In regards to this YouTube short, @MatChew75 posted the strange run-on sentences below, and then deleted his comment (after sobering up?) a few hours later.
It’s hard to read, so I understand if you just comment “Sir, this is a Wendy’s” and just move on.
VAN HALEN – A Different Kind of Truth (2012 Universal CD/DVD set)
When this album was released in 2012, we all wanted Van Halen to win. Eddie had been through some tough times, but he finally did what the fans demanded: get back together with David Lee Roth, and record a new album. Sure, we all lamented that Michael Anthony was gone, but it was new bassist Wolfgang Van Halen that made it happen. Without Wolf, there would be no final Van Halen album. Just VHIII, and we know how most of you feel about that.
Working with new producer John Shanks in neutral territory, Van Halen managed to crank out a new album in just three years, starting with jams in 2009.
Wolf knew that Van Halen had to get back to a “classic” sound for their first new album with DLR since 1984. In addition to new music, Wolf dug back into Van Halen’s archive of unreleased material, and picked seven songs that rework and re-write. Roth called it a “collaboration with the past”, which is a good way of putting it. No, it does not sound exactly like old Van Halen; that would be impossible. It does, however sound like Van Halen with Roth.
Opener “Tattoo” was the first single and weakest track. It’s also the only one with audible keyboards (by Dave), though just for texture. Roth said the multi-layered chorus was inspired by artists such as Rhianna, but that chorus is actually the annoying part of the song. Eddie’s fills and Dave’s verses are fine and entertaining, as is Wolfie’s fuzzy bass. The chorus is the weak link, perhaps even worse than the lyrics: lines such as “tramp stamp tat” and “mousewife to momshell”. I like tattoos as much as the next guy, but I’ll never use the word “momshell” except when discussing this album.
The real banger is the second single, “She’s the Woman”, a pretty close approximation of the original Van Halen song (pre-debut album). Wolfie’s playing is monstrous, with a catchy circular bassline that proved the kid had the talent to be in this band. His dad must have loved jamming with him. Ed’s solo really brings us back to classic Van Halen, while Alex’s drums have that sound that we all missed. I hate to say it, but this rendition is probably superior to the original lineup’s version.
“You And Your Blues” has that choppy Eddie guitar we love, and those “ahh, ahh” backing vocals that scream Van Halen, even without Mike. Dave’s lower voice works well on the verses, though he is stretched out on the high notes in the chorus. A great Van Halen album-quality song. (If you’re fortunate enough to have a CD/DVD combo set, you’ll be treated to a cool acoustic version of “You And Your Blues” with loads of storytelling from Roth.)
“China Town” has some of the best shredding on album. From Wolfie’s crazy capo bass to the lightning fast tempo, all four members of Van Halen are on fire. If any song can be said to take the classic sound and launch it into orbit, it’s “China Town”, and Wolf is the star. The bass is not overly high in the mix, but when you listen to it and isolate it in your head, you realize that this guy has brought a new side to Van Halen: bass shred. Additionally, it’s a great song in every way.
Going back to 1984 and an instrumental section called “Ripley”, “Blood and Fire” was reworked in 2000 for an aborted reunion with Roth. Interestingly “Blood and Fire” actually sounds more like Hagar era Van Halen. It does contain one of Dave’s favourite concert phrases: “Well look at the all of the people here tonight!” If this track had been on 5150, it would have fit like a glove, though it would have been one of the more rocking tunes. Edward himself is the star on this one, as he rips, shreds, and tears as if it really was 1984 again.
“Bullethead” sounds new, and also goes back to the 2000 sessions. Van Halen speed and Dave “charasma” are held together by the rhythm section of Al and Wolf. It contains the lyric “Got a different kind of truth”, from which the album takes its title. Ed’s effect-laden solo is no less cool, though nobody will list “Bullethead” in their top 20 Van Halen songs. A cool album track it is, but that’s all.
