patalliro enjoyer

it's me, astra

main blog (@astralcat) might be lowkey shadowbanned also i wanted to have a separate patalliro yapping acc like i do on twitter and bsky (username is malyneratrash on both sites)

you can also confess your sins to me (send asks) as well as depositing offerings in my strawpage

tags:

#astra says a thing: general yapping

#astra brand art: art

#reblog from main: exactly what is advertised

Magic Mainframe

(T-B, L-R: Chris Maerke, Zachary Tanner, Robbie Armstrong, Harold Armstrong, Sam Vermont, Albi Johannes) (using actual patalliro screenshots this time cuz im too lazy to draw em in the au for now)

A very New Wave-influenced rock band, formed in 1984 out of former Stardust Street roadies & session musicians by Christian "Chris" Maerke.

They have had 3 lineups over a 10-year span:

Lineup 1: Only lasted for several months in 1984 before Sam Vermont had various fallouts with band members coinciding with a messy breakup with Chris Maerke, leading him to form Killerbot (who I'll talk about later).

Zachary Tanner - lead vocals (born Jan 20, 1958 in New York City, NY; he/xe; gay trans man)

Sam Vermont - guitar (born August 5, 1957 in Boston, MA; he/him; bisexual)

Christian "Chris" Maerke - keyboards (born Sep 22, 1958 in Copenhagen, Denmark; he/him; gay)

Robbie Armstrong - bass (born Jan 2, 1961 in Houston, TX; he/they; demisexual gay trans man)

Harold Armstrong - drums (born April 30, 1958 in Houston, TX; Robbie’s older brother; he/him; gay)

Lineup 2: The most well-known lineup, lasting from 1984 to 1993, when Robbie Armstrong suddenly passed away from overexhaustion.

Zachary Tanner - lead vocals, guitar

Christian "Chris" Maerke - keyboards

Robbie Armstrong - bass

Harold Armstrong - drums

(Mild TW for brief suicide mention past this point)

Lineup 3 - Another short-lived lineup, lasting from Robbie's 1993 death to 1994. Most synonymous with the band's downfall, with Harold Armstrong very clearly heavily affected by his younger brother's death, publicly criticizing Albi Johannes and Chris Maerke over "replacing" Robbie and making statements such as "Kurt Cobain killed himself to divert attention from Robbie". Harold's behaviour (especially the Cobain comments) eventually resulted in him being booted from Magic Mainframe, with the group disbanding later that year.

Zachary Tanner - lead vocals, guitar

Christian "Chris" Maerke - keyboards

Albi Johannes - bass (born Mar 12, 1971 in Rome, Italy; he/they/it; gay enby demiboy)

Harold Armstrong - drums

Zachary Tanner's very public embracing of the occult during the height of the Satanic Panic earned Magic Mainframe tons of controversy during their lifespan, with the band often being accused of promoting Satanism. Zachary's response, however, wasn't the usual "we aren't Satanic", but instead was more about how occultism was being painted in a negative light by Christians and is actually less harmful than most people think, which is perfectly valid imo but only ended up fanning the flames at the time

Zachary also ended up opening an occultist shop in his hometown of New York City, Astrolise Boutique. He is also romantic partners with Maraich Justinof of Stardust Street, in addition to Robbie.

As for the circumstances of Robbie's death, Magic Mainframe were performing at the last day of a music festival in Portland, when Robbie was still getting over a cold. He originally wanted to cancel Magic Mainframe's appearance at the festival, but the organizers forced them to perform, citing the potential cost of refunds and bad PR if they suddenly backed out. During their set, they ended up doing multiple encores, and when the festival finished shortly after, a bad rainstorm hit, causing multiple techs to go home early. Robbie signed on to help take down everything all by himself, while 1) tired from doing multiple encores, 2) getting over a cold, and 3) working in the cold, pouring rain at night. Robbie quite literally worked until his body gave out, as he suffered from hypothermia and pneumonia and went into respiratory arrest late that night shortly after finishing the job. An ambulance was called, but he was pronounced dead on the way to the hospital.

