Latest news with #WacoSiege
CBS News
05-04-2025
- Entertainment
- CBS News
Oakland metal greats Machine Head play the Fox Theater
Influential '90s Bay Area metal outfit Machine Head brings its current co-headlining tour with In Flames to the Fox Theater in Oakland Saturday night. Founded in 1991 by Robb Flynn, the former guitarist with thrash-metal act Vio-Lence, Machine Head would become one of the most influential new metal bands to emerge from the Bay Area during the 1990s. Teaming with bassist Adam Duce, guitarist Logan Mader and drummer Tony Costanza. Flynn developed a groove-heavy style of metal informed by the aggression of thrash and the socially conscious vitriol of punk that got Machine Head signed to Roadrunner Records on the strength of their first demo. New drummer Chris Kontos -- a founding member of the crossover thrash-punk band Attitude Adjustment who also played with Verbal Abuse -- would join the fold just as the band started recording its debut album Burn My Eyes . One of the seminal efforts of '90s metal, the 1994 recording quickly established the group as a new force with such corrosive anthems as opening salvo "Davidian" (referencing the Waco Siege), "Old" and "A Thousand Lies." A European tour supporting Slayer after the album's release expanded Machine Head's fanbase on a global scale; by early 1995, they were headlining the same arenas they had played as openers only months before. Though Kontos would depart that year (he was eventually replaced by drummer Dave McLain) band continued to refine its downtuned groove metal on sophomore album album The More Things Change... in 1997, building on its already substantial following. The group would see more changes between that effort and its next with Mader leaving Machine Head during the initial touring for the album (guitarist Ahrue Luster would take his place) prior to the quartet's collaboration with nu-metal producer Ross Robinson (Korn, Limp Bizkit) on The Burning Red in 1999. Another commercial hit, the recording had some detractors among fans over the shift in vocals that incorporated rapping and a more melodic, clean delivery as well as the late '90s image the band adopted. Machine Head would struggle to find its footing over the next few years, parting ways with Roadrunner after the lackluster Supercharger in 2001 and the in-concert document Hellalive in 2003. The band eventually returned to it's earlier, more aggressive approach after Flynn's former Vio-Lence partner Phil Demmel joined for the recording of Through the Ashes of Empire . The quartet reached new creative heights in 2007 with The Blackening , an ambitious album full of complex, epic metal tunes that many critics hailed as its greatest achievement yet. Flynn and company have kept up a steady output of quality metal ever since, even with founding bassist Duce leaving in 2013 and the more recent departures of Demmel and McLain. While he has convened a new line-up of the band featuring guitarist Wacław Kiełtyka (of the Polish death metal band Decapitated), British drummer Matt Alston (Devilment, Eastern Front) and longtime bassist Jared MacEachern and has released a pair of new songs, in 2019, Flynn and the group launched the unique Burn My Eyes 25th Anniversary Tour in Europe. The marathon shows featuring Machine Head's current line-up bashing out an array of the band's hits for a full set prior to Flynn and MacEachern being joined by Mader and Kontos to perform Burn My Eyes in its entirety played sold-out arenas across the UK and Europe before returning to the U.S. for a successful tour in early 2020. While the group released an ambitious concept album Of Kingdom and Crown in 2022 that was built around the post-apocalyptic story of a blood feud set in the future, its forthcoming new effort Unatoned set for release in April takes on a decidedly more pop-minded sheen with its production. The band brings its current co-headlining tour with Swedish melodic death-metal pioneers In Flames that includes support from Lacuna Coil and Unearth to the Fox in Oakland Saturday night . Machine Head and In Flames Saturday, April 5, 8 p.m. $39.50-$49.50 Fox Theater
Yahoo
03-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Oklahoma City Bombing: Head FBI agent recalls terror attack 30 years later