One of the coolest tunes would have to be “As Is”. Opening with some Alex drum intensity, it breaks into a slow heavy riff, before finally accelerating into a powerhouse Van Halen smokeshow. That running riff sounds so classic, you could swear they injected Ed with youth serum. He sounds like a man reborn, both in terms of shred but also in fun. Ed gets to play with many different sounds and tempos on “As Is”, while Dave also gets to enjoy himself with singing and that spoken word stuff he does so well. Most of this is done very fast.
This sounds like a natural side break. “Honeybabysweetiedoll” (another 2000 track) comes across like a side two opener. Ed is experimenting with new sounds, like he used to, and you’ve never heard Ed sound or play like this before. He goes for a middle-eastern vibe, but with the kind of intensity that other bands do not have the mettle to muster. Dave’s lyrics about soccer moms don’t quite hit the spot where the music is concerned, but nobody’s listening to this song for the lyrics. It’s the guitar that makes the biggest impact here. You can imagine the Ed diehard fans just pounding their fists in celebration when they heard what Ed was up to, before they tried to figure out how he got that sound.
“The Trouble With Never” might be the only track that doesn’t seem like it goes anywhere. You also miss Michael Anthony the most on backing vocals here. It’s just a song. Not a great one, not a bad one…but with one hell of a cool bassline.
“Outta Space” originated in the mid-70’s as “Let’s Get Rockin'”. The riff is classic even though it never made an album before. Dave sings in his highest voice, which is actually cool after a lot of lower pitched songs. As you’d expect for a song originally called “Let’s Get Rockin'”, it smokes from start to finish, top speed and loaded with cool Eddie licks. It’s fun to hear the rhythm guitar drop out during his solo, just as it used to in 1978. Ed wasn’t fond of that sound, but it certainly evokes an era and a vibe. It’s like a warm sweater. Maybe Ed would appreciate that sometimes the absence of a guitar can also speak.
Dave plays acoustic guitar on the fun “Stay Frosty”, an old song that certainly recalls “Ice Cream Man” in every way. There’s one lyric that Dave liked to point out: “If you wanna be a monk, you gotta cook a lot of rice.” Hey, it’s not untrue. Let me put it this way: If you imagined a sequel to “Ice Cream Man”, it’s “Stay Frosty”. Not quite as good, but hits all the same beats that you want to hear.
“Big River” sounds like an older song. It has a cool curly guitar opening, before laying into this awesome guitar/bass groove. More a groove than a riff. Dave’s lyrics and singing are top notch on this song. Classic Van Halen. The surprise is that halfway through the song, for the solo section, it transforms into a completely different groove. This section has some of Eddie’s best playing too. It reverts back to the original riff for the last third of the song. All the while Wolfie is playing the most incredible bass fills, but never stepping on his dad’s toes. Think about that for a second. In the mix, you have the greatest guitar player in the world playing over this awesome riff, but the bass player still manages to throw a whole bunch of cool fills in there, without getting in the way. That’s a band, and that’s family, and that’s talent. If this song had been on an album like Fair Warning, people would still remember it today.
The closing song “Beat’s Workin'” starts with a cascade of Alex Van Halen drums, gone gonzo. It then breaks into a fun riff and a good time album-ender. A song called “Beats Workin'” should sound like a celebration. I get a bit of a Max Webster vibe, though heavier, along with a hint of Aerosmith. Once again the rhythm guitar drops out when Eddie goes solo, but then Wolf gets a moment in the spotlight too. His fuzz bass tone is very much unlike Michael Anthony’s. There’s a moment here when he and Alex are just playing while Ed does his thing, and it feels beautiful, especially now, knowing the family will never be reunited. But let’s not get too somber. It’s a party, after all.
The bonus DVD also includes acoustic versions of “Panama” and “Beautiful Girls”. They are alright. Valuable to have in your collection. You might not go back to listen to them very often. Another reason to own this physically is the lyric sheet, with cool sketches for each song. This is a Dave touch.
Final thoughts:
4.5/5 stars
COMPLETE VAN HALEN REVIEW SERIES:
VAN HALEN – Zero (1977 Gene Simmons demo bootleg)
VAN HALEN – Van Halen (1978 Warner)
VAN HALEN – Van Halen II (1979 Warner)
VAN HALEN – Women and Children First (1980 Warner)
VAN HALEN – Fair Warning (1981 Warner)
VAN HALEN – Diver Down (1982 Warner)
VAN HALEN – 1984 (1984 Warner)
VAN HALEN – 5150 (1986 Warner Bros.)
