Talk:Sam Matlock

Sam Matlock has been listed as one of the Music good articles under the good article criteria. If you can improve it further, please do so. If it no longer meets these criteria, you can reassess it.
Review: November 30, 2025. (Reviewed version).

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A fact from Sam Matlock appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know column on 17 February 2025 (check views). The text of the entry was as follows:

Did you know... that Sam Matlock (pictured) formed Wargasm with a woman who photographed Dead!, his rock band?

A record of the entry may be seen at Wikipedia:Recent additions/2025/February. The nomination discussion and review may be seen at Template:Did you know nominations/Sam Matlock.

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by SL93 talk 01:21, 9 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

( Comment or view )

( Article history links:

)

Matlock in 2023

... that Sam Matlock (pictured) formed Wargasm with a woman who photographed dead!?
- ALT1: ... that the musician Sam Matlock (pictured) is the son of the bassist of "one of rock's most infamous bands"?
- ALT2: ... that Dead! is dead?
- ALT3: ... that Wargasm have been described as "looking like the Wikipedia definition of modern rock stars"?
- Reviewed: Template:Did you know nominations/Wu Zhong (general), Template:Did you know nominations/Scientific Research Institute of Medicine of the Ministry of Defense in Sergiyev Posad, Template:Did you know nominations/Frederick W. Hinitt
- Comment: Wargasm was promoted to GA on 10 January and I just published Matlock and Dead!, moving a paragraph from Wargasm to Matlock in the process.

Improved to Good Article status by Launchballer (talk), Georgeykiwi (talk), and Issan Sumisu (talk). Number of QPQs required: 3. Nominator has 268 past nominations.

Laun chba ller 21:33, 12 January 2025 (UTC).[reply]

Nominations by a veteran DYK contributor, including a GA, make for some of the easiest DYK reviews. The Matlock and Dead! articles are new, long enough, and well-sourced. The GA is recent. The image looks very good. I see neither neutrality nor copyright concerns in any of the articles. Could you remind me of the DYK rule allowing for orthography bending outside of April's Fools hooks, Launchballer? I see that the band is often called DEAD! in the cited sources. Perhaps such all caps would be better than either dead! or Dead! in ALT0. Would it be fun and semantically appropriate to replace "formed" with "had" or "has"? The separate alternative hooks are all very interesting too, though it might be kinder to let Sam shine in his own right. I do love the meta element in ALT3. Surtsicna (talk) 11:45, 13 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry to keep you waiting on this; I hit a wall shortly between nominating and your comment. (I put Dead! and Sam Matlock together quite quickly.) I don't see anything at WP:DYKG regarding capitalisation but WP:DYKAPRIL suggests it can only be done for hooks on that day. There are some interesting hooks in [1] such as "that Sam Matlock of Wargasm and Dead! has likened paid meet and greets to prostitution", but I'd need to add them to the article. For now, I can suggest ALT3a: "that Wargasm, featuring Dead! guitarist Sam Matlock, have been described as "looking like the Wikipedia definition of modern rock stars"?"--Laun chba ller 15:35, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I still like ALT0 best, Launchballer. It is concise and very punchy. The sense of urgency created by the interrobang is irresistible. It drew me in despite the topic being outside my normal zone of interest. What do you think about replacing dead! with DEAD!, as I see it written in some sources? ALT0a: ... that Sam Matlock (pictured) formed Wargasm with a woman who photographed DEAD!? Surtsicna (talk) 15:08, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Fine by me. I added a note to the lead.--Laun chba ller 16:18, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm new to the QPQ process, but as far as I can see, this looks good to go. I think the hook ALT0a is the strongest. Jno.skinner (talk) 01:01, 21 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

GA review

This review is transcluded from Talk:Sam Matlock/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Nominator: Launchballer (talk · contribs) 04:37, 18 February 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Reviewer: RandFreeman (talk · contribs) 03:44, 26 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

First impressions

The incident in which Matlock was physically assaulted by security guards does not belong in the personal life section. It should be either its own section or a subsection of the life & career section, and, if you can find reliable sources for this information, you should create a new Personal life section that instead contains information about Matlock's actual personal life (whether he's married/partnered and to whom, if he has any children, if he has disclosed any medical conditions and other personal aspects of him).

Prose quality

Clear, concise and understandable to an appropriately broad audience

Passed. No sentences or phrases that are unclear, poorly worded or grammatically incorrect.

Complies with the Manual of Style

Passed. No issues, barring the one I mentioned in my first impressions.

Verifiability

List of references correctly formatted

Failed; several citations from Dork, Kerrang!, the Belfast Telegraph, Alternative Press et cetera are missing author names despite the sources having listed authors.

Reliable sources cited inline

Passed.

No original research

Passed.

No copyvios

Passed.

Thoroughness

Addresses main aspects

Failed. There is no information on his musical style, any musical artists who influenced his music (barring one sentence about Nirvana), his artistry/creative process or, as I mentioned, his personal life.

No tangents

Passed.

NPOV

Passed.

Stable

Passed.

Illustrated

Media copyright is properly disclosed

Passed. Both pictures of Matlock were taken by Commons users.

Relevant media with suitable captions

Passed.

Outcome and closing remarks

I will put this article On hold, giving you seven days, till December 5, to make the following changes:

rename the current "Personal life" section to something like "2021 Scala assault",
fix the citations by adding missing author names,
create a new "Personal life" section with information about Matlock's personal life, if available and
create new sections with information about his musical style, influences and creative process.

The current description of his life and career is solid, and with these changes it could easily make GA status. RandFreeman 03:44, 26 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Added all the author names I could find; couldn't find any coverage of his Personal life, am happy to add if I've missed anything. I removed both the Personal life and Early life section headers per MOS:OVERSECTION; while it was borderline for a very large paragraph such as the assault, two sentences absolutely doesn't need a separate header. I also reject the idea that this doesn't discuss his musical style; both bands charting on the UK Rock & Metal Charts is a bit of a clue.--Laun chba ller 11:17, 29 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]

The citations are better, and so is the layout. Given the limited coverage of Sam Matlock by reliable sources this article looks about as good as it can be. The prose is understandable, the citations are properly formatted now, there are no copyright violations and all the media on the page have Creative Commons licenses.

Passed. RandFreeman 09:31, 30 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]