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 Metal Reflection December, 2004 |
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My friend Doug sent this to me via email the other day, and I thought it was definitely worth passing along. It's interesting to note that I saw Doug's band play a couple
of times when I was in grad school, but I never met him until years later, under a different set of circumstances, and after I had moved 150 miles away. It's a small world
sometimes. -- Dave Sobecki (docsobeck) December 9, 2004 Gentlemen: I don't expect that any of you except Dave even know who Dimebag Darrell was, but suffice it to say he was a post-Eddie, grunge/metal guitar god who played with his drummer/brother in the finest tradition of the Van Halen and Porcaro Brothers; what I like to call the DNA rhythm section. Back in the heady days of my youth which were misspent playing bass in my own now legendary band Meanstreak (legends in our own minds maybe) we were heavily influenced by Pantera as we made the evolution from classic rock garage cover band to original heavy metal club act. Our rise coincided with Pantera's and by the time we attained our highest level of fame, Pantera had hit the big time, and our loyal followers were almost all Pantera fanatics as well. If I live to be 100 I will never forget the feeling of playing on the giant stage at the quintessential local rock venue Roxanne's to a packed house of 600 screaming metal fans; we did real shows with opening acts, fog machines (multiple!), lights and the most ridiculous, spinal tappian pa system imaginable. Onstage each guitar player pumped his tricked out Gibson Les Paul through a 400 watt Marshall fullstack (two 4x12 speaker cabinets each) placed perfectly perpendicular to the stage (sidewash they called it) so we could hear ourselves over the PA system. As for me, I had to compete with both the guitar freaks and the drummer, local legend Johnny Capaletti, the "Dark and Mild" cigar chain smoking, heavy boozing, cheesy 80's hair wearing, indiscriminate womanizing local rock god who caught the brass ring temporarily in the 80's when his local band Damien made it onto Mtv and cut an album in NYC. My answer to their fury was an Ampeg SVT-III professional bass rig with two five feet tall, 8x10 speaker cabinets; 1200 watts of thundering bass power to deliver the goods flowing from my Fender Jazz Bass. Even with earplugs in, our stage sound actually hurt my brain and, for the most part, it was as loud as, and much more raw, than the house PA. By the end of the night, we usually had the crowd worked up into a complete frenzy and we had long since quit playing covers, except for the occasional encore. On particularly good nights, we would reward our loyal crowd with a double shot Pantera encore consisting of "Mouth for War" and "Cowboys from Hell", the latter being Pantera's unofficial theme song. I was in a trance onstage by this time in the set. My backwards baseball cap and baggy shorts were soaked with sweat, my neck made of rubber as I headbanged furiously, my mouth ferociously chewing a huge wad of gum as I ran around the stage like a charging rhino and hammered my guitar till my fingers bled. Our light show was so ridiculously over the top (we had our own personal light guy who owned all the gear and took an even cut with the rest of the band) that I often would get artificial sunburns on my bare back and shoulders from the yellow gel behind my rig. As crazy as things got, we always knew we could put things over the edge with the Pantera encore. No matter where we were, whenever we launched into these two songs, everyone in the bar, including most of the bouncers, would immediately forget about their drinks, their smokes, their need to take a leak, the hot chick they were hitting on at the time, and a mass exodus would rush the stage like a swarm of bees. The opening riff to "Mouth for War" would trigger a crescendo of low, gutteral voices screaming in unison and peaking at the point when the main riff kicks in. At this point, the mosh pit would turn downright scarey and even our fearless singer usually wouldn't think of jumping in for crowd surfing; he was nuts but he wasn't insane. Simply put, the Pantera always turned chaos into utter insanity. I saw a video once from one of these shows and didn't even recognize the crazed animal playing bass onstage - he certainly wasn't me. I saw Pantera several times and, for the most part, they kicked ass; the best performance ever though wasn't even a Pantera concert. I took my baby brother Rob to the Ozzfest at Polaris in 1993 for a full day of metal mayhem. Local boy Marilyn Manson was just peaking at the time and turned in a set remarkable only for its lameness. As the last act before the headliner, Pantera got the crowd completely stoked as night fell and we settled in for the Prince of Darkness (long before he became the evil 21st century version of Ward Cleaver on Reality Mtv). Ozzies' band came onstage with Dimebag Darrell and proceded to play a medley from Blizzard of Oz with Pantera singer Phil Anselmo and Marilyn exchanging vocal duties. When it came time for the guitar solos, Dimebag alternated between note perfect renditions of the classic and technically challenging Randy Rhoades solos from the original album and blistering warped solos of his own creation which simply defied belief - the guy could flat out rock. When Anselmo eventually informed the crowd that Ozzie was sick and had cancelled, a mini-riot broke out (a few disgruntled idiots torched a wooden fence) but I think most people, myself included, felt like they had gotten their money's worth as we got to witness the current incarnation of rock guitar god paying homage to his ancestor in fine style. Those days are long behind me now and, although I have a fairly extensive home studio, I rarely even play my bass as its not a real great solo instrument. Thus it is very unusual that upon our return from the BGSU basketball game last night I ducked out on my wife as she put the kids to bed and went into our spare bedroom to contemplate the jumbled mess of gear which my studio has become since having been temporarily displaced by a remodeling project. For some reason I felt like playing bass, so I plugged my bass into a drum machine and jammed a few riffs on my headphones; a far cry indeed from my lost glory. Although she should have been pissed, my wife looked in at me at one point and simply smiled and left. I only played for about 10 minutes and the last riff I worked on was the opening line from "Cowboys from Hell." I haven't heard or played that song in probably 10 years and was surprised that I even remembered it as its a fairly complicated bass part that doubles the guitar line. As I set down my bass just after 10 pm, Dimebag Darrell Abbott was shot to death onstage at the Alrosa Villa in C-bus at the start of his first set; he was 38. He'll never play Cowboys from Hell again; I doubt I will either. RIP Ruck
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