– Time For Conservative Imagination!
by William Grim, Iconoclast Contributing Editor
You`ve undoubtedly heard by now that a demented fan last week killed heavy metal guitarist Dimebag Abbott at the Alrosa Villa in Columbus, Ohio. While I am extremely happy to hear that the assassin was shot to death by a brave Columbus policeman and I in no way want to engage in a blaming the victim scenario, I cannot deny that there much in Mr. Abbott`s demise of one being hoisted on one`s petard. The squalor, inhumanity, filth (both in the metaphorical and hygienic senses), depravity, ugliness and ignorance of everything that heavy metal represents (Like rap, I cannot use the noble term music in a description of heavy metal) creates a mindset among its devotees in which Mr. Abbott`s assassination was an event that was all but waiting to happen.
It was highly amusing, and also terribly sad, to watch on television fans conducting a “vigil” for the slain Mr. Abbott outside of the Alrosa Villa. It was an assemblage of ignorant, semi-human barbarians who were filthy in attire and manner, intellectually incoherent and above all else, hideously ugly to the point of physical deformity. Here is a definite case in which the outer appearance of these “fans” accurately represented the hideousness of their souls. That the physical deformity of their ugliness was self-inflicted makes the spiritual tragedy of their misspent lives all the more tragic.
But one can see why the heavy metal fans so closely identified with Mr. Abbott. He was an ignorant, barbaric, untalented possessor of a guitar and large amplifier system. Freakish in appearance, more simian than human, he was the performer of a type of “entertainment” that can be likened only to a gorilla on PCP. Lacking subtlety, wit, style, emotional range and anything approaching even the smallest iota of intellectual or musical interest, Mr. Abbott was part of a generation that has confused sputum with art and involuntary reflex actions with emotion. De gustibus non disputandem est. Matters of taste are not subject to argument.
That has been a general principle of aesthetics for some time, and when we are talking about the visceral preference for Mozart or Haydn or Beethoven among civilized human beings we are on pretty safe ground. I do not understand exactly why I prefer Haydn to my good friend who prefers Beethoven. But we both agree (as do all civilized human beings) that both Messrs. Haydn and Beethoven are numerous steps further along the evolutionary trail than Dimebag Abbott.
Here is one area in which conservatives have failed and failed miserably. Whether it is out of a lack of interest or despair, conservatives for too long have ceded the entire field of aesthetics to the trust fund red babies of the blue states. And look at what this has brought us. So-called heavy metal music, so-called rap music, operas and stage plays in which modern “stagings” reduce Verdi and Shakespeare to the condition of a schizophrenic`s finger paintings. Leftist domination in the visual arts has made a mockery of the aesthetic greatness of modernism and replaced it with the turd encased in Lucite. And the grammatically-challenged racist rantings of Amiri Baraka now pass for poetry.
However, we conservatives should not confuse family values with aesthetics. In the realm of art, our evangelical brethren have many crimes to answer for. When a church replaces Bach with Bacharach it has engaged in the aesthetic rape of the liturgy. Just because one has good intentions and approaches the numinous with “sincerity” and “authenticity” (the latter term ironically being a buzzword among the Marxist aestheticians of the Frankfurt School), that does not absolve one from aesthetic responsibility. As far as I am concerned, those who advocate a dumbed-down liturgy and schlocky pop music substitutes for Bach, Handel and the masses of the Renaissance, are as offensive as the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church and his perverse sexual politics.
Part of the hard work of civilization is teaching young to be able to distinguish between the good and the bad in all aspects of life. If we teach our young children to obey the 10 Commandments and to obey the laws of the land, but don`t teach them to realize that Johann Sebastian Bach is superior to Dimebag Abbott, we have failed as parents and mentors. If a person has gone through 12 or 13 years of education and has not developed an appreciation for the greatest artistic achievements of mankind, that education has been an utter failure.
While laissez-faire is the correct approach to economics it has no place in the realm of aesthetics or morality. A confidant civilization imposes its morality and aesthetics on it young people. Yes, you heard it right. We impose. The Rousseauian noble savage is a myth. Left unchecked and untutored the savage will never attain nobility. There are those who will accuse me of elitism. And I admit it. I am a conservative elitist. I want the very best. The very best form of government, the very best of civilizations, the very best educational system, the very best literature and art, the very best music, the very best way of life. If I need open heart surgery I want to go to an elite heart surgeon. Mediocrity is the goal of socialism. Americans should aspire to greatness. In the past forty years, conservatives have won great victories in the political, economic and moral realms, but we stand to throw all our gains away if we do not reclaim ascendancy in the aesthetic realm as well. And while the murder of even a semi-human barbarian like Mr. Abbott is tragic and to be lamented, it would be wrong to ignore Mr. Abbott`s complicity in contributing to the soul-deadening culture of death, ugliness, depravity and inhumanity that spawned his killer.