Robbie was also a romantic partner of Stardust Street’s Jada Rochester, with his older brother Harold being Andersen Hass’s partner, until 1994 when Andersen decided to break up with Harold over the Kurt Cobain comments.

Sometime in late 1994 after Magic Mainframe disbanded, Harold completely disappeared from the public eye, currently living in an unidentified small town in Texas.

In 1985, Harold was a surrogate donor for his younger brother, helping Jada & Robbie have their twins: Ryan & Ashley Armstrong (born Oct 12, 1985). (also before you accuse me of anything JADA CARRIED THE BABIES AND HAROLD PROVIDED THE SPERM SINCE ROBBIE COULDNT HAVE BIOLOGICAL KIDS W JADA IM SORRY IF I WORDED IT POORLY)

Early in their career, Magic Mainframe opened for Stardust Street, mostly for the Monochrome Neon tour (Animal Fables didn’t have a tour at Maraich’s request). They released their first album in late 1985, which was their only album under Diamond Records before moving to Stardust Records as soon as the label opened in 1986.

Zachary Tanner was a very public opponent of Pat Mariner (president of Diamond Records)’s greedy business practices. In his words, being under Diamond was “constant suffering” and the two regularly fought.

Zachary Tanner once hexed Mötley Crüe after an unspecified "bad experience" with them.

Killerbot

Killerbot was formed by Sam "Scunky" Vermont in 1984, shortly after getting kicked out of Magic Mainframe. However, Killerbot's music is quite different from Magic Mainframe: (in-universe btw) Killerbot is one of the "Big Five" of thrash metal bands, alongside Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer and Anthrax. What sets Killerbot apart, though, is that Killerbot also incorporates more electronic influences into their music, creating a new subgenre of metal known as either "industrithrash" or "electrothrash" depending on who you ask.

Killerbot's lineup is constantly changing, as Scunky's infamous reputation for bad behaviour and ego has resulted in multiple members either leaving or getting booted. Scunky, lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist, is the only member of Killerbot that has remained since their inception. Another interesting thing about Killerbot is that aside from Scunky, all the members wear robot masks & costumes, which some speculate is due to Scunky's ego, but according to Scunky, it ties into the lore of the band: he's supposedly the inventor of multiple music-playing robots that just happen to have formed a band with their "creator".

While Killerbot does have a fanbase that praises their work as being unique and inventive sound-wise, a lot of metalheads tend to dislike Killerbot and turn to other industrithrash/electrothrash bands inspired by their sound, mostly due to Scunky's behaviours. (As one in-universe YouTube commentor puts it, "I can see why Scunky went with the skunk motif: he quite literally repulses most people around him, only he's a dickhead instead of smelling bad.") In addition to generally being aggresive and prideful, he's quite bitter towards both Magic Mainframe and Stardust Street and has attacked them on too many occasions to count, stayed with Diamond Records even after the former two bands left in protest of Pat Mariner's greedy practices, only leaving in 1987 after a huge fallout between Scunky and Pat, and even then he joined another label instead of Stardust.

However, Scunky's biggest controversies center around him openly encouraging violence during mosh pits, because according to him, "it's fun watching people beat the shit out of each other, and I don't want any of that kiddie Chuck E. Cheese 'don't actwuawwy huwt each othew, pwease!' shit that goes down at other supposedly 'heavy' bands' mosh pits". He earned quite a lot of flak for a 1994 incident at a festival in Atlanta, GA, where he cheered on a fan who brought a baseball bat during a wall of death, who proceeded to injure multiple people including a man who later died in the hospital. After this (and Scunky getting arrested for inciting violence), he apologized and promised to remove anybody who brought real weapons or severely hurt other concertgoers, although people have doubted how much Scunky actually enforces this rule at concerts.