VAN HALEN – OU812 (1988 Warner)
VAN HALEN – For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge (1991)
VAN HALEN – LIVE: Right here, right now. (1993 Warner Bros, plus “Jump” live single)
VAN HALEN – Balance (1995 Warner – Japanese version included)
VAN HALEN – Balance (1995) Review by Derek Kortepeter
VAN HALEN – Best Of Volume I (1996 Warner)
VAN HALEN – 3 (Collectors’ tin 1998)
VAN HALEN – The Best of Both Worlds (2005 Warner)
VAN HALEN – A Different Kind of Truth (2012)
VAN HALEN – Tokyo Dome Live in Concert (2015)
VAN HALEN – Tokyo Dome Live in Concert (2015) Review by Tommy Morais
+
VAN HALEN – Rock & Roll Hoochie Koo (1975 radio broadcast
VAN HALEN – “Best of Both Worlds” (1986 Warner 7″ single)
VAN HALEN – Live Without a Net (1987 VHS/DVD)
VAN HALEN – Selections from LIVE: Right here, right now. (1993 Warner promo EP)
VAN HALEN – “Can’t Get This Stuff No More” / “Me Wise Magic” (1996 Warner promo singles)
VAN HALEN – “Can’t Stop Loving You” (Parts 1 & 2, inc. collector’s tin)
VAN HALEN – “Right Now” (1992 cassette single, Warner)
VAN HALEN – Video Hits Volume I (1998 DVD)
VAN HALEN vs. JOHN LENNON – “Imagine A Jump” mashup by “Mighty Mike”
RECORD STORE TALES Part 186: The Van Halen Tin
GETTING MORE TALE #657: Operation: Van Halen (Derek’s Story)
Previous Reading:
Record Store Tales #600: The Vault
Disk 1 Review
Disk 2 Review
Three discs in, and now we hit the holy grail of Kiss rarities, finally available in the Vault.
GENE SIMMONS – The Vault – Disk 3 (2018 Rhino)
In 1977, Kiss were in California and Gene Simmons went into the studio with Eddie and Alex Van Halen to record three new demos. Van Halen were once his proteges of course, and were eager to help. The Van Halen demo of “Christine Sixteen” has a noticeably different vibe on the drums, and Eddie’s solo was the template by which Ace Frehley’s was recorded. There is also a bridge that was later dropped on the final Kiss version. The outro Eddie guitars are overdubbed in a way unlike anything he’d do with Van Halen. 5/5
“Tunnel of Love” has the early embryo of the things Van Halen would later be known for. The technique is all there, but not the tone. These demos are as rough sounding as they come, and there was no effort put into getting Eddie a good guitar sound. But there he is, shredding his way into Kisstory. Alex is also immediately identifiable. Unfortunately, the lacking element here is in the liner notes. Gene spends more time talking about schmoozing than he does the song. He does relay the story of signing Van Halen and tearing up the contract, again! “Tunnel of Love” eventually made it onto Gene’s solo album, but the Van Halen demo is cooler. 5/5
“Got Love For Sale” almost starts like a Van Halen original. Gene’s heavy-handed approach on the bass is a contrast that the VH vibe. Still, this little three piece could have made for an interesting side gig. Of course, Eddie’s solo is the highlight, whammying and doing his thang. Shame his tone is so thin on these demos. It is amazing that these songs spent decades locked in the vault (literally), and we never got to hear them until this box set came out. Pretty cool. 4.5/5
Onto the 1980s and the Crazy Nights era. Bruce Kulick wrote “Hell Or High Water” with Gene, and this demo shows the song was a little tougher sounding in its demo form. Guitars were just a tad more prominent. The song is otherwise more or less intact. Sounds like Eric Carr on drums, but the liner notes rarely say for sure. Gene describes the direction as “meandering”, but with hindsight, a good song is a good song. 4/5
Gene prefers the Revenge era. “Domino” is the demo recorded with Silent Rage. Gene describes it with comparisons to ZZ Top, and you can hear that influence in the verses. The arrangement wasn’t final here, but the idea was a keeper. There are some cool differences, such as the “Kisses like the kiss of death!” line repeating three times at the end. I think Gene has performed it live that way before. 4/5