Hugo von Hofmannsthal once remarked that “all powerful imaginations are conservative.” It is time for conservatives to utilize their imaginations and reclaim the field of aesthetics from the left-that is, while there is still something left in the aesthetic realm worth reclaiming.
Rob Flynn blog
I still can’t believe it.
To say that Machine Head were devastated…there aren’t even words. We found out about this unbelievable event while in Zagreb, Serbia. The sports arena we were playing had no phone lines, no internet, virtually zero cell reception, no TV, no heat. We had nothing but patchy info for the next few days as we played more shows in Eastern Europe, and frustration started to boil. It was impossible to call anyone, check e-mail, anything. It’s only now that I’ve finally been able to sit down and read everything surrounding what happened.
That night, we dedicated “Descend The Shades Of Night” to Dimebag, a man who inspired us in so many ways. I lost it on stage. We all lost it on stage. It’s horrible. Things like this just don’t happen. Musicians don’t get KILLED on stage… while they’re PLAYING… what the fuck? What the fuck is wrong with people?
Dimebag was one in a million. He was the Randy Rhoads, the Jimi Hendrix of our time. I’m not gonna try and make it look like Dime and I were best buddies, we weren’t… but I would certainly call him a friend. I met Dimebag for the first time on Ozzfest in ‘97. He invited Logan and I into their dressing room, and I remember being so fuckin’ stoked to be hanging out in the Pantera dressing room, like I had made it into some cool guy club. I loved Pantera, and tried my hardest to mask my excitement…I didn’t do a very good job, ’cause Darrell kept coming up to me and saying “Damn dude, you look like you’re doin’ all right!”, and all I could muster in the moment was “…yeah”. He offered me a gazillion shots of whiskey that day, and over the next couple of months we hung out…not a lot, as I tried not to be a fan boy, but I couldn’t help it, they were fucking amazing.
Eventually they asked us to support them on their headline run for Trendkill. It was here that we learned that it was okay to treat your support bands like equals - something we continue to practice to this day. That tour was one of the funnest, craziest, greatest god damned tours we have ever done, and none of us have, or will ever forget the opportunity, nor the experience. Like it was yesterday, I remember one night, Dimebag got wasted (as he sometimes did)…but I mean, WASTED! …and during Coal Chamber’s set, he grabs my backup guitar, goes out on stage and starts “air guitaring” with them during one of their songs. Coal Chamber looked around nervously and just kinda went with it… he then proceeded to smash my guitar down on the stage, completely shattering the neck. I thought to myself, “uh… okay, we’re sorta on next… what do I do?” Then I figured, “eh, fuck it, I’ll worry about it tomorrow”.
After our set, we go out to watch Pantera. And let me just say, that to watch this man, who literally could not talk backstage, thinking all the while, “oh my GOD, this is gonna be a train wreck”… we all just stood there with our jaws on the floor as that motherfucker went out and played a perfectly fucking FLAWLESS show. Every rhythm, every lead… just NAILED it. It was in-fucking-human.
So the next day I go up to him and say “Hey man, do you remember what you did to my guitar last night?” He’s like “Uh… refresh my memory”… so I say, “You… uh… smashed the neck in half”…to which he says “No shit dude?! I’ll take care of you, no problem, don’t worry!” He then had his tour manager give us TWICE as much money as it would cost to replace / repair the neck. And then a week later, while we’re ON STAGE in Chicago, he comes out, and brings both Logan and I brand new, top-of-the-line Dimebag Darrell signature guitars - these things were worth probably 2500 dollars each - and he whispers in my ear, “Sorry about the neck, Carjacker” (a nickname he had for me)… I mean, COME ON!?
The next time we saw him, he played us some “just finished” mixes for the then-unreleased Reinventing The Steel record at he and Vinnie’s Club. We were all worshipping. We drank shitloads, and he even rocked on the vodka with us, rather than the whiskey, just ’cause he remembered that The Head like vodka. A week later I get a package at our hotel in Pittsburg… he had sent 4 one-liter bottles of expensive-ass Ketel One vodka, all the way from Texas, with a note that read “Carjacker, it was killer hanging out with you the other night. Remember, it’s Goddamn Electric! -Your brother Dime”. That’s the type of guy he was, such a giving person. 200 bucks worth of vodka? Bah, no problem.
The last time I saw him was at Download / Donington this year. He told me he was “blown away” by our new record. “Record of the year” he kept saying. To hear him say that really meant a lot. I mean it REALLY meant a lot. To be honest, and this is just a hunch, but I think it was the first record of ours that he really liked. My impression was always that he thought our other records were…good.