Another contentious thing about Scunky is his outspoken hatred of many other metal bands. At one concert (before the wall of death bat incident), he even told the crowd to be especially vicious to anyone wearing non-Killerbot band shirts, "and that goes double for any motherf*ckers wearing Metallica or Megadeth shirts. Any subhumans who enjoy that f*cking aural pollution should not be leaving this concert alive and in any matter other than inside a shoebox."

Precious Gems

Precious Gems were a pop-rock duo consisting of vocalists D. Larken and B. Hass, Sr. that were active from 1968 to 1976. They used to be a popular group internationally, but nowadays their reputation has fallen beyond salvage in the public eye due to major controversies surrounding both members' various actions.

(TW FOR MENTIONS OF CSA, P3DOPH1LIA, GR00MING, AND CHILD AB*SE PAST THIS POINT. STOP READING IF ANY OF THESE TOPICS TRIGGER YOU.)

(Band AU info before we go on: 1 2 3 4)

The first and arguably most damning controversy surrounds D. Larken's multiple allegations of abducting, keeping and travelling with a harem of young boys/"baby groupies" as young as 10 in some cases. He would often groom these boys (often fans of Precious Gems) into having sexual relationships with him, and even trained them in martial arts and used them basically as assassins, disappearing people who tried to speak up about his abuse. When one of the boys would disobey Larken or attempt to escape, they would often be severely reprimanded and punished, often physically.

D. Larken's most well-known and outspoken victim is Maraich Justinof of Stardust Street, who began speaking up about Larken's abuse in 1984, on the advice of his therapist. Later on, Magic Mainframe's Harold Armstrong would also reveal that he was abused by Larken, and Maraich's bandmate Thatcher Stone revealed that he was almost abducted by Larken, but managed to realize the danger and get away at the last minute. This culminated in a landmark 1985 trial where Justinof, Armstrong, and Maraich's other bandmate Bjorn Hass, Jr., who witnessed much of Larken's abuse as a teenager and came close to being abused by him several times, testified about their abuse to a West German court (Larken's home country). Larken was found guilty on multiple counts of crimes related to child sexual abuse and sentenced to life in prison, where he was killed by his fellow inmates in 1996.

my slightly cringe patalliro/eroica oc

and in addition, just like most of the eroica gang he's based on an irl musician. im not gonna tell you out of the gate but i WILL give you a clue: he's from an 80s band

edit: ok ill spill. it’s axl rose (guns n roses)

ive done all of the Three Superstars' profiles, now time to move on to The Rhythm Section (andersen & jada)

band au thatcher!

(btw its perfectly ok if you wanna get into this au but don't know anything abt patalliro. the characters are alr pretty detached from the source so u can just treat em as my ocs its fine by me)

band au maraich

another random bit of stardust street (band au) lore: The original cover of their concept album/rock opera Animal Fables (1984), drawn by Stardust Street's drummer Jada Rochester, which was pulled several weeks after release by keyboardist and songwriter Maraich Justinof, who spearheaded the creative control of the album (of which the story is an allegory for various experiences he went through). The reason?

"Suddenly, I realized: Jada's art style, bless their heart, was ultimately not a good fit for the album. I mean, some parent could see cartoon animals on the cover, assume 'Oh, this must be for kids, little Billy will love this!' and now little Billy's screaming and crying and having nightmares because of 'Clawed Out', the hardest song on the album (and on my vocal cords, but sometimes you just need to scream to get your emotions across) and a borderline-heavy metal tune where our main character, the Tiger, exacts his revenge on the poachers that stole his life away and made him a tool for their violence. I tore into the record company's office that day and told them, 'Hey, something's wrong, we need to do new cover art, pull it right now.'"

