Van Halen!

god i'm glad they cleared that up, was sick of the EVH fanboys insisting that it was a 'stupid tech who screwed up'

Eddie was wasted a lot of the time wasn't he?

The last time I saw him with Sammy he was a mess. Much better with DLR the next time.

the last tour here I didn't go as people warned me their shows had gotten a bit rough, and there was actually a Groupon for tix to their Tampa show as sales were so poor.

still regret it as I never got to see them live :/

in fairness though I think the reason people told me the shows were rough was Dave

they were both kinda rough

there was this period where Eddie was wearing a good hair in a top knot and wearing like camo cargo shorts and shit like that, he seemed really bad off

his hair not good hair, it was bad hair

He many many times said that the last record that meant anything to him was Peter Gabriel's So.

And the world wept for for a EVH-on-synths cover of "Mercy Street."

Only time I saw VH live was with Sammy but it was an awesome day was at the Monsters of Rock tour which also had The Scorpions, Fokken Dokken and Metallica.

You about cannot get more 1988 than that…especially as the show was in the ‘Hoosier Dome’. Ha!

the only time i saw VH was with cherone 😩

only time I saw him was with Simon and Garfunkel

Hello, teacher, my old friend

I Am a Cock

*spits out tea*

i saw them in 2012-ish with Kool & The Gang opening.
Kool & The Gang was the highlight :/

VH was weird & awkward. Vibes were way off, as the kids say. Dave was super rambly & no one wanted to be there, incl the audience

truly though kool & the gang were awesome & kinda saved the show from being an embarrassing waste of time & money

It's funny, because when that tour was first announced, I thought "this was 100% DLR's idea, and it's kind of awesome, Van Halen and Kool & the Gang are both party bands, though in a very different way"...but when I thought about it for about 30 more seconds I was like, "nope, Kool & the Gang are a highly disciplined show band and Van Halen are a sloppy if showbizzy party-rock act — Kool & the Gang are gonna eat their lunch every single night without fail."

I was just watching the "Best Of Both Worlds" bit from Live Without A Net and thought, I know I've heard this riff somewhere else...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GwjfUFyY6M

TS: The first four Van Halen albums with Eddie's guitar in one channel and Sunset Sound's reverb chamber applied to it in the other vs. the original fake stereo version of The Beatles' first four albums with the with the vocals on one channel and the band in the other.

I saw VH twice, both times touring the FUCK album (in retrospect, my least favorite of the Hagar albums). I don't remember either show being notably spectacular, but solid, professional events. First time the opener was Alice in Chains (!), second time the opener was Baby Animals (?).

pic.twitter.com/OREXxL34aq

— Fisher Protocol-WhoTalk (@FisherProtocol) April 23, 2023

Posting this again to highlight Hagar's strengths (and the rest of them, for that matter):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYUKtW8ayhA

Also, points for sounding undeniably like Van Halen. That snare sound should be my ringtone.

https://i.imgur.com/sD4emLk.jpg

From the Monk book

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mtaIh3GIdQM

Not soon enough.

Curio time -- a set of the complete "Star Fleet" sessions that EVH sat in on with Brian May in 1983 is getting a release:

https://www.udiscovermusic.com/news/expanded-boxset-brian-may-star-fleet-project/

(listening to II loud in my headphones on the railroad last night when the conductor comes to take my ticket)

conductor: "Van Halen?"
me: "yeah"
"they're one of my all time favorites"
"me too"
"they were the first concert i ever saw"
"me too"
"what year did you see them"
"1994, a little embarrassing"
"oh, that's when i was born, i didn't see them that early"
"when did you see them?"
"2007"
"was that with Roth?"
"yeah"
(enviously) "awesome"

reading the masculinity thread as Beautiful Girls plays and thinking how DLR's perspective is so unrelatable to me, i have no idea what he's talking about wrt Beautiful Girls and that used to make me feel defective or something, yet it hasn't diminished my enjoyment of this band at all.

honestly i only fuck with II for the last 3 songs, not that the rest of it doesn't rule but i'm putting it on because i wanna hear DOA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72Gqi0B1fYo

spot on

I think I remember that interview from after the MTV Awards!

Biggest moment was Eddie sucking in his cheeks, revealing some DLResque cheekbones, and doing a pitch perfect dead-eyed impression of Roth.

this has all the quotable shit-talking from 1996/97…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IakQI4mWmRI

Boozy boozy bop- ziti bop

My favorite part of Van Halen Rising is when Mo Ostin get's dragged to see Van Halen the first time. He turns to the (A&R?) guy who brought him and says, "they sound like money."

literally otm

Amoeba records in SF has a separate artist tab for Van Hagar

Wow, I've never heard this before:

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCoedOFRp80

Excellent
Those closing credits sound like Jump (Part 2)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8OyYP57A5sU

just emerged from a deep dive on account of "I'll Wait", same era, same vibe, apparently Ted Templeman voted against "I'll Wait" even after recruiting Michael McDonald to ghostwrite the thing

which is inconceivable, it's so good, give me all of the roth electro pop, lock van halen, roth and mcdonald in a room for a month and give them all the money and let me hear that please good lord why were these music executives so clueless

music execs are like the police chief in Die Hard when it comes to decision making

the guitar solo on i'll wait -- and the concluding simple drum fill -- has lived in my head for years

despite or becuase of its ernieness

I'm sorry, you can't name yourself Mr. Rock & Roll if you haven't heard Hot for Teacher before.

I don't know if it was the source of the deep dive, but coincidentally the newest issue of TapeOp has an interview with Donn Landee, who engineered all those Van Halen albums. Here's his "I'll Wait" story.

One song that bedeviled the band was "I'll Wait." Eventually, Michael McDonald co-wrote it. Do you remember that episode?

We had recorded the "I'll Wait" track, and Dave said he couldn't come up with any lyrics for it. Ted asked Michael McDonald to have a listen. Mike came into Ted's office, sang along with our tape, and Ted recorded his singing. Ted played it for me in the 5150 control room, and when it came to the chorus and I heard Mike sing, "I'll Wait," I knew that was it! I hit the talkback and said, "Ed! Get in here, you've got to hear this!"

Later he explains why the song became a sticking point, not because no one liked it but because the band was dead-set on calling the album "1984," and the plan was to release the album on January 1, 1984, and "I'll Wait" was (ironically) holding things up:

The record ran late and that caused some friction among Ted, you, and Ed. What happened?

"I'll Wait" wasn't done, and there were a couple little things that needed attention. I remember Lenny Waronker, who was then the label president, called and asked, "What's going on? When will you have it done?" I told him and he said, "Okay, then we can set the release for the first week in January." That was our final commitment, and we did it. Lenny really helped. We were able to have "Jump" come out on January 1st, and the album a week later.

“I’ll Wait” indeed!

i can’t hear too much about this song. i would read an entire book about it

No way the egos of Roth, Eddie and Mike mcD would last more than an hour in a room together

Fwiw I have a pretty clear memory of seeing the 1984 album in my local record store at the end of 1983. It drew my attention precisely because it had arrived "early." The store may not have been selling it yet, and/or the official release date may have been in '84 but I would testify that the album was done and shipped in '83.

Wikipedia says it was released on January 9, 1984, so it's entirely possible that it was being promoted in the month(s) leading up to that.

I was working in a record store by the fall of 1984, we sold a literal shit ton of that album.