Van Halen!

Eddie Van Halen I get, but David Lee Roth knows theory and orchestration?

why not?

"Van Halen music is whisky in a paper cup! Short doses and not every night, PLEASE!"

OK, that is brilliant.

That was the most enjoyable interview I've ever done. Only 31 mins, by phone, but every word was marvellous. If not usually relevant.

Love the caption in the piece's supporting photo: Van Halen on rollerskates. Just in case anyone was wondering what was on their feet.

i highly reccomend Dave's autobio Crazy From The Heat to anyone that hasn't read it

heard a song from this on the radio this morning that made me go WOAH what is THAT

Crazy from the heat is great, would love to get roth and rollins in an interview about the writing of that book

yeah that book is awesome

Crazy from the Heat is still "Used from $42.00" on Amazon. Anyone know where a pdf might exist?

yeah it's pricey, it's been out of print for years

xp Maybe try your local library? That's why they're there.

Like as if I didn't do that.

new album up on spotify!

HELLLOOOO what I'm listening to all day tomorrow

^^^ (night tonight)

ok, this is fucking incredible

"As Is" is my favorite so far

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

I actually think this album starts a bit weak and ends up absolutely smokin

lol @ at that Roth quote.

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)