“Mad Dog” should be familiar to Kiss collectors. The demo was also included in Kiss’ Box Set. The main riff was later used in “Flaming Youth” on Destroyer, a better song. Ace Frehley on guitars, J.R. Smalling on drums. This raises an interesting question. How many of the songs in this box set should be considered Gene Simmons demos, and how many should be considered Kiss? This demo has appeared under both names now. Some songs in this box set have more Kiss members on them than some Kiss songs. It’s a fine line. 3.5/5
“Only You” is a box set highlight. This pre-Elder version has the lyrics that Doro Pesche would one day record in her cover. This is the best version of “Only You” there is. It is completely different after the first few verses, turning into a bopping groove with a piano lick anchoring it! This is the version Kiss should have recorded, though perhaps for Kiss Killers. In the liner notes, Gene explains that this was based on an earlier song called “Eskimo Sun” that we will eventually get to. Gene says the chords were built from an appreciation for George Harrison. Sounds like Ace Frehley on guitar, though Gene suggests in the liner notes that he recorded it without other members of Kiss. He goes out of his way to say that they rarely accepted his requests to play on his demos. There are sour grapes throughout the liner notes, which is unfortunate. Great song. 5/5
“True Confessions #2” has Katey Sagal among the backup singers. Some of these early demos have elements to them that should have carried over to the final versions. Gene’s more natural singing on this is one such example. It’s better this way than with the “monster” voice. The truth of the matter is Gene’s not a bad singer, OK? The monster voice is a bit much sometimes, and “True Confessions” proves it. Gene’s just more expressive and sounds more like a lead singer than a character with his natural voice. And that says it all. In the end, character was chosen over authenticity. 4/5
“Childhood’s End” is a very rough recording of the song that later ended up on Carnival of Souls. Though the title was lifted from Arthur C. Clarke’s groundbreaking novel, the lyrics are about a friend who committed suicide. This idea was also used in “Legends Never Die” from Disk 1. This particular version of “Childhood’s End” is unfinished and not nearly as compelling. It does include a breakdown that is not in the final version, but sounds similar to “Outromental”. This song needed a lot of work, and this demo is also really hard on the ears. 2.5/5
“Burning Up With Fever #2” is another demo with Ace and J.R. Smalling. It later ended up on Gene’s solo album. This version rocks harder with less funk. The funkiness of Gene’s solo album was sometimes a little off-putting, so this demo may be more your speed. 3.5/5
“Good Girl Gone Bad” later ended up on Crazy Nights, but this early version has Bruce Kulick and what sounds like a drum machine. It’s harder edged. Though the final song is one of the better tunes on the album, this earlier arrangement shows it could have been a more Kiss-like rocker. When they talk about compromises made to make Crazy Nights more commercial, this demo shows what was cut. Guitars! Shame the demo is so rough sonically, but keep in mind, nobody was saving these for eventual release on a box set. 3.5/5
“Trial By Fire” was one of Gene’s songs from the Asylum era, therefore this is one of the earliest things he recorded with Bruce Kulick. This was always one of Gene’s better songs from an era when he wasn’t writing a lot of great songs. This one has a different chorus of “Live fast, die young!” This wasn’t on an old bootleg tape I used to have of Gene’s Asylum demos. I would think this song was actually called “Live Fast Die Young” at this stage of composition. 3.5/5
A little more bass-heavy is the similar demo for “Secretly Cruel”, the other really good song that Gene did for Asylum. This one did need a little more work in the guitar hook department, which it did eventually get. Decent demo inclusion, though in this case the album version is the good one. 3/5
“Love ‘Em and Leave ‘Em Yeah”, also known and “Rock and Rolls Royce” is a demo idea written around Destroyer, and eventually released on Rock and Roll Over. It’s different from the 3:02 demo on the Destroyer box set. It’s unclear who is playing on this demo, but there’s an early guitar solo and full drums. 3.5/5
