Apeshit In Ohio

Awwww, man... what a bummer. Just read that some dipshit went postal and shot up a nightclub in Columbus Ohio, and killed 4 people, including "Dimebag" Darrell Abbott of the bands Pantera and Damageplan.

Pantera was just making the leap from bar band to bigger venues when I moved to Dallas in 1990. It was fun to see a local group start to appear on national music magazines, and fill large arenas. My metal tastes tend to run more old school, so I didn't follow their career religiously, but I did find it quite amusing that a serious effort was made by the label and the magazines to morph Abbott's nickname "Dimebag Darrell" into the more family friendly "Diamond Darrell".

For those of you too old or too young to know this, a "dime bag" is $10 worth of dope. Usually marijuana, but it could be other drugs. Back in the day, a nickel bag ($5) was a plastic sandwich baggie with enough weed to fill the bag up to the width of your index finger. A dime bag was two fingers worth of weed. Nowadays, I understand that you can't even get a joint's worth of dope for $5. Ah, well. Sic transit gloria mundi.

Pantera was never a favorite of mine, but they had a great sound, and "Cowboys From Hell" is just about the headbanging-est song you're likely to hear. We'll probably find out the shooter was an enraged John Tesh fan.