— Maraich Justinof

prince era maraich justinof art by itself (stardust street/band au)

and bcuz i love over-explaining things: by 1986, bjorn hass, jr. and andersen hass spearheaded a genre change in stardust street from their original bluesy hard rock with prog elements (inspired by led zeppelin, the who, queen, deep purple, bowie, etc.) to hair metal/glam metal similar to bands like mötley crüe, poison, def leppard, guns n roses, etc., starting with 1986's electric candlelight and lasting for 2 more albums w/ hellhounds of heavenly origin (1988) and awaken the beast (1991). most of the members, however, only changed their looks a little, but just enough to fit the aesthetic, however in 1988 maraich decided to fully revamp his image to fit in with the whole scene/impress bjorn jr. (who was one of his paramours). while maraich was already known to get testy and oftentimes physical, most of the time it was because someone royally pissed him off or tried to start shit with someone maraich was close to, and maraich was usually quite a nice guy. however, during the "prince era", maraich developed a sort of persona, with an attitude streak a mile wide and a bad reputation for getting into fights. however, outside of performing & interacting with other hair bands, maraich was still the same as ever, mostly to avoid confusing and/or intimidating his kids (as well as his beloved pet cat colette). by 1992, he'd ditched the whole "prince" image, just in time for stardust street to go through another revamp for the 90s, with 1995's corner shop containing elements of grunge, alt-rock, and thrash/heavy metal (one of the songs on that album, "no way", was written by maraich's bandmate and stardust street frontman thatcher stone as a parody of megadeth) and 1998's have you had enough?, their final album of new & original content (although to this day they still tour under the stardust street name) keeping the grunge and alt-rock influences but sounding much softer, due to HYHE?'s central theme of "endings"

(also an image of the band during their 1977-1985 hard rock prime, just for reference)

lil bit of worldbulding for the band au

Starlets: Fans of Stardust Street

SdSt: Abbreviation for Stardust Street

The Three Superstars: Founding band members and vocalists Thatcher Stone, Maraich Justinof and Bjorn Hass, Jr.

Pentology Era: The first era of Stardust Street, encompassing their first 5 self-titled albums (1978's Stardust Street, 1979's Stardust Street II and III, 1980's Stardust Street IV, and 1981's Stardust Street V) and the bluesy hard rock (with touches of prog) (influenced by Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Queen, David Bowie, Frank Zappa, The Who, and The Rolling Stones, among others) associated with said albums. Because of this, 1985's Monochrome Neon is often also lumped in with the Pentology Era, with Animal Fables (1984) being treated as its own thing due to Maraich Justinof's heavy creative control leading to a more progressive and somewhat folk-rock sound on that album

EHB Era: Standing for "Electric Hellhound Beast", the EHB era includes Electric Candlelight (1986), Hellhounds of Heavenly Origin (1988) and Awaken the Beast (1991), and is the time period when Stardust Street adopted a more hair metal/glam band-infused style of hard rock similar to popular bands of the time like Mötley Crüe, Def Leppard, Poison and Guns 'n Roses (who actually opened for Stardust Street once in 1986).

'90s Era: The last era of Stardust Street studio albums, consisting of Corner Shop (1995) and Have You Had Enough? (1998). Like the EHB Era, this era was also influenced by popular music of the time, with Corner Shop's grunge, alt-rock and heavy metal sound and HYHE?'s sound being grungey and alternative but softer than Corner Shop with less metal influence. After HYHE?, Stardust Street retired from making new music to focus on their solo careers and families, but to this day they still tour under the Stardust Street name.

Rocky: Nickname for Thatcher Stone. (geddit cuz his last name is stone)

Juicy: Nickname for Maraich Justinof, from his last name

Bibi and Andy: Nicknames for Bjorn Hass, Jr. and Andersen Hass respectively

Jayjay: Nickname for Jada Rochester

Pento Purist: Nickname for a Stardust Street fan who views the Pentology Era as the “golden age” of the band. Attitudes towards EHB and '90s Era SdSt vary, but the stereotypical Pento Purist will openly trash these eras and hate on the Hass twins for "ruining" the band's sound by spearheading the shift to glam metal in EHB and "forcing Thatcher and Maraich to chase more trends" with the '90s Era, but other Pento Purists are largely indifferent to or even like EHB and 90's Era SdSt, they just prefer the Pentology Era.

