Category Archives: PiercingKen Says

General Announcements and Editorial posts.

PiercingKen Now Has An Official Facebook Fan Page

social media logos, facebook, facebook logo

It’s with great modesty and flair that I inform the readers of the PiercingKen Blog that we are now rocking one of those sweet Official Facebook Fan Pages. I think you already know that we have been using Twitter for the blog since its launch day and if you don’t, well, please allow me to add to the mix that we have a Twitter account connected to this blog’s activity as well. Nowadays it appears that one needs a strong presence on the vital Social Networks to keep the visibility going and since I’ve found some success with them over on the PiercingMetal.com site I figured let me tend to the PiercingKen.com house in a similar fashion.

The Facebook page for the website gets the most attention right now because its been used a little longer. I was not originally going to create one but figured why not with so many other websites tossing their hats into the fire. We surely don’t want to be bypassed by stuff that doesn’t work as hard for your viewing time either and even the newest websites on the Interwebs have their own pages. WordPress posts here are shared on my personal profile once they have been showcased on the Facebook Page for a couple of days. I of course welcome you to do the same on articles that you like (or even all of them – I surely don’t mind the views being proliferated).

I do ask that comments on the blog postings be focused on the actual posting and not on the Facebook Page because that does not let your voice work within the greater context of the piece. Just my own thoughts on that and believe me we approve every topical comment that speaks to the readers interests about the subject matter. I tried to make the Facebook Page easier to “Like” as well by adding a “Like Box” to the main page of the actual site. I saw this as a plug in and love how it works.

Now back to the sorting of images and ideas. My hope is to keep delivering some really cool stuff in 2012 and even getting some older things that just merited sharing with you in this little space. Thanks for listening.

Piercing Ken on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/piercingken

A Return To Metal: Machine Rehearsals (11/10/2011)

One thing I want to share more of whenever possible are the music adventures that fall outside of the stuff I normally do with the PiercingMetal.com site, and this seemed like the perfect place to do it since the blog’s overall premise was to be more in tune with my actual life. That being said, many years ago I was the drummer for a New York City based Heavy Metal band called Machine. The four of us were active on the local scene in the late 80’s and at the start of the 90’s and played numerous gigs including the famous L’Amour in Brooklyn. The band consisted of Jeff Mackey (bass guitar/vocals), Rob Rizzo (lead guitar/vocals), Anthony Trzesinski III (lead guitar) and I (drums) and we managed to do some Metal good while we did this. Perhaps I will reflect upon just how different being in a band was at that time in a future blog post but now the reasoning for this particular one. Even though the band had ended many years ago, we all stayed in touch when it was possible to do so and sadly without going into any personal detail, our guitarist Anthony Trzesinski III would pass away in early January of 2011. It was terrible to lose a former band brother and any musician will tell you that you live a lot of life in the times that you work together in this fashion. Thanks to the planning by one Anthony’s closest friends (Joe Affe of the band Maximum Penalty), a benefit to honor his memory was organized and musicians who he knew were all called upon to help raise a glass in true Rock and Roll fashion. One of the group’s that was tapped for the memorial event would be Machine, a band that had not worked together since 1991. It was going to be interesting to see if this worked at all.
Continue reading A Return To Metal: Machine Rehearsals (11/10/2011)

A Gathering Of Creative Thinkers…..

When I posted my lengthy photo presentation about the Highline Elevated Park, I neglected to mention that this was not the only adventure that I undertook that day with Skeleton Pete. You see, it was a superb day and while it was Fall, it had more of a late Spring feel to it so we wandered down to see a mutual friend Shukmei and grab some late lunch. We settled on Karavas which is a Greek Restaurant. Shukmei is an independent publicist who runs her We Roqq company while Skeleton Pete has a blog that bears that same name. I don’t think I have to tell you about PiercingMetal at this point right? So once we settled into some food and got to brainstorming about our respective enterprises a few beers were ordered and the shot below is the perfect representation of our gathering.



