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The Madness of Van Halen 1

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    #26
    The Madness of Van Halen 1

    "Jump" actually isn't that dated right now, a bit like how people think Members Only jackets are cool. We've been in the midst of an 80s cheese revival for a while now.

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      #27
      The Madness of Van Halen 1

      linus wrote:
      They wouldn't crack my top 100 bands from LA (there's an interesting thread of its own).
      Go for it - I'm curious to see your 100 better LA bands.

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        #28
        The Madness of Van Halen 1

        See, I quite like the power chords and so forth (though they're no AC/DC, riff-wise), but Roth's voice is just too pretty.

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          #29
          The Madness of Van Halen 1

          Cal Alamein wrote:
          linus wrote:
          They wouldn't crack my top 100 bands from LA (there's an interesting thread of its own).
          Go for it - I'm curious to see your 100 better LA bands.
          OK, I'll invest 5 mins to put a list of 40 SoCal acts better than VH. I could probably come up with another 40 or 60 if I put an extra half hour or hour into it, but this will have to do:

          Byrds
          Doors
          Electric Prunes
          Love
          Buffalo springfield
          Seeds
          Monkeys
          Eagles
          Joni mitchell
          Captn Beefheart

          Music Emporium
          United States of America
          Beach boys
          dick dale
          west coast pop art e.b.
          Stained glass
          the misunderstood
          Sagittarius
          Surfaris
          children of the Mushroom

          Kaleidoscope (US)
          zappa
          Carpenters
          CS&N
          NWA
          X
          Berlin
          sparks
          Deerhoof
          Wall of voodoo

          suicidal tendencies
          black flag
          minutemen
          the germs
          go-gos
          missing persons
          the association
          spirit
          Mamas & papas
          Strawberry alarm clock

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            #30
            The Madness of Van Halen 1

            Not bad at all, but The Association, Berlin and Missing Persons?

            A lot of the other bands you listed were definitely cool bands (I'm looking at the Psychedelic and Garage groups) but their efforts don't equal that of VH in their heyday.

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              #31
              The Madness of Van Halen 1

              Why are you entertaining this delusion, Cal? You are enabling here

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                #32
                The Madness of Van Halen 1

                My family went camping in Springfield, Massachusetts one summer (my dad somehow bought a Charles Chips truck, or knowing him probably got it for fixing a lawnmower, and made it into an RV that we drove all over the east coast. I practically grew up on I-95.)


                So we stopped in town, and being that I was starting to play guitar at age 8, I went into the music store. There was this guy, kind of short, long curly hair, and he was playing and smiling with his lower lip curled back over his bottom row of teeth, and kind of playing some licks. He was pretty good. The owner was asking him if he did that onstage, and he just kept playing and messing around.

                I went up to the owner, and asked "is that guy in a band ?"

                He said "Yeah. That's Eddie Van Halen" in a manner that Tony Soprano would say it to an 8-year-old.

                I ran to my parents with those 8-year-old wide eyes as I ran through the street and my mom handed me one of those pens where the car slowly moves when you tilt it, and we tried to get it to work but the ink wouldn't come out and it finally staccatoed some ink in a few tracks and I ran as fast as I could back to the store. I still see the bright summer Massachusetts sky, the stone and brick buidlings, and the people getting out of my way as I got to the door.

                I still see the silouette of Eddie Van Halen walking through the hall into a back alley with guitar in hand, curly mullet in shadow against the bright summer Massachusetts sunlight. I'm standing there with a pen and paper in hand, out of breath, desperation washing over me. The owner is still at his desk, flourescent lights and wood panels, bald head curly black hair crown. He tells me he would've given me a pen.

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                  #33
                  The Madness of Van Halen 1

                  Bored of Education wrote:
                  Why are you entertaining this delusion, Cal? You are enabling here
                  I know I know. But he included The Misunderstood - very cool band.

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                    #34
                    The Madness of Van Halen 1

                    Nice recollection there JV, you ought to scan some old family pictures of that RV and I95 trip.

