Too young for ones conclusion - the lifestyle won - such values you taught your son - that's how - look at me now - I'm broken

"Dimebag" Darrell is dead. He was shot by some guy who assaulted the band Damageplan during a concert. Dimebag was the guitarist. The news hit me harder than I would have expected it to. I'm getting really tired of dead heroes. And I don't get gun violence.

I never knew Damageplan's music, but I was/am a fan of his more famous band, Pantera. I came to Pantera fairly late, getting into their music around 1995. The first song that caught my attention via a video on The Headbanger's Ball. back in the glory days when Rikki Rachtman hosted it, was "Walk" from the album Vulgar Display of Power. The riff was deliberate, crunching, and altogether nasty. Plus the song was about telling people to fuck off, which was an appealing sentiment for a 19 year old working in the food service at the time. This was something I could relate to.

After picking up a few albums I found out that it's not even one of their truly better songs. Metal doesn't get more epic or more brutal than "Cowboys From Hell," "Cemetary Gates," "Hollow," "Fucking Hostile," "Broken," or "Mouth For War." For the space of three glorious albums (Cowboys From Hell, Vulgar Display of Power, and Far Beyond Driven) they were the hardest and most uncompromising band on earth, the undisputed kings of the underground metal world.

The fan base was so rabid that the week Far Beyond Driven came out it debuted at number one on the charts with basically no radio play. There was a brief flare up of surprise and speculation in the music press at the unexpected brush with mass appeal. The next week it disappeared almost completely. It seemed that every fan of the band just had to have it the first day it came out.

That was the kind of band they were. I was upset that I couldn't go to one of their concerts in high school. The next day I read about it in the paper. A riot had broken out when the band refused to play because the venue had put folding chairs in the general admission area. The band knew that the chairs were all future projectiles to a fan base that came in the expectation of living out the footage from the "Cowboys From Hell" video (which incidentally is probably the best concert video ever shot). But then again the fans werent' too happy to show up and find out that the concert was cancelled. Chaos ensued. Windows were broken. Cars were overturned. Riot police were assembled. And one man was arrested for punching a police horse. I remember wishing I'd been there to see someone so angry that he punched a horse. But that's the kind of emotion Pantera evoked in people. It was just that type of band.

RIP Dimebag

Via e-mail from my friend Deep (who is the most real metalhead I know) on Dimebag, Pantera, and the art of rocking out in a small town:

I met Dimebag in person when I was in high school. First metal show i ever went to: Type O Negative and Pantera. The night before the concert, I showed up at the Sheraton where I was guessing they stayed and I met Dime and Vinnie Paul (the drummer). I could see Rex in the distance in the bar. Nothing big…I just saw them relaxing in a lounge in the lobby, and I was like, Salisbury usually just gets the Beach Boys and the Moody Blues, so thank you so much for performing here. That was it. But it was cool.

Plus I caught a guitar pick from the man himself at the concert. Dude, i was honestly one of the only true fans there. I took a white t-shirt, and wrote pantera phrases all over it, like "stonger than all", and my favorite "i crush..your rush, i rule..you fool, immovable stone in your world of weak..I speak!" Most of the crowd didn't even know a single lyric, and there I was, banging my head and sreaming the lyrics out loud.

RIP