“Am I Losing My Mind” is another stab at the song that would become “Only You”. This demo is more “new wave” sounding, with programmed drums that sound somewhat dance-y. Then it goes into a completely different chorus that is kind of funky, and doesn’t particularly match. It is fascinating to hear how these songs evolve. And we’re not finished yet, because there are more branches on this musical tree to come later on in this box set. 3/5
Average score for this CD: A respectable 3.83/5
Disk 3 Track length and songwriters (from Wikipedia)
1. Christine Sixteen (VH Bros. Demo) (2:39) Simmons
2. Tunnel of Love (VH Bros. Demo) (3:32) Simmons
3. Got Love for Sale (VH Bros. Demo) (3:10) Simmons
4. Hell or High Water (Demo) (3:08) Simmons / Kulick
5. Domino (Demo) (3:46) Simmons
6. Mad Dog (Demo) (2:27) Simmons
7. Only You (Demo) (4:35) Simmons
8. True Confessions #2 (3:33) Simmons
9. Childhood’s End (Demo) (3:30) Simmons / Kulick / Thayer
10. Burning Up With Fever #2 (3:06) Simmons
11. Good Girl Gone Bad (Demo) (4:04) Simmons / Sigerson
12. Trial by Fire (Demo) (3:31) Simmons / Kulick
13. Secretly Cruel (Demo) (3:46) Simmons
14. Love ‘Em and Leave ‘Em Yeah (Demo) (2:18) Simmons
15. Am I Losing My Mind (2:52) Simmons
I don’t know what I was collecting these quotes for, but I found them on a hard drive recently, and so here are my favourite quotes by Eddie Van Halen!
“I can’t read music. Instead, I’d do stuff inside the piano, do harmonics and all kinds of crazy things. They used to put me in these annual piano contests down at Long Beach City College, and two years in a row, I won first prize – out of like 5,000 kids! The judges were like, ‘Very interesting interpretation!’ I thought I was playing it right.”
“The one thing I do have is good ears. I don’t mean perfect pitch, but ears for picking things up. I developed my ear through piano theory, but I never had a guitar lesson in my life, except from Eric Clapton off of records.”
“It’s music theory, not music fact”
“If it sounds good, it is good. Who cares if you didn’t do it modernly.”
“To hell with the rules. If it sounds right, then it is.”
“I destroyed a lot of guitars trying to get them to do what I wanted, but I learned something from every guitar I tore apart, and discovered even more things.”
“Music is for people. The word ‘pop’ is simply short for popular. It means that people like it. I’m just a normal jerk who happens to make music. As long as my brain and fingers work, I’m cool.”
“David Lee Roth had the idea that if you covered a successful song, you were half way home. C’mon – Van Halen doing ‘Dancing in the Streets’? It was stupid. I started feeling like I would rather bomb playing my own songs than be successful playing someone else’s music.”
“It’s all about sound. It’s that simple. Wireless is wireless, and it’s digital. Hopefully somewhere along the line somebody will add more ones to the zeros. When digital first started, I swear I could hear the gap between the ones and the zeros.”
“If you have a great-sounding guitar that’s a quality instrument and a good amp, and you know how to make the guitar talk, that’s the key. It starts with the guitar and knowing what it should sound and feel like.”
“Actually, if I could deliberately sit down and write a pop hit, all my songs would be pop hits! Let’s put it this way. I play what I like to hear. And sometimes I like to hear something poppy, and sometimes I don’t.”
I’ve always liked the final Van Halen album, A Different Kind of Truth, and I have found it still stands up after a decade of digestion. As you are probably aware, most of the album is reworked demos. One such demo is “Ripley” from 1984, which later became “Blood and Fire” on the album. The music made it into the score for a movie called The Wild Life which has never seen a proper audio release. Eddie called the song “Ripley” because he played it on a Ripley guitar.
It’s impossible to listen to it without hearing David’s final lyrics and vocals in your head. But is the instrumental version better than the final? That’s a tough call. It definitely would have been interesting to hear what Sammy Hagar could have done with “Ripley”, but if the idea to rework it with Hagar ever came up, it obviously didn’t bear fruit.
