Van Halen!

Two things I wrote:

http://www.emusic.com/listen/#/music-news/review/album/van-halen-a-different-kind-of-truth/:

http://www.spin.com/articles/fair-warning-best-and-worst-moments-van-halens-7-david-lee-roth-records

Sort of surprised (maybe I shouldn't be?) by the amount of evil-sounding chromatic riffs in this

― TracerHandVEVO (Tracer Hand), Wednesday, February 8, 2012 6:40 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah, there were a couple of times where I was like, "Damn, EVH sounds like Kim Thayil here!"

this is kinda like a whole record of van halen "album tracks"

"How many roads must a man walk down, before he admits he's lost?"

I don't really even like Van Halen and this is pretty great. Could they have picked a weaker lead track/single? It's catchy, there's that, but there's such a yawning gulf in quality between "Tattoo" and the rest of the record that you wonder, what the hell were they thinking?

yeah esp cuz "she's the woman" seems to have that classic VH sound and is obv an old track, i'm really surprised they didn't have that open the record and be the single...

i hate songs where the title phrase is repeated in different sections of the song or with different melodies/cadences, so when DLR says "tattoo" 5-7 times in a row in three different ways it feels like he's personally trolling me

<i>this is kinda like a whole record of van halen "album tracks"</i>

Yeah, kinda. But some of my favorite tracks on the first six were never anywhere close to being singles. And with VH, it usually takes ten listens or more before I start really digging into what's going on with the guitar, get familiar with DLR's vocal tics, etc.

"Blood and Fire" is def. the "Little Guitars" of this album.

i have to admit that when dlr says "you wanna play?" in "the trouble with never" i silently add "i'll hook your line to a stingray"

They nailed it! How often do we slag an old band for putting out a record that is too modern sounding, or when they try to jump on a trend? And how often to we slag an old band when they put out a record that sounds exactly like something they did before? Somehow Van Halen managed to do both and neither at the same time, and its great!! its not the most amazing record, but with all the hype and expectation, they made a fine record that old fans can get into, and new fans can understand why they are one of the biggest and baddest rock'n'roll bands of all time..

i like the line "Swap Meet Sally" in "Tattoo" because it sounds like a the title of a song that could have been on NWA & the Posse

Klosterman has weighed in in his usual equivocating, maybe, kinda sorta, liking it, except not really, but it's okay, way:

http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/7561092/judging-new-van-halen-album-different-kind-truth

I don't hate Klosterman as much as everyone else seems to do, but yeah, I cannot fucking stand the way he never really comes down on a side.

He would be a decent writer if he could hold to an actual opinion.

I did like this: "To a degree, Dave gets a lifetime pass just for proving that humans like himself can exist in reality. The only way he could ruin a Van Halen album would be by not participating."

But still he has to add "To a degree" to the front of it! It's a good observation and he should stand by it.

"conversational" is his stylistic trademark, though, and the equivocation helps generate an off the cuff, just-dudes-talkin' vibe. i mean, i actually like klosterman, and that's at least as much a product of his writing style as his taste or analysis. he's funny, gently trenchant, informed about his passions but never arrogant or professorial, and he's got a clear, personal literary voice. you know not only what he thinks about the subject at hand, but "where he's coming from" in general. i appreciate that. he may be the dave barry of pop criticism, but but at least he's not feigning a position of authoritative, journalistic objectivity.

"to a degree" is conversational?

as i see it, his style is conversational, overall. he gets this across in part by foregrounding things like indecision and self-awareness, as though he isn't under a journalistic obligation to maintain a dispassionate and authoritative remove from his subjects. i'm not saying that he tries to duplicate conversational cadence and phrasing in his writing, but rather that his style is fairly casual and he spends as much time describing his own position in the moment as he does the object he's ostensibly considering. i mean, maybe "conversational" isn't exactly the word for what i'm attempting to describe, but it's somewhere between that and the style of a personal essay.

dude sucks

Finally listened to this today. I liked some of the fast tracks, but I thought it was too long by a third and too loud by maybe as much. There used to be lots of space and dynamics in VH, but this is pretty monolithic. First impression, of course, but I don't know how much I'm going to return to this, bless 'em for existing.

Shanks did a good job on getting the overall sound right, yeah, but there's definitely no nuance in the production that Templeman and Landee were so good at.

dude sucks

Six hour Van Halen special on the Howard Stern channel is the arena rock Rashomon. Worth seeking out if you want to hear all the stores.

