Showing posts with label Pantera. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pantera. Show all posts

Apr 14, 2023

New Texas Law to Require Fiddle in All Bands

House lawmakers in Austin passed a bill on Thursday that would require all bands that play in the state to include a fiddle player.

House Bill 42069 won initial approval Tuesday, and then received a final vote Thursday, passing 127-19. It now heads to the Senate.

The bipartisan legislation, co-sponsored by Texas Department of Culture, Recreation, and Tourism chair Douglas K. Ershaw, would force any "musical act consisting of more than 2 members to include a fiddle player, as God intended." 

While it was unclear how this would affect musicians in genres that don't generally include fiddle, Ershaw insisted that the law would also provide for bands without such an instrumentalist, forming a Fiddle Corps of unaffiliated players for assigning the lacking groups a fiddler free of charge.

Bill co-sponsor Charles E. Daniels of Delta County explained "While we agree that many bands with great lead guitarists can pick it hot, that's just not good enough for a Llano man." 

"Whether you want your fans to two-step, do-si-do, headbang, or do The Bust Down, in the Lone Star State from now on, sir, you've gotta have a fiddle in the band." smiled Ershaw, seemingly assured that the Senate would finalize the bill and that Governor Abbott would codify it into law. 

At press time, music stores across the state were reporting a shortage of rosin.


Dec 16, 2022

Zach Bryan, Pantera, Spiritual Cramp: Robert Dean's 2022 Wrap-Up

By Robert Dean


This year felt like a blur – still. The post-COVID timeline, plus things going on in life, have become this miasma where everything kind of happens. There are no “AH-HA” moments of clarity, at least not for me. One of those small breakthroughs this year was finding Zach Bryan.


I didn’t hear about him through the hype train, but he randomly popped up on a Turnpike Troubadours playlist on Spotify. Immediately, I was transfixed by “Oklahoma Smokeshow” and have been hooked on his music since. He’s probably my most significant find of 2022, with Spiritual Cramp being my number two. Spiritual Cramp is a fun, dancey punk band that feels like The Clash at a kegger. Highly suggest you give them a spin. They’re capable of doing great things where bands like Riverboat Gamblers usually play.



It was a bummer we lost Every Time I Die, but happy Tom Delonge is back in Blink 182. Matt Skiba is Alkaline Trio – full stop. The death of Taylor Hawkins sucked, but the outpouring of love and respect was an extraordinary moment to watch. Botch is back, and now, we wait for Coalesce or Fugazi. And the “Pantera” reunion sucks.


Have a good rest of 2022, and I hope for all of us, 2023 is better. 


Oct 12, 2018

Farce the Music Halloween Playlist 2018


Here's a new Halloween "mixtape" for 2018, featuring 33 creepy-ass country, 
Americana, R&B, blues, and rock tunes for your listening displeasure. This year's edition is more atmospheric and disconcerting than last year's more party-hardy mix. Spotify playlist below.


The No Sleep Roundup: Nirvana, Deer Tick, Migos, Pantera, etc.



By Robert Dean

Howdy folks, 

What’s good with your life? The kids ok? Your mother in law still bugging you? She’ll get over it. They all do. We’ve all got some stuff to get through, and sometimes blasting some jammers is the only thing keeping you sane, and there ain’t nothing wrong with that. 

First up is, ho-lee crap did you see the videos of the dude from Deer Tick fronting Nirvana? That was awesome. Look, he ain’t Kurt. No one is Kurt Cobain, ok? But, that said, he did a fantastic job capturing the presence of an icon via “Scentless Apprentice” and “Serve The Servants”, which some dickhead audiophile blog referred to as “deep cuts.” 

I guess if you only know “Smells Like Teen Spirit”, those are deep cuts, but to anyone who actually likes Nirvana, those are as well known as anything. Joan Jett did a few tunes with the dudes, too, but ultimately they didn’t have the oomph that John Macaulay had. Either way, I’d cut off a hand to see anyone play Nirvana songs and give me a chance to holler at the top of my lungs. Do it for the kids, Krist and Dave. I’d say cash in, but neither of you needs the money, so do it for us. 


The American Music Awards happened and Migos, some mumble rap bullshit won for best pop/rock group. So, that’s where we are on the national landscape, huh? Corey Taylor, a man of many opinions dropped his .02 about the subject, and ultimately, I agree: you can’t sell Pepsi to rock and metal. We’re too dangerous, and you know what? When Migos is winning awards meant for rock and roll, all I can say is 'good.' Let the music fester in the clubs, and when the next wave comes, hopefully, the music business is even deeper in the lurch. 