I couldn’t find my own shot of this, so I used Shukmei’s. She knows I would never fail to mention it her visual. So the beverages of choice in yon pictured pints glasses were a Bud Lite, a Bass and a Guinness. Can you guess who had what? No? Okay, well, Shuky had the Bud, I had the Bass and Pete the Guinness. The food was pretty good in terms of what we had. Pete and I had some kind of Souvlaki plate while Shuky had the hamburger. I recommend trying Karavas if you’re down near West Sixth street off Sixth Avenue. Alright, its now time to get back to the normal tasks at hand.

Our Blogs:
PiercingMetal Musings: http://www.piercingmetal.com/
Skeleton Pete: http://www.skeletonpete.com
WeRoqq The Blog: http://www.weroqq.com/

Heading Off To NY Comic Con 2011 Today :)

As you read this post you should know that I am preparing myself with a couple of more things that I will need before I head over to the Javits Center to get my Geek on. Yes today begins the NY Comic Con and for the second year in a row I shall be attending the event as a member of the accredited press. Now I’ll be covering this as the Master and Commander of PiercingMetal of course but since this is my lifestyle blog I figured why not let you know where we are and how you can keep up with the adventures that I will be involved in. Last year I loaded the whole enchilada onto the Official Blog for PiercingMetal because the flow of the narrative seemed to work out much better in that particular medium of the site. Now away I go…see you in a couple of days.

Logo - NY Comic Con - 2011

UPDATE: 10/16/2011: Hello again, I have returned from the NY Comic Con and boy am I exhausted. Now that this event is four days it is a lot more taxing on a person. I decided that it was better for me to come back and lightly edit this posting once I had returned to let you know that by clicking the logo right above us that you will be taken over to the leader page of the full story that lives on the blog. I posted a LOT of photographs and I hope you will enjoy this article. Thanks so much for your interest in this side site of mine as well, its a lot of fun sharing different stuff with you. I’ll be getting back on that stuff as soon as I get a little more in gear with the music reporting site.

Please note that comments have been “disabled” on this notice as they are better served on the myriad of posts on the PiercingMetal.com site. Thanks for understanding.

Official Website: http://www.nycomiccon.com

Stop, Hey, What’s That Sound? It’s East Village Radio Dude…

Check this out. Several days ago I was wandering the Lower East Side of NYC with Skeleton Pete as we were looking to kill some time before hitting a gig at Piano’s NYC.   The band we were going to see was not coming on until late so that left us some time to walk around and grab some food and drink before indulging in the always amazing music scene of the Big Apple.   As we walked down East Houston street and turned onto 1st Avenue, Pete said “hey aren’t we near where they broadcast East Village Radio from?” and I had to admit that I did not have a clue what he was talking about.

As we walked across the avenue at around 2nd Street it would seem he was correct and we were near this space and since I did not really know what it was I inquired.  It is apparently a 24-7 radio station that streams online and has a number of different deejays who spin different genres of music on their shows.  The deejays are all volunteer so I am assuming this is more of ones musical passion than about a daily paycheck.  I snapped a couple of photos of the relatively nondescript storefront for good measure to give you a little bit of a visual sense of what kind of space you are dealing with.  It did not seem large to my eyes but since we needed to keep moving and with the show currently being “On Air” I did not poke my head in to mention I was a wandering journalist who wanted a few more pics.  There is always another time and I can append new images to the end of this posting if need be.

The idea and existence of this appealed to me immediately because this is a powerful means for new music to get heard and for those who might have a skill at delivering it to make a name for themselves.  To me, this is being more of a chance to establish oneself as radio deejay than we find you being able to become on mediums like Blog Talk Radio do based on its direct focus to genres and how you are able to deliver the music.  I love some of the programming and personality found on BTR but I have to admit that sometimes it is a task and a half finding what I like.  There is a Metal program on EVR and its currently run by a pair of brothers and one of these dudes is in the band Natur (which I learned after doing a little digging around).  Clearly everyone is doing a number of things with their day to keep busy and this encourages me to keep sharing thoughts, photos and ideas with the larger public.

Skeleton Pete mentioned this seemed like something fun to do if there was ever the opportunity and I think working musicians should be looking into the shows that apply to their genre in order to reach even more people with their sound.  The link to East  Village Radio is below and I hope that you check them out and give them a little attention.  It’s really incredible and true that something awesome is around every corner of New York City.

Official Website: http://www.eastvillageradio.com/