Van Halen!

wow! that would have been interesting

also weird

In the couple of VH books I read, Michael was kept around largely not because he was a great bassist or even because he's a great singer but because he's such a nice guy and helped everyone get along. But clearly Eddie had no problem eventually canning him.

Yeah, the Patti Smyth thing had always been floating around, but I don't know if I'd ever heard her confirm it before today? I'd also heard that EVH wanted to make an album with a revolving door of singers—Patti, plus whoever else would say yes.

Kinda think that might have been a disaster.

Wow, some impressive shit-talking in there!

― Josh in Chicago, Friday, October 9, 2020 11:15 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

new board description for ILTMI?

Patty Smyth (as per wiki): "I was a New Yorker, I didn't want to live in L.A. ... and those guys were drunk and fighting all the time."

Yeah, I think that was the real reason, and being preggers was the polite one.

Ozzy and DLR were replaced by better technical singers.
Can't say I ever gave a fuck even as a teenager who was a huge fan of both bands at various times.
I still preferred the earlier material in both cases.
I concede that I like Dio-Sabbath much more than Van Hagar, but that's not a very controversial opinion, I don't think.

This is v much my own baggage

but just seeing Van Hagar & Dio-Sabbath mentioned together in the same *sentence* almost made me throw my phone out the window

>:(

Not sure why ilx can’t hear the magic in “dreams” but it’s there. It just doesn’t have an exclamation point in the title

It sound like a song about a buthole sympathizers

Fuck crosswyed

dreams is great

Van Hagar had it's moments

i like Dreams, and Why Cant This Be Love.

and thats it. i can only take so much “music to snowboard by”

I always held DLR in high high esteem, a perfect frontman. EVH and DLR were both so... abstract impressionist in their approaches to rock, so non linear and spontaneous and ecstatic... but in a really masterful way cuz obv Eddie is a wizard and like upper Mississippi says DLR knew his limitations and so really knew how to use his voice. breathtaking.. the beautiful chaos especially evident on vh2 and wacf

https://i.imgur.com/HEb9ttT.gif

https://i.imgur.com/PU9DGMg.gif

https://i.imgur.com/hIH7WUz.gif

https://i.imgur.com/f6IXh56.gif

Van Hagar always seemed so happy!

Dave Holmes described Hagar as having “tequila-Dad energy”

I know that energy well, and it scans

Speaking of tequila dads, I just saw that DLR turned 66 today.

HBD DLR 🥳

I know EVH is a guitar genius and everything, but DLR's Melrose Avenue Borscht Belt schtick is responsible for a good portion of my VH fandom.

It’s hard with me and Sammy; most of the time I just think, if I wanted Guy Fieri to sing with Van Halen I’d just ask him

LOL

i'm on the "dreams sucks" team

"love walks in" is also bad

Lol, I forgot, "Only time will tell if we'll stand the test of time." Guy Fieri otm.

I'm riding this guitar solo to Flavortown.

I believe sammy is asking why "buh-dooden-buh-duh buh-duuuuh-dun-duh-duh" can't be love. like he is convincing everyone in the studio not to mute that track before the mixdown.

https://i.imgur.com/hd6yDMv.gif

Salt shakah little licka lime

If you watch that last gif and hum "Tequila" at the same time, Charles Miller from War shows up in your bathroom mirror and slaps the shit out of you.

lol

Those Templeman interviews are good. I like the description of how tight they were in the studio, I guess with music like theirs and all the legendary partying I assume lots of overdubs, screw-ups, etc., but they were obviously a hell of a unit.

I've talked about Alex and Eddie as a rhythm section with a friend. I don't think of Alex as a particularly great drummer, and for that matter not really anything in Van Halen is in anything other than a very danceable 4/4. But stuff like "Jump" and "Unchained" have these insanely complicated, hard to figure out syncopation things going on that we figured were kind of the product of brotherly telepathy, like they had just spent all this time work -shedding and figuring things out so that this weird shit came off without a hitch.

Alex is a very good drummer tho.

I haven't played Rock Band in 10 years but I would assume Hot For Teacher drums was expert level.

We've gone over this, I think. Hot for Teacher intro as recorded is literally impossible, it's basically three different drum takes (a couple patterns on a Simmons pad) stitched together (like Message in a Bottle, iirc!). The rest is all basic boogie.

You're trying to tell me that he didn't really play four bass drums at the same time?

Yes the intro has two pretty obvious overdubs, but doesn't that end after the intro? I was referring to the bulk of the song, where I don't hear anything resembling overdubs. I think most metal drummers who use blast beast to play very fast sixteenths would have trouble keeping up a fast swing with double kick for that long, with the fills and everything -- which are not easy fills. I remember Richard Christy nailed it on a Howard Stern episode from the mid 2000s but he's an amazing drummer and not surprising that he could do it.

Otherwise I always loved Alex's snare tone, and his fills always felt very well considered and always feel like they fit perfectly. Underrated great drummer.

Regarding tone - it might go without saying but - the fullness of Eddie's guitar tone doesn't get enough praise imo. It's a big part of what makes the intro of "Unchained" so perfect.

I was being sarcastic in agreement with Josh, having heard that Alex had somehow chained four bass drums together.

I was picturing it laterally, four in a row, not like this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbanpC_K62M

He did four in a row!

https://drummagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Van-Halen.jpg

I don't know how functional this set up was.

The dream kit

Neil Peart, eat yer heart out.

That's why some wanted to call the band Daddy Longlegs.

I had some free poster of Alex Van Halen from the Hagar era and there really were more drums than he could play. "Hot for Teacher" specifically, I don't think they ever did his intro live, they just went straight to the double bass boogie (which, no, I don't think is that tough, imo, and also iirc one of the only clear uses of two bass drums in VH, period; a quick fill at the end of Panama, perhaps?). Don't get me wrong, I love Alex, *especially* the sound of his drums, I just don't think he's a particularly special drummer. But I wouldn't have anyone else! (Same with Michael on bass.)

Wonder if he ever did a pair of two on top of each other like 88.

Like, love the guy, but this is kinda a shit solo:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_lp0uK8YRQ