 I had first met Jeff Hanneman through my friend Mike Boetl. He was knee deep in the Thrash scene in L.A. in the 80's, and he took me to see Slayer play at the Troubadour on a Thurs. night after our band practice. 'You'll like these guys - they're kind of Punk.' he told me on the drive up there, and after seeing them play, in all their Hollywood make up / pleather clad Judas Priest glory, I decided they were OK and went and saw them again a few weeks later at a VFW Hall across the street from where I went to Elementary school, and after seeing a room full of Metal maniacs and drunk Punx just fucking shit up while Slayer raged on in the background, I knew I had a new favorite band. :-) The picture to the side here shows pretty much the Jeff Hanneman I knew and hung around with - a really cool kid who could party with the best of them. Jeff Hanneman brought the whole Punk credibility to Slayer, and he wrote most of the crucial material for the band. Think of your favorite song by Slayer, and I bet Jeff H. wrote it. His passing yesterday is just hard to get around. The guy's the same age as me. If he can't make it to 50 then what hope is there for me? LOL He was in bad shape towards the end there, but his performance at the Big 4 concert in Indio a while back had me optimistic he was gonna pull through and play/record/tour again, but years of alcohol and drug abuse curtailed what was an extraordinary musical adventure for an Oakland Raiders fan from Huntington Park. Just shocking, sad, and stunning. Today is a day to just reminisce about my friend Jeff and all the good times we had together a long, long, time ago, in a world that no longer exists, blasting Slayer at a ridiculously loud level while doing so. Rest in Peace my Friend. You definitely earned it. Entlassene Soldaten.
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July 2020
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