The Oklahoma City Bombing on April 19, 1995, took the lives of 168 people, including 19 children, and injured hundreds more. The FBI calls it 'the worst act of homegrown terrorism in the nation's history.' In the wake of the bombing, investigators conducted over 28,000 interviews, collected more than 3 tons of physical evidence, and followed more than 43,000 leads. Ahead of the attack's 30th anniversary, WATM spoke with retired FBI Special Agent Bob Ricks, who served as the Special Agent in Charge of the Oklahoma City Field Office at the time of the bombing. Ricks joined the FBI in 1969 after graduating from Baylor University with an accounting degree and Baylor Law School with a law degree. 'That was kind of the chosen path back in those days,' Ricks recalled. '[The FBI] looked for lawyers and accountants…and I went directly into the Bureau.' Throughout his career, Ricks investigated crimes in California, from kidnappings to extortion. His law degree brought Ricks to the Washington, D.C. Headquarters, where he helped to develop and grow the FBI's undercover operations. 'The Director had me train every undercover agent we had in the Bureau,' Ricks noted. 'He wanted to make sure we were comporting legally.' Ricks also served as the Supervisor for Undercover Operations in the Washington, D.C. Field Office. After serving as Chief Counsel to the Drug Enforcement Administration, Ricks was eager to return to the field. 'I went to the Director and said, 'I don't really want to be a lawyer,' so I got transferred to Newark, New Jersey, as the Assistant [Special] Agent in Charge, in 1984,' Ricks said. During the 1980s, the FBI conducted extensive domestic counterterror operations against groups sponsored by the Chinese Communist Party and the Soviet Union. 'The main group we focused on was the May 19th Communist Organization which had a role in bombing the U.S. Capitol,' Ricks recounted. 'We also focused on the United Freedom Front which was another group that was doing probably 50, 60 bombings a year.' To better combat these threats, Ricks formed the Joint Terrorism Task Force in New Jersey to coordinate efforts between federal, state, and local agencies. In 1986, Ricks left Newark and returned to D.C. as the Section Chief in charge of civil rights and presidential appointments. Three years later, he went to the Oklahoma City Field Office as the Special Agent in Charge. In 1993, Ricks was tasked to support the FBI assumption of the Waco Siege from the ATF. FBI Special Agent in Charge Jeff Jamar asked for Ricks to serve as Assistant Special Agent in Charge and Chief Spokesperson. However, even the events of the Waco Siege couldn't prepare the senior FBI agent for the morning of April 19, 1995. 'I was scheduled for a charity fundraiser. It was a golf tournament in Shawnee, Oklahoma,' Ricks recalled. 'I was gonna play with the head of the Secret Service, the U.S. Marshal, an FBI supervisor, the head of DEA…all the federal agencies, state, and local — we were all there. Our pagers went off; that's when we carried pagers.' Ricks used his 'brick' cell phone to call his secretary at the FBI Field Office about seven miles away from the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. With few details aside from the fact there was a bombing, Ricks and the other law enforcement officers caravanned back to Oklahoma City. Standing in front of the federal building, Ricks coordinated with the police and fire chiefs. 'Roughly half of it appeared to have been gone…it was kind of hard to believe anyone was going to survive that,' Ricks said of the damage at the bombing site. 'It was still on fire, there were some [people] that were still struggling to get out, but it looked like a scene…out of Beirut.' Ricks worked terrorism bombings in the Middle East that involved Americans and likened those cases to what he saw in Oklahoma City. 'It was all hands on deck,' Ricks said of the initial response to the bombing. With the fire department taking the lead in rescue efforts, first responders from federal agents to the National Guard all pitched in to help victims of the attack. The day after the bombing, Ricks established a system to control access to the bombing site and preserve evidence for the investigation. 'The first day is pretty much chaos…but we got it under control pretty quickly,' Ricks noted. Fortunately for the investigators, the axle and license plate of the rented truck used by Timothy McVeigh to conduct the attack were found. This allowed investigators to trace McVeigh's steps to the hotel he stayed at ahead of the bombing and positively identify him with a composite sketch. As luck had it, McVeigh was already in custody; just 90 minutes after the bombing, McVeigh was pulled over by a state trooper 80 miles north of Oklahoma City for a missing license plate. The trooper found a concealed weapon and arrested McVeigh. The Oklahoma City Bombing changed America and affected the National Security field. 'I think part of the reason we did not prevent 9/11 was because we focused so much on domestic terrorism,' Ricks lamented. In the aftermath of the bombing, intelligence sharing between agencies and even within the FBI was severely restricted. 'Sometimes we lose sight of what our real threats are.' To preserve the stories of the people who lived through the Oklahoma City Bombing and share them with the next generation, National Geographic filmed Oklahoma City Bombing: One Day In America. The three-part series features first-hand accounts like Ricks' and premieres April 2, 2025 on National Geographic and will be available for streaming on Disney+ and Hulu the next day.