Vision of Disorder is doing a show in Brooklyn, and I’m mad I can’t go. 

Speaking of former band dudes doing classic tracks, Philip Anselmo and The Illegals are randomly ripping out Pantera tunes along the tour, and damn, they sound scary good. They should consider doing a “night of Pantera” or something of the like because that band is as tight as Pantera circa Far Beyond Driven. 


I’m seeing Paul McCartney Friday night. I’d write the show up, but really, do you think it’s going to suck? Extremely doubtful. I’ll save you the trouble with a prediction: it was awesome. 

That’s all I got. Stay weird. 


Jun 25, 2018

Ride Easy, Vinnie Paul

by Robert Dean

A few years back, I got Pantera’s CFH logo tattooed on my arm. It’s about the size of a half dollar, small and unremarkable, and hidden amongst other splotches of colorful mayhem covering my arm. But for people like me, it symbolizes a brotherhood of riffs and spliffs, black tooths, and obscure references like “May Pop Tires.”

My CFH is a buddy tattoo I got with my best friend after too many Christmastime whiskeys. We hauled ass over to Austin’s Atomic Tattoo an hour before closing, slapped our $80 on the counter, and within minutes were branded Pantera fans for life – a gesture true to the spirit of the band and how they lived. On the way home, through our haze, we air guitared along to The Great Southern Trendkill, doing our best not to raise the ire of local law enforcement. 

At 13 years old, I was rabid for The Headbanger’s Ball. That WAS my Saturday night. When “I’m Broken” slammed across the screen with these four dudes in a room, hammering away at 100MPH, I was hooked and almost 24 years later, nothing’s changed. How could I take bands like Slayer seriously?

I was let deeper into their world watching Pantera Home Videos and loving how they weren’t stuffy and serious like Metallica or Megadeth. Instead of endless montages of boring tour life from the seats of their private jet, Pantera played pranks, drank like fish, and managed to shoot up a few hotel rooms with pellet guns and hold ad hoc boxing matches for $10 bills.

It’s not lost on me that I was lucky enough to have seen Pantera destroy Chicago six times. The shows were brutal, emotional, an exorcism of whatever garbage life threw at me. Pantera owned their musical carnival, chucking beers and paper mache joints into the crowd, but always ripping the seats out of the stadium without any bullshit laser beams or fancy smoke shows; it was four dudes who caught a lick

Pantera came along at the perfect time: they existed along the margins of grunge and metal, making friends with Slayer and Alice In Chains, raising beers and smoking forearm-sized hog legs along the way. Pantera was loud, unruly, vicious, ugly, but goddamn were they a dump truck of fun. 

Songs like “Fucking Hostile,” “Drag the Waters,” and “This Love” sounded pissed and delivered neck-breaking grooves. The guttural moans, the insane guitar playing, the devil may care attitude of a couple of drunken Texans and a New Orleans boy changed how people listen to heavy metal. In all, Pantera released five classic records and even recorded the music for an episode of SpongeBob SquarePants, because why not?


Through it all, Vinnie Paul was a meat and potatoes percussionist who laid in the pocket and stayed there, because when your brother is Dimebag Darrell, the best guitar player since Eddie Van Halen, and you’re sitting behind one of the greatest frontmen of all time, Phil Anselmo, you have to let them shine and Vinnie got the memo. 

But, it never mattered; Vinnie’s first love was crushing behind the kit. He let the legacy of the music do the talking for him, winning drumming awards, going platinum a few times and earning a few Grammy nominations. A pretty good haul for a guy who barely finished high school.

I’ll admit I lost track of Vinnie Paul in his post-Pantera life. I didn’t like Damageplan and Hell Yeah was not my thing. But Vinnie Paul was an icon, a man who changed how drummers played and more importantly, how they didn’t play. 

Wherever Vinnie Paul and Dimebag may be, those cowboys from hell can rest easy knowing punk kids with a shit attitudes are always going to hear the iconic riff of “Walk” and realize life finally makes sense. Rest easy, Vinnie. I hope the weed is good and the Crown Royal is plentiful on the other side. 



