Written and sent in by fan Chris Robb… “Before the bands even came on dimebag chants had started. Also RIP DBD was on the amps with a photo. With shadows fall having cancelled *wipes away tear. was really looking forward to seeing them again* end of everything were given the opening role *no idea who they were*. pretty mundane compared to mnemic and fear factory. Showed little stage presence and didnt seem to work up the crowd. Not much to say really. Mnemic on the other hand. Good god!! They rocked. Came on and automatically a pit opened up. A great set that really got everyone worked up. Ended with Ghost which is one of the songs i knew by them. They kicked ass and i hope they come back to scotland soon. Fear Factory knew they would have to play hard to better mnemic. They didnt dissapoint. Slave Labour opened. Woah. Then nothing you say matters chants and straight into cyberwaste :). that song is even better live.They started playin some older songs which i cant remember. The dimebag chants picked up and they dedicated Martyr to him 🙂 nice tribute if i do say so. They mentioned bite the hand that bleeds was there newest song to be released type thing and everyone sang along followed by my personal favourite Archetype. All in all Fear Factory came out all guns blazing and destroyed the venue. Everything you’d expect but hearing Raymonds drumming live adds another level to the already haunting level it has on cds. I was a bit dissapointed Shadows Fall cancelled but that didnt stop me from enjoying one kick ass gig :)” Chris Robb

With Christmas & Hanukkah less than 2 weeks away, the Roadrunner office is getting rather festive. To kick things off, we’re giving away a bunch of signed Christmas cards from Nickelback, Machine Head, 36 Crazyfists, and Eighteen Visions! Head over to the FREE SHIT section and see how lucky you are…. Lots more quickfire comps to come before Christmas, so check back often!

Did you know? The recent Slipknot show in Bangkok was attended by Her Royal Highness Princess Siribhachudhabhorn of Thailand. Thailand’s royal family are nationally held in very high regard, so it was quite an honour to learn that Her Royal Highness, who is in her early twenties, was a fan of the band and was coming to the show! The promoter of the show had arranged for a white tent backstage with white satin chairs for the Princess (who was wearing a Slipknot tshirt) and her friends to have a special pre-show meet & greet with the band for photos and autographs! To watch the show afterwards, although a special area had been created in front of the soundboard for Her Royal Highness and her friends, they decided to watch up-front, and remained front and centre for the entire show.

Crazy Alaskans 36 CRAZYFISTS are set to play a string of shows to tie up the album cycle for their critically acclaimed ‘A Snow Capped Romance’. Already hard at work on the follow-up, due for release in Autumn 2005, you can catch Brock Lindow and his kung-fu-loving pals at the following venues: Sat 3rd Apr í¢ä‰åäóì Wolves Wulfrun Hall Sun 4th Apr í¢ä‰åäóì Newcastle Northumbria Uni Mon 5th Apr í¢ä‰åäóì Glasgow Garage Tue 6th Apr í¢ä‰åäóì Nottingham Rock City Wed 7th Apr í¢ä‰åäóì Manchester University Thu 8th Apr í¢ä‰åäóì London Astoria Ticket are on sale now from box offices and all usual agents, priced 퉌£10 Regional/퉌£12 London. Support comes from Twelve Tribes + one other tbc. You can also buy online from www.getlive.co.uk or www.wayahead.com.