                    Cal I do have Before the Dream Faded on my best album list for 1966, so I'm a huge fan. Stained Glass are actually from San Jose. David Axelrod should be in the LA top 10 of all time though and he wasn't on the list.

                    Sorry for the thread detour here, but since you seem to like the psych genre Cal, my favorite band from your corner of New Mexico is a virtually unknown act called that apparently only did just one 45, The Apple Glass Cyndrom that was featured in vol. 15 of a compilation series called Sixties Rebellion. It features two pillars of late psych rock, fuzz pedal guitar and "Slalom"-pedal organ (that's the proper noun for that pedal in Farfisa organs, though the one in this song sounds like a Hammond).

                    On the list above, my favorite band/album might be the one from The Music Emporium, a project by four talented musicians including an all-female rythm section (great drums)which had zero commercial success (only a couple hundred original LPs were printed).

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                      #35
                      The Madness of Van Halen 1

                      Why at Last! wrote:
                      See, I quite like the power chords and so forth (though they're no AC/DC, riff-wise), but Roth's voice is just too pretty.
                      What? Pretty? What are you judging that on? His solo stuff may have been multi-tracked amd he leaned on his rythym section as backing vocalists but I don't understand that criticism of Van Halen's stuff.

                      In all honesty, DLR was never really the greatest of singers and he busked/spoke through a lot of the stuff, especially live, so I could understand (if not agree with) that kind of criticism of his voice but not "too pretty".

                      Not that it matters, he's the greatest frontman and rock star of all time and his voice is totally right for VH's music if not technically great but it's a peculiar comment.

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                        #36
                        The Madness of Van Halen 1

                        Completely agree, Harry, which is why I thought this was interesting

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                          #37
                          The Madness of Van Halen 1

                          "How many octaves can you sing?"

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                            #38
                            The Madness of Van Halen 1

                            Harry Truscott wrote:
                            Nice one. We saw THE TRIP about a month ago and enjoyed it. A bit different from SAXONDALE.

                            Linus wrote:
                            Sorry for the thread detour here, but since you seem to like the psych genre Cal, my favorite band from your corner of New Mexico is a virtually unknown act called that apparently only did just one 45, The Apple Glass Cyndrom that was featured in vol. 15 of a compilation series called Sixties Rebellion. It features two pillars of late psych rock, fuzz pedal guitar and "Slalom"-pedal organ (that's the proper noun for that pedal in Farfisa organs, though the one in this song sounds like a Hammond).
                            Thanks Linus - the A-side is very groovy. I did some digging and apparently they are from Clovis, NM (home of Norman Petty Studio, Buddy Holly records That'll Be The Day). Clovis is a seriously conservative town that is more Texas than NM. Apple-Green Cyndrom had to come across more like Blue Cheer to the clean-cut populace.

                            Back to topic at hand pt.II - been listening to VH's first four albums and thinking of that era and they were very much on top of the rawk game w/ the glossy 1984. As rock bands do, it later came crashing down for DLR, but not for VH as Hagar apparently fit in well w/ the mainstream VH fans. I'd pretty much given up on VH by 1984 and completely gave up on 'em when I found out that Hagar was the new singer. Very glad to have seen them and been a fan in their heyday.

                            JV - great story!

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                              #39
                              The Madness of Van Halen 1

                              As rock bands do, it later came crashing down for DLR, but not for VH as Hagar apparently fit in well w/ the mainstream VH fans.
                              Sales-wise perhaps but DLR was still doing well live even when his solo albums weren't doing much. I mean it wasn't the stadia that Van Hagar were doing but not bad for him to be able to turn up and still fill good size venues with nothing sold and very little publicity. Needless to say, those gigs were far more entertaining than the vapid stuff that Van Hagar were putting out ripping off bands that had ripped them off

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                                #40
                                The Madness of Van Halen 1

                                I've got a thing about 'Why Can't This Be Love?' It's so perfect at first: the pace, the delivery, the buried machine pulse, and the riff that stays on that sweet spot where an instrument stops sounding like itself. Then it jumps a massive, 1970s shark and lands as jazz-scat/prog virtuoso roadkill.

