Van Halen!

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.

Which weighs more, a ton of shit, or a ton of Van Halen?

Just out of curiosity, when you work in a record store are you legally bound to wait for the official release date to sell an album or is it more of a handshake agreement kind of thing to wait till then?

(no pun intended there)

Typically, we wouldn't receive the shipment until the day of release. If something did happen to come in early, we were told in no uncertain terms not to put it out. I am sure that was part of the deal with the suppliers, but I never actually saw any paperwork on it.

But yeah, we would put up promo stuff in advance if we got it.

Just out of curiosity, when you work in a record store are you legally bound to wait for the official release date to sell an album or is it more of a handshake agreement kind of thing to wait till then?

― Josefa, Wednesday, January 31, 2024 9:50 AM bookmarkflaglink

When I worked at Best Buy, we got shipments for tons of new album releases very early (and some only came in just in time for the release). we were given a lengthy sheet that pointed out the release date for all new albums (this was back when Tuesdays were the release date).

much like computer games, for the major releases, we were basically told with various threats not to put anything on the endcaps/shelves early or else, because of course they could track if anything sold early and *fines*, baby. But weirdly, I was giving feedback to someone that they'd put some smaller new releases on the shelf early and my boss intervened and said "ehh, if it's not one of the major new releases that we're putting on the endcap, who cares?".

so the new Aaron Neville album was available early to anybody who was seeking it out hard.

I do know we had a dumb employee who put like World of Warcraft on the shelf early, when the servers wouldn't even go live until the release date (so it was useless to buy early), and when the software company was adamant about not doing it. I think we sold 12 copies and our GM was flipping the fuck out

Just out of curiosity, when you work in a record store are you legally bound to wait for the official release date to sell an album or is it more of a handshake agreement kind of thing to wait till then?

When I was in high school, a friend's family owned a record store, and I remember them being extremely pissed off that a record store in the next town had gotten a shipment early and put copies of Metallica's Black Album on sale the Friday before release date.

getting disappointed early! nice

lol

My hometown Walmart did that with ReLoad (probably because it came out Thanksgiving week and the merchandiser didn't want to come back then)

I help run a chain of record stores. Typically the threat is that you may lose your status as a direct account of the distributor you're buying from if you put out records early.

have you ever seen that enforced?

Nope!

I mean, it used to be a fairly regular occurrence that if a record store heard another record store was selling early, you would go buy a copy and send a copy of the receipt to the distro. Then the distro would reach out to that store and they'd say "oh whoops... we're so sorry". Then nothing would happen.

I worked in the electronics dept of a K-Mart and got to buy Pearl Jam's Vitalogy a couple of days early. I don't remember if I cajoled the CD vendor into letting me buy it or just grabbed it out of a box of other CDs and just played dumb. I brought it to my friend's place and people were all "how did you get this?"

Followed immediately by, "What the fuck is this shit?"

I haven't listened to a new Pearl Jam album since, but Corduroy is all-time.

Agreed, but it's not an easy album to warm to at first.

Good album.

the only cd I got early that I was excited to get early was Dying Fetus - Destroy the Opposition, but only cos I was a small-time unpaid critic for a music website at the time and got the promo sent to me.

never got lucky enough to see a cd actually improperly sitting on the shelf early, sadly.