So he’s backstage warming up on my Black V after his guitar was rushed onstage, and he promises to send me more vodka for letting him “warm up”…to which I reply “Dude, don’t even think about it”.
Right after Download I got to thinking about he and Vinnie, and I ended up faxing him a letter to wish him well with Damageplan, remind him that he’d better not be thinking about sending me bottles of vodka, and to tell him how much of an influence Pantera was on me / us, and in particular, his playing, his guitar tone, the lyrics about unity - everything - had been on Machine Head, especially early on. It was something I’d always wanted to say to him, and even though we had toured with them, twice even…for some reason I always clammed up, or got insecure about saying it when I was around him.
Right before we went out on this last tour, he calls me up around midnight, I’m driving home at the time and happen to be awake. He tells me he has someone who wants to talk to me, so I say “Oh, yeah?”, and he puts me on the phone with this HUGE Machine Head fan…apparently the kid had walked into this Mexican restaurant, ran into Darrell, and during their conversation they both got to talking about how much they loved Through The Ashes…, and the kid says to Darrell, “Robert Flynn’s my idol, I’d do anything to meet him”. So Dime whips out his phone and says, “Let’s call him!”. So there I am, talking to this kid for like 15 minutes, mostly about how much we both love Pantera…soon afterward he puts Dimebag back on, and we talk for another half hour or so, mostly about the aforementioned letter. He told me that he was genuinely moved by it.
In retrospect, I’m really glad I that I finally got to say those things to him.
He had more of an effect on the four of us than he could possibly imagine.
Some people consider it “un-metal” to be a giving person, but I tell you what, that guy right there was one of the most giving people that you could ever meet, and he was as Metal as it fuckin’ gets.
To Nathan Bray, the courageous fan who jumped on stage to perform CPR on Darrell and died trying to save his life…you are a true hero, and your death is no less significant than Dime’s, nor were the lives of Erin “Stoney” Halk or Jeffrey “Mayhem” Thompson.
To James Niggemeyer, the policeman that shot and killed that twisted freak that had the gall to call himself a “fan”, I commend you. You deserve a medal of honor.
To Blabbermouth.net, and the people that post there, you have all never stood taller in my eyes. The wealth of information that has been brought forward by the editor, and the class with which it has been presented, is truly unprecedented. In addition, the level of respect and empathy shown to each other - and especially to the mother of Nathan Bray, who wrote that heart-wrenching letter - was sincerely admirable.
To the politicians who are claiming that this is what Heavy Metal breeds. You don’t know what the hell you’re even talking about.
And lastly, to the hatemongering son-of-a-bitch named William Grim, from conservative website The Iconoclast, who wrote the most disgraceful, classless article I’ve ever read entitled “AESTHETICS OF HATE: R.I.P. DIMEBAG ABBOTT, & GOOD RIDDANCE”.
You WILL burn in hell!
What would YOU know about love or values? What would YOU know about giving to the world? All that you know is teaching prejudice, and your heart is as black as the “ignorant, filthy, and hideously ugly, Heavy Metal fans” you try and paint in your twisted, fictitious ramblings. It’s because of people like YOU, that there are Nathan Gale’s in this world, NOT the Dimebags and Metal musicians who work to unite people through music.
You just don’t get it.
You say, “Americans should aspire to greatness”. Well, Dimebag was an American that did more than “aspire” to greatness. He was an American that “achieved” it. And you will NEVER know what it is to taste greatness William Grim. Because in order to achieve greatness, you must first believe in the greatness of people, no matter how “ugly” or “fat” or “stupid” they are, on the outside…and Dimebag did just that.
Long live Dimebag Darrell in the hearts of us all.
-Robert Flynn
Machine Head live Aesthetics of Hate
Aesthetics of Hate lyrics
Woooaah!
You tried to spit in the eye
Of a dead man’s face
Attacked the ways of a man
Not yet in his grave
But your hate was over all too soon
Because nothing is over,
Nothing’s through,
Till we bury you
For the love of brother
I will sing this fucking song
Aesthetics of hate,
I hope you burn in hell
Woooaah!
The words I read on the screen
Left me fucking sick
I felt the hatred rising
You son of a bitch
You branded us pathetic for our respect
But he made us driven,
Such deep reverence,
Far beyond the rest
For the love of brother
I will sing these fucking words
Aesthetics of hate,
I hope you burn in hell
Woooaah!
Long live memories
Live this freedom vicariously
Defend tenfold
His honor we’ll always uphold
For the love of brother
I will say these fucking words
No silence against ignorance
Iconoclast, I hope you burn, burn in hell
May the hand of God strike them down
May the hand of God strike them down
May the hand of God strike them down
May the hand of God strike them down
Strike them down...
Woooaah!
May the hand of God strike them down
May the hand of God strike them down
May the hand of God strike them down
May the hand of God strike them down (down, down...)
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