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                                  #41
                                  The Madness of Van Halen 1

                                  Yeah, I had hopes w/ DLR's solo stuff, (c'mon Dave, channel your old VH days and knock the living shit out of Van Hagar!) but was not at all impressed. It all got pretty damned pathetic.

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                                    #42
                                    The Madness of Van Halen 1

                                    OK, not pretty. Weedy.

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                                      #43
                                      The Madness of Van Halen 1

                                      Yeah, I had hopes w/ DLR's solo stuff, (c'mon Dave, channel your old VH days and knock the living shit out of Van Hagar!) but was not at all impressed. It all got pretty damned pathetic
                                      After 'Skyscraper" in 1988, I saw DLR play a full Wembley Arena where he rode a giant surfboard from the stage, over the heads of the crowd to a boxing ring in the middle where he sand a couple of songs. There was also a steel drum solo. He not only knocked the living shit out of Van Hagar but every other band playing at that time.

                                      You are right though, the recorded suff had diminishing returns. Having said that, the first is up there if not better than all the VH ones outside of "I" and "1984" and the second and even the third both have songs that pop into my head fairly often, not having heard any of his solo stuff for over 20 years.

                                      There are two types of musician, ones where recording is the important thing and playing live promotes that and others where the recording is a necessary evil to get on tour. I always think that DLR primarily is the latter as is shown with 'Diver Down' and even the first solo EP. As has been pointed out, the latest CD isn't going to sell as much as the old days but it is out there to promote the tour more than anything I expect.

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                                        #44
                                        The Madness of Van Halen 1

                                        I really like Dave's first two solo albums, 'Eat 'Em and Smile' would stand up as a latter period DLR-VH album and while 'Skyscraper' went incredibly pop metal (let's remember it was 1988 and that kind of thing happened a lot) it still has enough to recommend it. Both probably piss over any Van Hagar album, I could never bring myself to listen to one.

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                                          #45
                                          I'll just leave this here

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                                            #46
                                            That list has made me realize that I don’t rate Van Halen at all and believe, more or less, that they represent everything I despise about the worst excessss of America, about the worst excesses of the 80s, and about so many of the people I went to school with. It also makes me reflect on how much of my youth was spent listening to music I didn’t really like just because it was the least bad thing on the radio at the time.

                                            That said, the drum bit on Hot for Teacher is cool and Ain’t Talkin’ About Love has a good guitar bit.

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                                              #47
                                              I enjoy Klosterman's work, but to rate Atomic Punk at 34, On Fire at 33, Ain't Talkin Bout Love at 25, and to put ANY Hagar era songs in the top 50 is seriously lame.

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                                                #48
                                                Originally posted by Hot Pepsi View Post
                                                That list has made me realize that I don’t rate Van Halen at all and believe, more or less, that they represent everything I despise about the worst excessss of America, about the worst excesses of the 80s, and about so many of the people I went to school with. It also makes me reflect on how much of my youth was spent listening to music I didn’t really like just because it was the least bad thing on the radio at the time.

                                                That said, the drum bit on Hot for Teacher is cool and Ain’t Talkin’ About Love has a good guitar bit.
                                                This. So very much this.

                                                I appreciate Eddie Van Halens technical wizardry. I will say that there are a few good Van Halen songs. I even, as long as you don't tell anyone who is not on this forum, will admit that David Lee Roth is a very good front man.

                                                But if you asked me to describe everything that I utterly despise with every fucking fibre of my soul about rock music, the 80s and America, then I'll simply point you to Van Fucking Halen.

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                                                  #49
                                                  What is Bon Jovi's relationship to Van Halen. Copyists?

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                                                    #50
                                                    When my kids got into Michael Jackson - in the weeks after his death - Beat It came on the car stereo and I said "And that...of course...is Eddie Van Halen doing that guitar solo" and my wife was like "What? Really?" I"m like 'how did you get through the '80s not knowing that?' I thought everyone knew that.

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