Just as there are Pento Purists, there are also EHB and '90s Era purists, with similar varying opinions on other eras of Stardust Street

Five Symbols: The iconic Stardust Street logo, first seen on the cover of 1979's Stardust Street II. Each symbol represents a specific member of the band. Top to bottom, L-R: the Tiger (Maraich), the Starbird (Bjorn), the Four Corners (Thatcher), the Moonbird (Andersen), and the Crossroads (Jada).

Prince Era: Term for Maraich's image makeover that lasted from 1988-1992, during the hair-band EHB Era. He adopted a whole new style and acted more standoffish and aloof, leading to him getting into more fights than usual. Maraich did this to fit in with the new direction Stardust Street was going in, as well as to show off for Bjorn. Maraich doesn't particularly like to look back on the Prince Era and calls it "one of the most embarrassing things [he's] done, ever". Another thing is that it was also largely a stage persona, as when he was relaxing at home and out of the public eye, Maraich still looked and acted the same as he ever was.

(⬆️ 1989 magazine photo of Maraich, during the Prince Era)

Thatcher Stone (vocalist, lead guitar): Led Zeppelin, The Who, The Rolling Stones, Deep Purple, The Yardbirds, Frank Zappa, The Kinks

Maraich Justinof (vocalist, keyboards): The Beatles, Paul McCartney, Elton John, Queen, musical theatre, Tom Lehrer, Billy Joel, John Paul Jones, Robert Plant, Genesis, David Bowie, Supertramp

Bjorn Hass (vocalist, rhythm guitar, tambourine, other instruments): David Bowie, Queen, Styx, The Ronettes, Donna Summer, ABBA, The Who, Supertramp, Led Zeppelin

Andersen Hass (bass): David Bowie, ABBA, The Beatles, Queen, Elton John, Genesis, The Yardbirds, Pink Floyd

Thatcher's guitar of choice is a Gibson Explorer, while Bjorn and Andersen's guitar and bass respectively are a Fender Mustang and a bass Fender Mustang

Maraich is a huge cat lover, and his most iconic and beloved cat was a calico named Colette after his late mother. He got Colette in 1984 as a way to help him heal after the miscarriage and subsequent massive mental breakdown he had in 1983 that caused him to leave the band, and she lived until 2000, passing away peacefully at 16. Nowadays, Maraich has 4 cats: Maya (torbie & white), Pauline (dilute tortie & white), Tiger (orange tabby with minimal white) and Sterling Jr. (silver broken mackerel tabby)

Colette is also infamous for biting various MTV interviewers and even other artists & band members that visited Stardust Street's shared residence

One of the songs off 1998's Have You Had Enough?, "When Your Time Comes", was written by Maraich about his worries surrounding Colette growing older, knowing she didn't have much time left. The song fit quite well with the album's overall theme of "endings", as said album was Stardust Street's last studio album comprised of new & original content.

There's a lot of divides within the in-universe Stardust Street fandom, with the two most prominent debates being "Which era of Stardust Street sounds better: the original hard rock era from 1978's Stardust Street to 1985's Monochrome Neon, the glam/hair metal era of Electric Candlelight (1986), Hellhounds of Heavenly Origin (1988), and Awaken the Beast (1991), or the alternative, more grungey, and (in the case of the former) pseudo-metal sound of Corner Shop (1995) and Have You Had Enough? (1998)?" and "Do Thatcher Stone's vocals sound better before or after he started going on testosterone in the mid-to-late 80s?" (the latter is especially influenced by the fact that he had to change his singing style when he first went on T to avoid damaging his voice)

Jada Rochester originally drew the cover of Animal Fables, but Maraich Justinof objected and had the album pulled and later rereleased with new cover art, as Jada's art style led him to be concerned that parents might think the album might be okay to play for children, with Maraich being especially concerned over the track "Clawed Out" (which is borderline metal and about Maraich's character on the album, the Tiger, killing the poachers that owned & abused him since he was a cub) frightening young kids.