Paul Gray, Slipknot í¢ä‰åñHe will truly be missed. Dime was one of the first people to show Slipknot respect as a band and that meant so much because we all looked up to him. I remember all the good times I was able to spend with him over the years from tearing it up at the Ritz Carlton playing our version of WWF wrestling with Joey (Jordison) and Bobby Tongs to getting drunk with the outlaw at noon. He was there for me when I was going through struggles and problems in my life, always willing to listen and give me good advice. He was a good friend and I will miss him greatly. My condolences go out to Vinnie, Rita and the entire Abbott Family.í¢ä‰åŒ ************************************ Corey Taylor, Slipknot “He could take a riff that would take somebody a year to master and he could rip it off in seconds. He made everything look like he was playing ‘Smoke on the Water’ with one finger. He was one of the coolest people I’ve ever met. The guy just loved to laugh and he loved to make you laugh. And he loved to make you do something that you would never do in a million years. He was a guy that lived in the moment. His philosophy was, ‘Let’s do something that is gonna make us remember tonight for the rest of our lives.’ And that’s something I’m gonna fucking miss for the rest of mine.” ************************************ Shawn Crahan, Slipknot “It’s just upsetting how the world is í¢ä‰åäó the need and the necessity to override the value of life. From my whole (SLIPKNOT) family, I would like to tell … Vinnie and everyone else how sorry we are.” ************************************ Max Cavalera, Soulfly “Music has lost one of the greatest players and a friend and brother in metal. We toured together many times as a matter of fact and Darrell “Dime” and his brother came to our show in Texas. Today I feel empty, like there’s nothing we can do to bring him back. All I can do is pray that Darrell is in a better place.” ************************************ Hatebreed “Right now, we like so many are in complete disbelief and shock at the horrific murder of our friend, hero and brother Dimebag Darrell. “Our deepest and most sincere condolences to Rita, Vinnie and all of his bandmates, family and friends. May our love and prayers be with you in this horrible time. “Dime was one of the most amazing, generous, talented, funny, charismatic and caring people we have ever met. Some of the greatest times of our lives were spent with him and we will never forget his zest for life and generosity. Thank you, Dime. The world will never be the same without you. Your contributions to music and to all of our lives are invaluable and will never be forgotten. We love you bro. “Today we mourn with all of the PANTERA and DAMAGEPLAN fans around the world but tonight we are gonna play our asses off like Dime would have wanted us to!” ************************************ Trevor Peres, Obituary “I can’t believe that this happened to Darrell. One could never imagine something like this happening at a metal concert. Out of all of the ‘rock stars’ that I know, he is the last person that deserved that. What a great guitarist and what a ‘ham’ he was. I am completely devastated. I am at loss of words.” ************************************ Doug Sabolick, A Life Once Lost “A sad fucking day for sure, some miserable 20 something fuck killed a legend. A man who inspired so many to rip and thrash. “PANTERA was and still is my favorite group and Dimebag was the one who inspired me the pick up the axe , the bottle and the joint and just fucking RIP! I remember being 13 years old and just blasting ‘Far Beyond Driven’ all day long. Darrell was who I looked up to, someone who did things on his own terms and still succeeded! “To the dumb fuck who did this I hope you rot in hell you miserable scumbag!” ************************************ Bobby C, A Life Once Lost “Not only was Dime progressive musician, his image and style of playing changed the face of metal to this dayí¢ä‰åŒ_Light one up in his memory.” ************************************ Keith Buckley, Every Time I Die “There are alot of counterfactuals involved in senseless deaths like that of Dimebag’s. What if it had been one of our shows? What if there are more people than we know capable of such atrocities? What if it had been me? But these ‘what-ifs’ only come about after a period of reflection. The more sincere questions are the most immediate. Mine was this: ‘Why did PANTERA break up in the first place?'” ************************************ Brandan Schiepatti, Bleeding Through “I can truly say that Dimebag wrote the most influential and important riffs to any project I have done or will do musically. PANTERA songs have transcended time and genre and will go down someday to be as legendary as bands like SABBATH have become. Even though he was godlike on stage, when BLEEDING THROUGH met him in Dallas, he was so nice and down to earth to us, we loved him even more. I remember seeing PANTERA with SEPULTURA when I was twelve and it was the first time music was such a force that it crushed everyone’s face like they were in a jet doing mach 3. I picked up a guitar immediately after.” ************************************ Machine Head “MACHINE HEAD are devastated by the horrific news. Our deepest sympathy and condolences to the Abbott family, DAMAGEPLAN and former members of PANTERA. Our thoughts are with you all.” ************************************

