manicmusicfan

So my drum site completely dropped in it's rankings, and I have no idea why.

Hopefully the rankings will be back in a few days, but we'll see.

I want to publish a music/current events based comic strip online. If you know any artists that might be interested, let me know.

Wanted to make sure i mentioned my squidoo account here.

I have a few articles published on that site. Have to say though, i highly prefer hubpages layout

Been publishing on hubpages for some time now, have about 15 articles published on there, switching my focus on LJ for a bit now though. Anyone know of some cool communities that i could post to?

I now have a twitter account!

Born in Abilene, Texas, on March 11, 1964, Vincent Paul Abbott (Vinnie Paul) is one of the greatest heavy metal drummers ever to play a drum set. He is best known as the drummer for the former band known as Pantera, which he was a part of with his younger brother Dimebag Darrell.

Vinnie’s father, Jerry Abbott, is a country music writer and producer. His mother supported both his father’s and his work equally. His brother Dimebag helped him form the band Pantera in 1981. Other original band members included Terry Glaze, Tommy D. Bradford, and Donnie Hart. Donnie Hart was only a temporary vocalist, as he left the band shortly after it was formed, which is when Glaze took position behind the vocals. However, in the summer of 1982, Bradford also left the band and was replaced by Rex Brown. With that lineup of musicians, Pantera released 3 separate albums.

In 1988, Pantera found their star lead vocalist that most people know today, who is of course Phil Anselmo. He replaced Glaze and by 1990 the band was signed to Acto Records and released their turning point album entitled Cowboys From Hell. Throughout the 90s, they released four more studio albums, as well as a live album and then Pantera was nominated for four best metal performance Grammy awards for the songs “Suicide Note Pt. 1”, I’m Broken”, Cemetery Gates”, and “Revolution Is My Name”.

In 2001, the band took a break due to Anselmo’s back pain caused by excessive touring and recording for his side projects. In 2003, Pantera officially disbanded for numerous reasons, but primarily due to the ongoing confrontation between Anselmo and the rest of the band. Rex Brown however always remained neutral during this conflict. Even more disputes continued between Anselmo and Vinnie throughout the years, and to this day, the two do not talk period.

Upon the breakup of Pantera, both Dimebag and Vinnie Paul formed Damageplan, another heavy metal band that included musicians Bob Zilla on bass and Patrick Lachman on vocals. Damageplan only had the chance to record one album however, it was called New Found Power and was released in the February of 2004. On December 8, 2004, Damageplan was playing a show on their tour to support the New Found Power album when Dimebag Darrell was shot dead on stage. His assailant was an apparent crazed fan, an ex-U.S. Marine named Nathan Gale. This occurred at the Alrosa Villa in Columbus, Ohio. Thereafter, Damageplan ceased playing and disbanded.

Since his brother’s death and the disbandment of Damageplan, Vinnie has been working mainly as a producer. He did however establish his first band since then in 2007 called Hell Yeah. They have released two albums thus-far and are proving to be a great metal band of today.

Born in Bromley, England on May 30, 1955, Nicholas Bowen Headen got the nickname “Topper” for resembling Mickey the Monkey from the Topper comic. He is a British rock and roll drummer, who is most well known for his work in The Clash. Another name that he has been given to him (by record producer Sandy Pearlman) is “The Human Drum Machine”, due to his failsafe timing and drumming technique and skills.

Although not born there, he spent most of his early childhood in Crockenhill. At an early age is when he began playing drums, but he was actually primarily a jazz fan with one of his strong influences being Billy Cobham. However, he never played for a jazz band, in fact, his first band when he was 18 was called Mirkwood. They opened for many major acts like Supertramp. It did not last more than a year and a half though, he thereafter played with a small group that opened for The Temptations, the American R&B legends. He actually falsely claimed to literally playing with The Temptations on stage, although he later admitted that it was a fabrication.

Although Headon’s original plan was to use The Clash in order to gain experience and earn a reputation as a drummer before he moved on to bigger and better projects, he soon realized that The Clash had a full potential that would bring them to the top. Instead of quitting after establishing his reputation, he remained with The Clash for a full four years, putting out albums like “Give ‘Em Enough Rope” in 1978, “London Calling” in 1979, “Sandinista!” in 1980, and “Combat Rock” in 1982. He also appeared in numerous landmark singles that The Clash recorded during their early years as a band. The singer/guitarist Joe Strummer from the Clash was quoted saying that Headon’s drumming skills were a vital part of the band and it’s success.

Despite the good things, there are always those bad things that end up occurring on the inside of everything. Headon had an addiction to heroin, and the fellow band members did not approve of it and therefore tensions began to sore high. Headon decided to leave the band for good in the May of 1982, when they had just begun their Combat Rock tour.

Once he left The Clash, he wanted to focus on a solo album of his own, but first was considered as a possible drummer for the band Big Audio Dynamite. Of course, Headon followed his own path and recorded his solo album entitled Waking Up in 1986. Since then, he has appeared in other singles, as well as a documentary film about Joe Strummer’s death in which he stated, “It’s taken Joe’s death to make me realize just how big The Clash was. We were a political band and Joe was the one who wrote the lyrics. Joe was one of the truest guys you could ever meet. If he said ‘I am behind you’, then you knew he meant 100%.”

Born in New York, on April 19, 1953, Rod Morgenstein is listed in the Rolling Stone magazine as the eighteenth greatest drummer of all time. His professional career started when he co-founded the Dixie Dregs, a groundbreaking jazz-fusion band. At the time of the founding, he was a student at the University of Miami in Florida, which is where and when he met Steve Morse, Allen Sloan and Andy West, other members of the band. In fact, this university in particular was some sort of a musical breeding ground at that time period, hosting brilliance in the future music world such as Jaco Pastorius, Danny Gottieb, T Lavitz, Bruce Hornsby and Pat Metheny.

The Dixie Dregs successfully combined different styles of music like rock, jazz, folk, classical and bluegrass in order to form an intricate sounding style that cannot be compared to any other sound. Rod was one of the main contributing factors to this, being their drum set prodigy. He was unique in the sense that his style was his own and he got recognized when he won an award for the Best Progressive Rock Drummer for Modern Drummer Magazine in 1999. Since then, he has been an influential component of Modern Drummer Magazine, it actually earned him his own spot on the prestigious magazine’s Honor Roll. The Dixie Dregs have also had 6 recordings nominated for Grammy awards for Best Rock Instrumental Performance.

The group was disbanded in 1983, but only temporarily. When this happened, Rod joined up with Steve Morse in his band, subsequently titled the Steve Morse Band. Rod noted that his biggest break with the band was when they toured with Rush for 3 straight months on the tour titled “Power Windows” tour. Every night he would perform in front of incredible amounts of people who were all appreciative of their music, being progressive rock fans.

While with the band, Rod recorded their only two albums with them. However, once Steve Morse was given the opportunity to join Kansas as they reformed, he took it and left Rod with a difficult decision.

He moved back to New York City in 1986 and then met Kip Winger and Reb Beach, who would eventually form the band Winger. Rod decided to jam with them, and he did for awhile. Two months after they began jamming together, they called him and told him that they have a deal. They wanted to know if he was interested, and of course he was.

Their first album was self-titled and was released in 1988, selling over two million copies around the world, Rod had made his real big break. They continued to produce albums and tour around the world until they disbanded in 1993. This was only a temporary disbandment though, they would later get back together after doing many projects on their own. The rest is history!

Matthew David Cameron was born in San Diego, California on November 28, 1962 and is an American drummer who is recognized as being the drummer in two alternative-rock bands, Pearl Jam and Soundgarden. His first big band was known as Skin Yard, which was a Seattle-based rock band, but he didn’t get full recognition for his talents until joining up with the band Soundgarden in 1986.

During his early life in San Diego is when he first began playing the drums, at an extremely early age at that. When he was thirteen, he played in a Kiss cover band with a few of his friends and they actually called themselves Kiss. Although this allowed Matt to meet Paul Stanley, the whole ordeal did not last long because the management of the actual band Kiss threatened him and the rest of the band with legal action for the infringement of the famous Kiss.

In the year 1983, Matt moved to Seattle, Washington, where he would begin working at Kinko’s to make a temporary living. His first professional drum work was for Bam Bam, then he played in feeDBack with Daniel House, which was a local Seattle instrumental band. After feedback, Cameron joined up with House and played for Skin Yard which was recently formed. Jack Endino and House were the founders of this band, and invited Cameron because of his skills as a drummer. For almost a year, Cameron remained with the band for nearly a year until he would eventually go on to play with Soundgarden.

In mid-1986, he was recognized all over the local area of Seattle as a fantastic musician and drummer in particular, therefore was invited to play for Soundgarden. He replaced their old drummer, Scott Sundquist, as he was considered to be not only better than him, but also the best drummer in town according to Chris Cornell, the lead vocalist and guitarist. The band was thus independent at the time of Matt’s joining, but it only took a few years and a few EP’s to get recognized by a legendary punk record label, SST Records, which helped them produce their debut full-length album titled Ultramega OK. This album set the band off, they actually were nominated for a Grammy Award in 1990 due to the album’s success.

After all of this, they signed with A&M Records, making them the very first grunge band to sign to a major record label. While with A&M they released Louder Than Love, which was another hit. Their guitarist was replaced by the former guitarist of Nirvana-Jason Everman, (who was subsequently fired following their tour in support of their new album).

Throughout the rest of Soundgarden’s career, Matt Cameron stuck with them, which was until their break up in late 1997. Shortly after the breakup, Matt was invited by Pearl Jam to drum for them for their Yield Tour due to the fact that Jack Irons had to leave the band because of health issues. Matt has been with Pearl Jam since then and they continue to write music and change the lives of their fans.