The media was NOT kind to Maraich Justinof during the whole 1983 thing, and it may have contributed to his mental health getting worse during that time. They filmed him having breakdowns on multiple occasions, had paparazzi camped outside the apartment Justinof was living in at the time, sensationalized his mental health episodes, and even insinuated that his erratic behaviour was due to the fact he was supposedly on drugs and that's why he miscarried(!) (while it's true Maraich has used weed alongside Thatcher, as well as having some drinking problems and taking LSD once, it was nowhere near the amount or type of drugs the tabloids were insisting "Mad Maraich" was on) (also not the first time Stardust Street's members have been accused of taking drugs stronger than what they would take; Thatcher actually caused a minor media stir when he first started T because a paparazzo thought he was shooting up heroin instead)

Patalliro in this AU is Pat Mariner, who inherited Diamond Records (Stardust Street's label initially) from his late father (Thatcher's uncle) in 1979 at the age of 18, and is infamous for his greedy practices and frequent clashes with Stardust Street's manager Jack Bancoran, to the point that sometime in the mid-80s, Jack & Stardust Street left Diamond Records to form their own label, Stardust Records, although Pat Mariner did try to block this from happening and also, in the 2000s, tried to buy back Stardust Street's back catalogue, leading to a huge lawsuit between him & Jack that's still going to this day.

The pivot to hair metal in the mid-80s was Bjorn and Andersen's idea, and the more hard-edged sound of their 90s albums (sans Awaken the Beast) was courtesy of Thatcher & Maraich

The band all have nicknames used by their fandom: Thatcher's is Rocky (since his last name is Stone), Maraich's is Juicy (from his last name Justinof), Bjorn and Andersen are Bibi and Andy respectively, and Jada's nickname is Jayjay

I'll be updating this with more info when I can think of more stuff

band au has changed a LOT since it's inception... i've fully fleshed out a lot of it, for example, i came up with a discography of all their studio LPs!

Stardust Street (1978) (contains "Stop Lying To My Heart", the song that catapulted Stardust Street into the spotlight)

Stardust Street II (1979) (introducing the iconic "Five Symbols" logo for the band as seen here)

Stardust Street III (1979) (containing one of their most well-known songs in-universe, "Number Twenty-Six", which I will explain later)

Stardust Street IV (1980)

Stardust Street V (1981)

Animal Fables (1984) (a concept album/rock opera with more folk/prog rock influences than their usual at the time hard rock sound influenced by bands like Led Zeppelin, Queen and The Who, this one was almost entirely written by Maraich after his brief leave from the band in 1983 amid his mental health taking a sharp decline due to a miscarriage he suffered; basically this album was a way of welcoming him back to the band. The story the album follows is somewhat inspired by Maraich's experiences before he formed Stardust Street with Thatcher & Bjorn, I'll explain it later in its own post)

Monochrome Neon (1985)

Electric Candlelight (1986) (marked a huge pivot in Stardust Street's sound to glam/hair metal)

Hellhounds of Heavenly Origin (1988)

Awaken the Beast (1991)

Corner Shop (1995) (another style change, this time to a grungier & more alternative, almost metal sound)

Have You Had Enough? (1998) (their last studio album of new music, although the band still continues to tour once in a while; a lot of the songs have a theme of "endings" and keeps Corner Shop's alt-rock & grunge sound, albeit somewhat softer)

I've also been writing a bunch of fake quotes from interviews, memoirs & the like inside this big old ellipsus document, as the main writing projects for this AU are in-universe "memoirs" from the band members and a fictional "ultimate guide" to the band. Here's a few: