beat. We routinely have great success against the Phillies, so-so versus the Marlins, same for the Nationals. Moving Piazza to the 6th spot has worked out amazing (need to do some statistics on this to make sure), Wright's fielding and base running is getting better, and Floyd has been solid. I'm so excited, I love the Mets.

Tickets on sale today for Bloc Party and the Kills. Looks like I'll be doing solo but I get to see Kevin and Chapman so the trip alone will still be fine.

I need to start a band

Three days in a row I was asked if I was in a band. I have never been in a band or even have any resemblance of musical talent. I love music but can not play it, which is why I love being asked this question. I guess I give off the band impression with my strange band shirts, homemade shirts, interesting pencil line drawing design shirts, boot-cut jeans that fit, and a pair of loafers. Doesn't help I've been hanging out with friends this summer who also look the same. So when we are together I guess we give off that band vibe. It was especially odd on Thursday when we walked into the Bug Jar we were asked if we were in the band (I assume Bible of the Devil). Of course I said no. Realizing the awesomeness of being in a band but not exactly having one, Pete and I vowed to always say 'yes' if asked the question again. I failed that test twice the next two days.

So to remedy that situation I need to start a band. At the moment I have two ideas for a band that stem from the main points of music - getting chicks, getting drunk, and artistic expression. My first band involves the first two and my second band involves the last. See after realizing that whinny acoustic playing emo brats have whinny emotional artsy girls throw themselves all over these whinny acoustic playing emo brats but are too sad over their first love to do anything, I have decided to tap this market. Since I am not all that whinny, nor am I emotional, and honestly haven't loved anyone per say I'm walking into a glod mine. However, I also realized that there is another market untapped and that is the dark, gothic, and angry market. Metal heads are just butt ugly and these stay as far away as possible. Note these girls are also just as crazy and emotional as the ones that love acoustic music. So as long as I combine both genres I can perform a super band. I now present you Acoustic Black Emotional Metal. So I get drunk, throat my way through emotional songs about my love of Satan and the devil that dumped me for a fresh corpse and I wait for the 'killer' paychecks.

My other band isn't as exciting but involves keyboards, a sampling machine, a turntable, mixer, and a CD turntable. I then blend my love of odd samples, records from the 40's and 50's, book on tapes, hip-hop, and metal in a melting pot of pure shit and mayhem. Yet it'll be so artistic and bad people will love it. After doing it as a joke I'll start taking it serious. I'll do 50 minute interviews how I'm deconstructing music into a conglomerate of noise that reflects the current state of affairs going on in and how is damaging their .

So more or less I just make myself into a pretencious ass that takes himself way too seriously.

Elementary my dear Watson

For whatever reason the title is the first thing that popped in my head when I started this post. Probobly due to I was reading comic books this morning instead of waking up, and Ruse juts happened to be one (as did the entire Deadpool limited series). Reading those books this morning made me way too nostalgic for comic books (as did seeing Sin City finally) and I think I may hit up a shop this weekend and pick up a few. If anything catch up on The Flash which still remains my favorite hero of all time. When I started getting back into the hobby say 6 years ago I stuck to mainly Marvel titles I loved as a kid. X-Men, Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, Avengers, Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, etc. Yet as time went on and I started branching off into other cape books and *gasp* 'indy' comics, I fell, and boy did I fall hard, for DC Comics (my empty bank account showed this). I realized I wanted my Superhero books to be pure superhero and my independent books to be as wordy and prentenious as possible. Marvel tried to do both and if you ask me gave a much dryer and simplier overall product. It was then I fell for The Flash, yet it was not until Geoff Johns joined the book that interest increased and he by far gave some of the greatest 4 years of comic material I've ever read.

For whatever reason I feel really productive today (as noted by the fact I'm updating here while I extract some test scores from a database). I cleaned my office - put my new SAS books on the shelf, organized papers in the filing cabinet - and doing some serious work. This week I've felt insanly lazy due to my exhausting but amazing weekend. Friday I worked a half day and then went down to Syracuse for the annual Beer Festival. If you don't know what that is just imagine unlimited supply of beer for 25 bucks. You get a small 4 oz glass and each vender gives you "2 oz's" of beer. And this is not just any cheap beer, PBR still thankfully represented, but micro and global breweries and distributors from all over. I got complelty tanked, got home around 12, made some drunken phone calls (realized the next day) and slept a solid six hours when I woke up and could not fall asleep. Even still, Saturday was even better.

I watched TV and played videogames all morning since I was not asked to go in for my on-call shift at 10. After a while of being bored I decided to be halfway productive and hit the gym. After lifting, I stopped by the library to say hi to Laura who I haven't spoke with in a while. She was about to close the library and play softball, which I thought nothing of. Lo and beold, Dan - someone I see all the time in class and through other friends I have no idea he is friends with; We get along amazingly well, and every party we are at I end up chilling with him the majority of the night, we just never exchange numbers for whatever reason - comes up asks if I want to play softball. I can never say no to that and we go. The turn out sucked, only six of us, so we ended playing wiffleball instead which is just as good. Won the first game and lost the second (should have picked Laura over Dan - forgot how important speed is in wiffleball). After that I came up with the idea of throwing a BBQ, Laura offered her place, we bought some food and some beer, and barbaqued and watch Rounders, followed by an eight person game of poker until 4 am. Sunday I sat around, watched Lotus War at Pete's, watched Sin City, and ate at Jays Diner. Overall, the weekend was amazing. I just didn't sleep.

Tonight, I'm seeing The Lord Weird Slough-Feg. I'm finally going to bring my digi-cam and get pictures and rock out to the most insane and awesome metal band I've heard in a while. God I cannot wait.

Listening to - "Sky Chariots" - The Lord Weird Slough-Feg