A review from DEO2.com… Live: Fear Factory Astoria, London 09 December 2004 Fear Factory, after a dozen years of music making (minus the de-activated period), still delight in doing it with their middle-finger in the mainstream’s direction. Their kinda rock simply defies all the stereotypes developed over the years, challenging the cosmetic punk, re-dressed Metal, re-heated grungeí¢ä‰åŒ_ [Have you heard Altern Bridge? Creed-with-a-new-singer continues to be Nirvana tribute band despite recording ‘new’ songs!] Fear Factory stand tall, lonely and humongous: on a stage sans any d퀌©cor but the lightshow, they sound powerful, exciting, engaging and – blimey, quite paranoia-causing by the entire auditorium singing-along almost all of the time!? Wow, such devotion, such fanatic and frantic fandom, that’s entertainment! And, it looks like the temporary [as it turned out to be] splitsville benefited the band greatly, luckily for a lot of HM devotees. What Burton C. Bell and the three musicians provide is like continued series of explosions inside one’s skull: FF have never asked leading questions but offered loaded opinions! They are one of the most intel-rockers on the scene and so surreptitious they incorporate an incredible array of styles with ease that in other groups’ chords, probably, wouldn’t work. There are elements of Goth, Brit-pop, industrial, prog as well as practising very complex arrangements, sudden instrumentation and tempo-changes, the general sonic dynamicsí¢ä‰åŒ_ Fuelled by colossal drumming of Raymond Herrera – who’s maturing as a killer cross-over of John Bonham and Stewart Copeland [re: Police] – and the new bassist, Byron Stroud, the rhythm section lays huge and intricate basis for songs that allow Christian Olde Walbers to fly in all directions – riffing, ‘soloing’, posing – and singer to breakout of his own verbal purgatory. BCB warns us about ‘Bite The Hand That Bleeds’ [as featured on ‘SAW’ OST recently] but we take no notice with passion. Walbers’s six Marshall amps sported one letter each, ‘R.I.P. D-B-D’ with Burt addressing the tragic shooting of Damageplan’s ‘Dimebag’ Darrell Abbott by asking for a í¢ä‰åñmoment of silenceí¢ä‰åŒ [this pumped-up crowd couldn’t keep it hush for a minute] before dedicating the fierce, brutal, mega-Watt’d ‘Martyr’ [off the debut ‘Soul of a New Machine’, 1992] to the slain axeman. Mixing material from the current album, ‘Archetype’, the title track performed toward the end, with a selection of older tracks and a cover of Nirvana’s ‘School,’ Fear Factory more than deliver, they ignite! Most of the songs come at fans like turbo-charged HumVees out of control, without injuries but mental, and perhaps – hormonal, liberation. The Fear Factory quartet have found some new lease of creativity since their temporary disbanding/reassembling, fresh vitality and resolve to explore the extremism of deviant-metal and getting-more-violent dystopia. FF may be the sound of the future increasing in malevolent tendenciesí¢ä‰åŒ_ Whilst there is de-evolution of spirits going on, death of imagination and general wastage from the ‘Terminator’-like industrial hill, FF bravely rocket on, pushing us beyond the orbits, into outer dominions, nearing the event horizoní¢ä‰åŒ_ SashaS 10-12-2004

Posted yesterday on Throwdown’s Trustkill journal page… “I know it’s been a little while since we’ve done a journal on here, so I’m sorry for that, and I’m sorry that this one won’t have the normal comic value. Sort of been the trend lately of bumming dudes out every other entry. Anyhow, I wanna use this space to talk about something horrible that happened last night at a club we just played last month to a person we have always looked up to as musicians. As you guys probably all know by now, Darrell from Damage Plan and Pantera fame was murdered at a club in Colombus, Ohio. We never got to know him on a personal level as many of our friends and tourmates have from Damage Plan tours, etc., but we’ve always looked up to him and his talent. Especially me. Long before I was ever a hardcore kid, I was listening to Pantera and trying to learn every riff at age 12. Still at 24, I sit at home in Throwdown’s time off and play along to Vulgar and Far Beyond Driven from time to time. I even managed to talk the rest of my band into attempting to do a small amount of justice to “New Level” in a live setting. I never got to see Pantera or Damage Plan live and never had the privilege of sharing the stage with him or his brother, but always dreamt I’d get to hang out with the guy and shoot the shit for a bit maybe at a festival or on a tour together. I’ve been fortunate enough in my 24 years to not have lossed loved ones to anything but old age. When someone who has created music that has affected your life and shaped who you are is lost, though, it isn’t a far cry from that feeling. It’s strange because though you may have never met them, it feels like someone close to you is gone because of what they’ve given you. Dime was a guitar player that made metal exciting enough for me to want to make a living out of it. Throwdown is a band that is comprised of two major things…music and a message. Without the experiences we’ve lived and hardcore bands we grew up on, we wouldn’t have the latter. Without Pantera records, we wouldn’t have the former in the state as we know it. (But that should painfully obvious to even the people that haven’t heard us botch “New Level” this year.) Dime and Vinnie changed the face of metal together years ago and still to this day, bands attempt to replicate both the energy and the success they had as metal musicicians. Unfortunately for the metal world, no one will. Even more unfortunate, though, is the fact most people outside of the metal world won’t recognize what we’ve lost because his face wasn’t all over TRL or MTV Awards shows. Truth is, we’ve lost one of the best Goddamn guitar players that ever lived. I can only imagine what the Abbott family is going through, especially Vinnie. I send my condolences out to them and Dime’s friends as well as the family and friends of the crew members and Damage Plan fans that lost their lives last night too. Rest in peace.”