From the POV of a DLR-era Van Halen geek, Klosterman nails it. Why does a review have to come down to a single opinion?

yeah, OTM. esp love the summary in the 2nd to last paragraph. sure, the "to a degree" might be unnecessary, but that's such a minor quibble.

I like Tattoo more and more and more. I seem to be alone in this.

it has grown on me a little (but i still haven't heard the rest of the album)

as a piece of music, "tatto" is pretty great. the only real problem is the lyrics, and i have the same objection to "stay frosty". when dave tries to be all comical, hip and topical, he comes off like a drunk uncle at a bar-b-que. and there's nothing really wrong with that, uncles are cool and all, but it does make me cringe a little. stop saying "mousewife to momshell", dude. i know it sounds clever in your head, but it really should have stayed there.

still, though "tattoo" is arguably catchiest thing on ADKOT, the best shot at a hit, it's not what the band does best. the eight-song stretch from "she's the woman" through "the trouble with never" does a much better job of demonstrating where VH are at these days and what they're capable of. i can't believe how sharp, heavy and focused this sounds, given that it's been thirty freaking years since they last released an album i could so much as stand to be in the room with. maybe the key to this is that they've moved back more than forward. as far as this album is concerned, it's still socal in the 70s/80s. cutoffs and empty pools. you can hear both the echoes of zappa and the inspiration that would later be taken by bands like the red hot chili peppers and the minutemen. thing is, despite this fealty to their heroic past, ADKOT doesn't sound like a tired, nostalgic throwback. aside from a few drunklish outliers, these songs are fresh and full of life, familiar yet totally unique. nobody else sounds like this. van halen helped define their era, but they don't have an ossified "period" sound. they just sound like van halen.

alex and eddie haven't slipped a notch in 30 years (or well, slipped more than one), and wolfgang is a better bass player than michael ever was. listening to this album feels like being knocked around inside a pinball machine or a motorcyle engine. the interplay between guitar and drums is dizzying, almost ecstatic. my only real complaint is that the sound is a little one-dimensional. when the band are really ripping, it works just fine, but there isn't much depth or subtlety on the quieter parts, like the unicorny acoustic intros. and the bass is given way too much space to stomp around in, gets oppressive after a while. still, this is a far, far better van halen record than anyone had a right to expect. though i have nothing against his writing, i think klosterman's kind of dick for being so wishy-washy about it.

stop saying "mousewife to momshell", dude. i know it sounds clever in your head, but it really should have stayed there.

I feel like it's worth repeating: DLR seemingly ganked the "mousewife to momshell" phrase from someone else.

DLR not the best at keeping his thoughts to himself, it is true

it turns out "Tattoo" is based on one of the early tracks too:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kCj0VfD22o

Wow.

Has that awesome David Lee Roth scream/sound generator vanished from the internet forever?

It's not where it used to be, but I'm hoping to find it mirrored somewhere.

http://www.realmofdarkness.net/pc/sb/music/dlr/2

was there ever a time when DLR didn't come off like a drunk uncle? i mean, that's just who he is.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKTc9VaNIiI

Part 2 of the interview series

This one's really great, because they talk about the nuts and bolts of their first WB record deal and why it takes so long to make albums now as opposed to the one-per-year they used to make.

https://vimeo.com/37045572

was there ever a time when DLR didn't come off like a drunk uncle? i mean, that's just who he is.

yeah, i know, but he used to wear it better, imo. this stuff is more "i-i-i-i-i ain't got nobody" than "ain't talkin' 'bout love". big gap there.

Saw a "=VH=" logo spray-painted on a wall in Pasadena today.

From a couple days ago...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHUG9KxCZfo

Was totally going to see them tonight, but I promised a friend I'd see Bettye LaVette. She was good, but she's not Van Halen.

http://26.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m05lz4eh6I1qz5dqgo1_500.jpg
Van Halen 1, Flaming Lips 0

took longer than i expected, tbh: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/van-halen-postpone-summer-tour-dates-20120517

Who would win in a fight between WVH and DLR?

Wolfgang is a strapping 21-year-old man now, not even a question really

I dunno, man. DLR has always been into martial arts. Now, if we're talking a bong-off, it'd be a toss off, but I bet DLR could toss Wolfgang across the room.

i expect DLR has a Batman-like file on each of his teammates, describing their weaknesses in detail in case he has to neutralize them.