#side-project

“Lift Your Eyes”

“King Under Fire”

MONOLITH WIELDER - Lift Your Eyes / King Under Fire / Monolith Wielder / Released S/T (2016) Argonauta Records Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Tracklist: 1. Illumination 03:27 2. Best Intentions 05:12 3. Angels Hide 05:45 4. Monolith Wielder 03:56 5. Lift Your Eyes 03:35 6. No Hope No Fear 04:35 7. Chains 04:52 8. Into Madness 04:27 9. King Under Fire 03:10 10. Electric Hessian 04:51

Band: Bass Guitar – Ward Raymond Drums – Benjamin Zerbe Guitar – Justin Gizzi Harmony Vocals – Justin Gizzi (tracks: 5, 6, 9) Lead Vocals, Guitar – Gero Von Dehn

Accompanied By, Guest, Guitar – Corey Roth (tracks: 8)

Drawing as much influence from the early 90′s Pacific Northwest, as the Maryland doom of that same era, MONOLITH WIELDER are a quartet made up of several veterans of the Pittsburgh music scene.

“Monolith Wielder”

Formed in 2014 by Molasses Barge guitarist Justin Gizzi, longtime friend and percussionist Ben Zerbe (Halo’s Grace/Mandrake Project), and singer/guitarist Gero von Dehn (Von Dane/Zom), the three began working up the material that would comprise their first studio effort. Later rounded out by bassist Ray Ward, the group started performing live that fall, and headed into Plus Minus Recording studio on Pittsburgh’s South Side in January 2015. With engineer Jason Jouver at the helm, ten songs were completed in the studio, and later sent off to Jack Endino at Soundhouse in Seattle for Mastering. Their debut album was released in 2016.

“Released”

The band is currently on an indefinite hiatus, so that guitarist Justin Gizzi can tend to some more family-related priorities. In the meantime, you can checkout their side-project ZOM, featuring both Gero and Ben. “Nebulos” (the second album from “ZOM”) was released on January 19th 2018 thru Argonauta Records.

ZOM (Ben Zerbe, Gero von Dehn, Andrew D'Cagna)

In 2014, experienced and multifaceted music vets Gero von Dehn and Andrew D’Cagna joined forces once again. Frontman Gero von Dehn, who also currently sings and plays guitar for Pittsburgh, PA’s Doom/Stoner powerhouse, Monolith Wielder (Argonauta Records) founded the project and enlisted his frequent partner in crime, D’Cagna. Von Dehn previously sang for groove-heavy rockers, Von Dane, whom D'Cagna recorded in his studio, Sacred Sound. D’Cagna has a wide range of projects on his resume including playing bass and contributing vocals for occult rockers, Brimstone Coven. He is also one half of the atmospheric, Black/Folk metal duo, Nechochwen (Bindrune Recordings). Earlier in his career he played guitar for the ultra groovy Wilderkin.

Monolith Wielder is working on new material and will be back with a second album, stay tuned for that! \m/

No one likes to be teased, especially when it comes to something that is important to you. Whether you’re working on a side project or a full-time job, it can be disheartening to be teased about your progress. You may feel like you’re not good enough or that you should be further along than you are. But don’t let the teasing get you down! Here are some tips to help you stay positive and motivated…

As we move along with the animated short, I've found that I'd forgotten one my key components to creative progress: don't have just one thing. If I only have a single creative project to work on, especially a formidable and complex one, I will focus all of my attention on it and any time I'm not working on it brings frustration and guilt at my lack of progress. This, in turn, causes me to freeze up and results in even MORE lack of progress. Horrible, creativity death-spiral.

SO! The solution has always been to have a side project that's creatively rewarding, but much simpler. That way I can point my brain in that direction, start working on it, and inevitably my mind drifts back to the big primary project -- which is exactly what I want it to do. I just have to trick the bastard into it.

"I play video games when I get a chance and I enjoy a very wide spectrum of them, so why not make something out of that?" I think to myself. One could, if one was so inclined, stream various genres of games and even edit them down to videos for YouTube. If one is successful enough at it, one may also begin to monetize it and maybe....MAYBE, cover the cost of the electricity to run the computer while the game is played.

So that's what I'm doing to keep creative things from getting stale or feeling stalled out. There is one "new" video up, but it was actually recorded in late 2014 and is just a four minute "highlight" of a stream, in which I discuss online conflict between myself and my wonderful wife betterneko before we even actually met. It's embarrassing, paints me in a morally questionable light, and is absolutely true. This first clip of the first series can be found here:

There will be several different "shows" streamed, defined by either the genre of game being played or if it's something I've never played before and will be learning to play publicly. The live streams will be found on Twitch right here: [TWITCH LINK]

Edited, bite-sized VODs will be on the YouTube channel right here: [YOUTUBE LINK]

So thanks for reading this small novella, and check out the streams if you'd like (the more subscriptions and views the streams and YouTube videos get, the closer I am to getting that sweet, sweet $20 [before tax and platform percentage fee]).

When is the last time you changed your password?

Last year, we vacationed in Europe for a few weeks staying in Airbnbs. International cell plans are insanely expensive and complicated so we relied on our host’s WiFi to look up restaurant reviews, museum discounts, train schedules, and everything else you used to rely on finding in a guide book. Each wireless network had a long and complicated password usually provided by their ISP stickered on…