Feb 6, 2017

New Blood: Penguins With Knives


New Blood: Penguins with Knives
by Robert Dean

New Orleans is known for music. Some of it is colorful, shiny, and makes you want to dance down the block. The brass swings and the grooves drop like the bodies that litter the daily news. There’s hip-hop in New Orleans that leans on cultural nuance and themes that extoll the virtues of inner city life. In New Orleans, music is the lifeblood of all things, all events, all moments have a beat. But, there’s one style of music that New Orleans is especially adept at churning out and when it’s done right, it aches personality and signature. That music is sludge.
There’s something about that humidity, the water, the scent of the air that affects band’s mentality in how they attack a song, how they pull on their guitars and get to work. Summers in New Orleans are miserable. The nights are sticky and refuse to let up. Because of that unrelenting heat, it scrambles the mental eggs, it morphs perceptions and equates to fluctuating views on the world at large. And because of all these factors, it goes right back into the blueprints of sludge. The groove is soulful. The attack isn’t for the jugular like most metal. It's more for hoisting beers and bobbing your head because it’s too hot to mosh.
The grand New Orleans tradition of heavy metal has lent us such luminaries as Phil Anselmo who’s fronted a bazillion bands, but most notably Pantera and DOWN. There’s Eyehategod, Soilent Green, Goatwhore (Admittedly not sludge), Thou, Mountain of Wizard, Exhorder, Crowbar, Corrosion of Conformity (Pepper is from New Orleans, and Pepper era COC is the best COC), and Acid Bath.
The musical heartbeat goes deep, and it goes funky. Some of the bands maybe are or aren’t so deep on the spectrum of what one defines “sludge” but to drive a finer point, all of these bands aren’t just good, they’re titans of their respective necks of the woods. 
But, as the New Orleans scene continues, there needs to be new blood. And finally, after a long withdrawal of bands to count among those actualizing what the Crescent City sounds like, we’ve arrived at Penguins with Knives. Admittedly, it took me a while to get past the name. But, I’ve been known to enjoy the first two Korn albums, as well as don’t mind some Cracker or Toad the Wet Sprocket.
On their debut e.p. Penguins with Knives manage to lay a whole lot of history out in just a collection of songs. Think the riffage of DOWN, and maybe even some vintage DeLeo brothers Stone Temple Pilots mixed with vocal delivery of a more frantic, paranoid Acid Bath. On each of the four songs, they offer different looks into the band, allowing for a signifier of what’s to come. The battery is tight and the guitar work doesn’t feel bargained for, or that they’re trying to cram too much into a small space. A lot of times on the e.p. the less is more approach works rather than doing the impossible to come off cheesy in the admitted Sabbath worship that’s at the heart of the style.


Being their first batch of songs, the completeness of the concept is considerably there. That’s exciting. In New Orleans, bad music and bad food never last. If something doesn’t stand on its own, folks move on. There’s just too much delicious competition. This debut e.p. stands on individual merit against any and all comers in New Orleans, Southeastern Louisana, and the Gulf Coast.
Get Penguins with Knives on your radar. The band will be fun to follow as they progress. There’s little snapshots into faster more punk-y inspired stuff, and then on a dime, the vibe flips to a Blues vibe. The collective identity of being chameleons of the groove is intoxicating and as we see the band grow and develop, only time will tell where they go next.

Dec 7, 2016

Save Mike IX

By Robert Dean

The older we get, the more we realize we’re not as invincible as we once envisioned ourselves. Things break, we suffer afflictions, addictions, and watch our friends die. Life can be a total asshole. But, in those moments of “what the fuck, world?” there are the times of solace, enlightening, awakening and love. It’s just the human experience: the roller coaster goes up, and it goes down, we’re all lucky to remain seated on the ride, and should never take for granted, as such. 

 A fervent mixture of all of the aforementioned feelings rests on the shoulders of one toxic cowboy, one lifer whose legacy looms large, and without him, the New Orleans musical landscape would be very different. That man is Mike Williams from Eyehategod.

If you haven’t heard, Mike IX as he’s affectionately called needs your help. He’s in a bad way. He needs a liver transplant, and the medical bills are piling. His wife has started a YouCaring account, and it’d be amazing if you could donate a few bucks to the cause. Because let’s be real, without EHG there is no DOWN, Phil Anselmo is an entirely different person, and the sludge from the swamps we know and love wouldn’t exist. The New Orleans signature grimace comes from two people: Jimmy Bower and Mike IX and without their celestial magic, who knows where heavy metal would be.

Anyone who knows my work knows I call New Orleans home, despite currently living in Austin, Texas. The New Orleans music community is tiny, and the metal community is microscopic. You go to enough shows with dudes screaming; you’re liable to run into the same faces over the years. It’s in that that I’ve been fortunate to have met Mike on more than one occasion and he’s always been nothing but grateful for the adoration. Mike Williams is a strange, fucked up bird, but he doesn’t deserve a cage, he deserves a long life and the chance to frighten the world on a nightly basis for years to come. Give a few bucks, or at least share the link as much as you can.




Mike is also in Arson Anthem with Hank 3.

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