Had Our Phil

We were sent so many emails yesterday about Dimebag's killing that we thought we should give it a bit more space. Even though, as yesterday's post suggested, we have not followed the band much sice Five Minutes Alone, an admittedly ace single. Yesterday's post sounded a tad insular and possessive, the sort of thing that Phil Alexander would have said during his stint at Kerrang! Phil is now at Mojo, although before Kerrang! he presented a show called Noisy Mothers, which used Pantera's "Walk" as its theme music, and where we saw the aforementioned single.

We don't have much to add to the shock that the metal press has already been steeped in. We are worried that that whenever we want to go to a gig we'll be frisked and generally molested in a way that we have only had to tolerate at dubious "niteclubs", and Clear Channel venues before now. But we'll get by.

The shooting all appears to have been down to the feeling of this armed fan wanting to avenge the split of Pantera, and who felt that former singer, Phil Anselmo, had been badly treated. Phil doesn't seem to happy, we must admit, but we're still puzzling about what made the poor gimp who shot Dimebag feel he had the right to correct it.

Maybe we have the missing link in Michael Moore's Bowling For Columbine thesis, that it's not fear, or the ready availability of guns, so much as the feeling of entitlement and power to change events that mixes with them. We're possibly intruding upon the genius of the American character, the can-do, and will-do, attitude that makes America such an achievement. But maybe that's not such an asset in a mature, some might say declining society. Not so much know your place, as know your limits.

Maybe we shall blog from the homeland. We shall see. Happy holidays.