Walls Of Jericho split with drummer Alexei, announce new drummer Dustin. “So to dispell any weird rumors it’s best to just say right here and now that we have officially split with our drummer Alexei. We have received quite a few emails and messages asking as to why things are they way they are. Well all I will say is that it’s personal differences and we will leave it at that. But, so that things are very clear and easy to understand, everyone should know that our split has nothing to do with straight edge or anything edge related. It seems to be the popular reference going around. However, we are not a straight edge band. Our new drummer is not straight edge. And in no way would any of that matter one bit. We feel the split to be a fairly mutual thing and of course hope the best for Alexei in the future. He is an amazing drummer and should have no problems getting into another band without any troubles. It seems to already be out in the local news so we are also going to officially welcome Dustin, former Premonitions Of War drummer into the WOJ family. He has been great friends with us for the better part of a decade now and he is absolutely amazing. He is also a decent drummer which helps out a bit too. Premonitions Of War have also announced their new drummer and it’s awesome that we can still all go on tour with Dustin in our camp and them on the tour. I guess in the end the core is really all about just being friends and hanging out. On that note all should know that we are working hard and preparing for the upcoming tour with Bury Your Dead, Full Blown Chaos, and Premonitions Of War. It’s going to be an amazing tour and we are expecting to have more fun than anything we have ever been a part of. All of the bands are very good friends of ours and the whole tour was set up with that in mind. We want to hang out with our friends and laugh quite a bit. What better way then out on the open road. Well that should do it for now. Hopefully this will help to curb some early rumors as to what people say however in the end it’s more fun to gossip and talk shit. Hell that’s the best part of the internet right? Yep.” Mike / WOJ

We are sure by now many of you will have heard the sad news that Dimebag Darrell, amongst unconfirmed others, was shot and killed last night while onstage with Damageplan in Ohio. Although not a Roadrunner artist, Pantera and later Damageplan toured with many of our bands. Many of them became friends, as well as touring buddies. All here at Roadrunner are saddened by Dimebag Darrell’s untimely death. There’s probably not a metal fan out there who hasn’t rocked out to one of his songs at some point in time. Our thoughts go out to Vinnie, the rest of Damageplan, his family and friends, and all the fans at the show and those hearing the news now. Comments from our guys are coming in, as everyone tries to come to terms with the shocking events of last night, and we’ll share them with you as they do. Corey Taylor, Slipknot “I lost a really good friend on my 31st birthday. Dimebag was the kind of guy you could hang out with for 2 seconds and feel like you knew him your whole life. He made you laugh, made you drink, but most of all made you feel special. I’m really really going to miss him, but the one thing we will always have is his music.” Mark Hunter, Chimaira “I don’t know a single person who didn’t love the music Dime created. I am so thankful for the all of the music he gave us and I am truly upset about this. I immediately broke into tears when I heard the confirmation. Dime’s music gave me so much to live for when I was younger and he truly changed the face of metal with his unique style of guitar playing. There isn’t a metal band I know that hasn’t borrowed a riff or three from him. My heart goes out to the Abbot family, their friends and all of the fans who had to witness this tragedy in Columbus.” Howard Jones, Killswitch Engage “This is insane and this is beyond travesty. This is beyond anything I’ve ever heard. This shouldn’t happen in or outside of the rock and metal community. He will be missed and mourned as a person, as a musician, and as a friend.” Matt Heafy, Trivium “Dimebag was one of the most influential musicians in our time. Dime was a legend who really made the world seem that much better. He was a man who helped inspire countless numbers of players, fans, and people in general, including me. It’s a terrifying feeling that now at concerts, at the place that we seek our release from the everyday world we want to escape from, our heroes are being murdered. My heart goes out to the Abbott family: Dimebag Darrell Abbott was a man of legendary and heroic status, but before all that, Darrell was and always will be a brother and a son we all mourn today.”

Following November’s European tour postponement, BLEEDING THROUGH are pleased to confirm the following UK shows for February 2005. 10 Feb – London Underworld 11 Feb – Swindon Furnace 12 Feb – Leeds Cockpit 13 Feb – Aberdeen Moshulu 14 Feb – Glasgow King Tuts 15 Feb – Manchester Jillys Rockworld 16 Feb – Norwich The Ferry Boat Inn 17 Feb – Newport TJ퉌Çs Currently touring the US with Cradle Of Filth, the group was named as one of eight bands ushering in the “Future of Metal” by Revolver Magazine, the “Next Big Thing” by Spin Magazine and “Band You Need To Know” by Alternative Press. This Orange County sextet’s dark, Samhain-like image and charismatic stage persona has already seen them cultivate a rabid cult following in the UK. These dates are the latest sweep in a non-stop run of playing, including the US Ozzfest, supporting the release of their acclaimed album “This Is Love,This Is Murderous” out now on Trustkill/Roadrunner.