Dimebag

In case you haven't heard of this, "Dimebag" Darrell, guitarist from Pantera and Damageplan, was shot to death while performing on stage the other night. Here's the bizarre, grisly details:

On Wednesday night, [Nathan Gale,] the 25-year-old former Marine charged the stage at a show by ["Dimebag" Darrell] Abbott’s new band, Damageplan, and gunned down four people including Abbott before a policeman fatally shot him.

...The violence at the smoke-filled Alrosa Villa club came just after the opening notes by Damageplan, the band formed by Abbott and his brother, drummer Vinnie Paul Abbott, after they left Pantera. Gale dodged two band members, grabbed Darrell Abbott and shot him at least five times in the head, witnesses and police said.

In less than five minutes, Gale had also killed Erin Halk, 29, a club employee who loaded band equipment; fan Nathan Bray, 23, of nearby Grove City; and band bodyguard Jeff Thompson, 40.

Two other band employees, Chris Paluska and John Brooks, remained in a hospital Friday morning with undisclosed injuries. Paluska was listed in good condition and Brooks in serious condition.

...[onetime friend] Jeramie Brey said gunman Nathan Gale once showed up at a friend’s house saying he wanted to share songs he had written. The pages of lyrics were copied from Pantera, but Gale claimed he had written them, Brey said.

“He was off his rocker,” Brey told The Columbus Dispatch. “He said they were his songs, that Pantera stole them from him and that he was going to sue them.”

He later told Brey that he planned to sue Pantera for stealing his identity. Brey and friend Dave Johnson said Gale’s behavior frightened them and they distanced themselves from him several years ago. But other friends said they never considered Gale capable of violence.

I always hate it when famous people die and all of the sudden, everyone is their biggest fan. Johnny Cash was the most recent example of this. I was never really a fan of either of Dimebag's bands, but I respected him as a guitarist because when every other guitarist was giving up on wicked solos, Floyd Rose-induced divebombs, pinch harmonics and actually knowing how to play the guitar well, he was one of the only guys who kept that type of playing alive.