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| From | "bob" <segarini@rogers.com> |
| Subject | From today's Ottawa Sun and Canoe.com |
| Date | Fri, 10 Dec 2004 13:41:14 -0500 |
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Friday, December 10, 2004
Rock 'n' roll suicide
Music and death threats have long history together
By ALLAN WIGNEY
Ottawa Sun
"That's just how fast your life can change, In the blink of an eye
everything erased."
-- from Blink of an Eye by Damageplan
The Beatles, the most popular music group ever, arrived in Memphis in August
1966 as four men accustomed to receiving death threats.
The threats, a belated response to John Lennon's infamous, ill-advised
musings on the church and pop music, had after all greeted the band at each
stop during that month-long tour. The shows had nonetheless gone off without
incident.
Yet, when some stupid with a firecracker chose to hurl his explosive
greeting onto the stage of the Mid-South Coliseum, each Beatle naturally
assumed the noise was that of a gunshot. (Producer George Martin would later
remark on the ease of assassinating a Beatle, had one wished to do so.) Ten
days later, The Beatles bade farewell to touring. When some stupid finally
fired shots at a Beatle, it would be in a less public venue.
A few years later, David Bowie would express what other rock stars had begun
to fear, using his song Rock 'n' Roll Suicide to present onstage
assassination as not merely a possibility but an inevitability. And, ever
the media-savvy superstar, submitting his own name as a likely candidate for
rock 'n' roll martyrdom.
Perhaps wisely, Bowie would kill Ziggy Stardust long before any deranged
"fan" could do the same. (Bowie's scenario, for the record, can be viewed in
the thinly veiled biographical film Velvet Goldmine.)
The ante for violence and for sensationalism has been upped at regular
intervals since Bowie's glam heyday. Shock-rocker GG Allin even promised us
that inevitable conclusion by promising to commit suicide onstage. It would
happen, he frequently told anyone within earshot, on Halloween. Ultimately,
the favourite rocker of mass-murderer John Wayne Gacey took the far less
innovative drug overdose route to the Great Beyond.
Murder
Violence and popular music have been acquaintances since long before the
days of heavy metal and gangsta rap. Folk ballads, blues standards and
hillbilly story songs are rife with murder most foul.
But as we hear lurid tales of Norwegian death-metal bands cooking and eating
their late frontman's brain (okay, only one such band to date, but that's
enough) and as the net closes around Ja Rule's hired goons, it's easy to
confuse America's Top 40 with America's Most Wanted.
But, as someone who refuses to die once said, it's only rock 'n' roll. Sure,
we've seen Sid Vicious opening fire on his audience in the My Way video, and
Eminem, uh, opening fire on the audience inside the Encore CD-package. But
it's all in fun. I'm sure if Sid hadn't killed his lover and himself, he'd
tell you as much.
Fun. That's all Damageplan fans in Columbus, Ohio were seeking Wednesday
evening. That, and a chance to catch "Dimebag" Darrell Abbott, the guitarist
responsible for the bone-crunching riffs of Pantera.
And that, surely, is all Abbott and his brother Vinnie Paul (another
founding member of Pantera) ever sought from music. (That was apparent
earlier this year when Damageplan played at the Capital Music Hall.)
Yet Wednesday, The Beatles' fears and Bowie's prediction finally came all
too horrifyingly true, as Dimebag was shot dead moments into Damageplan's
set. A patron allegedly jumped onstage and opened fire at close range,
killing Abbott and killing and wounding a handful of fans who attempted to
come to their guitar hero's aid.
One witness reported hearing the gunman shout. "You broke up Pantera!"
before opening fire, though others have noted the music was far too loud for
audience members to decipher precisely what had been said.
Killing someone for breaking up a band? At least it used to be about Jesus.
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