Enjoy “Ripley” by Edward Van Halen!
Hey S,
I felt like writing again, I hope you don’t mind. My emails are not the esteemed A Life in Letters by Isaac Asimov, but it’s more about the process of the writing for me.
I’ve been listening to Van Halen in the car a lot. Long story short: I’ve been having issues with my music hard drive in the car, with it repeating tracks. I discovered I could fix it by formatting the drive and starting over. Certain Van Halen albums used to give me issues in the car, with the repeating songs. It’s been a pleasure to rock to King Edward this week. It’s hard to believe but he died over a year ago now.
I remember coming home from work the day he died and I was just in a foul mood. Not only was I grieving Edward Van Halen, but I felt stupid for grieving someone I never met and never hoped to meet. It was a torrent of shitty feelings, plus I hadn’t eaten properly. It was a Tuesday and I had to do laundry or something, and I snapped at Jen. I felt like an asshole afterwards. I also remember telling you this story, and you were the one who said it was OK to be grieving. Until that moment I didn’t really consider that maybe you don’t have to be a psycho to be upset about Van Halen’s death.
Music aside — which was usually warm, fun with instrumental and occasional lyrical depth — Van Halen meant a lot to me. I must have been 13 years old when I was sitting on the porch with my best friend Bob, hearing 1984 on the tape deck for the first time. My dad came home from work, heard the noise and asked what we were listening to, as dads often did. “Van Halen!?” he said. “Sounds like some kind of tropical disease!”
My dad was always good with one liners! When we watched music videos on Much, he would mock the singers shrieking their best operatic screams. “What’s wrong with that man? Should he go to the hospital? He sounds like he’s in pain!”
Good memories, all. I’m very attached to those childhood memories. I’m trying to commit them all to writing before they’re gone. Often, lost memories can be triggered by an old photograph. But there are many things I wish I had video of! If only there was a tape or photograph of that first time I heard Van Halen. But film was a precious commodity until the last 15 years or so. You didn’t just take pictures of you and your friends listening to music on the front porch.
I remember some of the tapes, and conversations. Iron Maiden’s Maiden Japan was popular in our porch listening sessions. George would come over from next door, and Bob would come over with his tapes. My house was right in the middle! I wonder how much of my happiest childhood memories are due to geographic concerns. If my house wasn’t right there in the middle of everybody, maybe I never would have been there that day to hear Van Halen or Iron Maiden.
Sometimes I worry that I spend too much time living in the past and trying to recapture those moments. But then I think about what you would say to that. “Why are you worried about something that brings you happiness?” I think you might ask. And you’d be right. So bring on the Van Halen. Bring on the Iron Maiden. Let’s party like it’s 1985. Might as well go for a soda — nobody hurts, nobody dies.
Mike
‘Twas only a year ago I wrote these words:
There will never be another Van Halen. No player before or since will have the ingenuity and influence he did. From modifying his own guitars and amps to achieve the perfect “brown sound”, to brutalizing the strings with a drill, he was an innovator. He was the most important of all the guitar innovators. And he sheepishly grinned through the whole thing as if to say, “Who, me? I did that?”
A year later, it’s only more certain that there will never been another Eddie. You can read my full memorial here: Rest in Peace to the greatest guitar player of all time.
The week Eddie passed, we did a tribute to him on the LeBrain Train. You can watch that tribute below, starting at the 20 minute mark.
As if that wasn’t enough, we followed that with another Van Halen show: VH deep cuts! One thing for sure, Eddie certainly inspired a lot of conversation on the LeBrain Train over the past year. You can watch the deep cuts below, starting again at 20 minutes.
Let’s all take a moment to reflect, and play some Van Halen tonight. Tonight, I’m going to go with “Dirty Movies” from Fair Warning to spotlight the greatest gee-tar picker of all time. What song or album will you play for Eddie tonight?
The final episode of the Pepsi Power Hour aired at the end of the summer of 1991. The man with the sad honour of signing off was veteran Michael Williams. Off and on, Williams hosted the Power Hour since 1986 if not earlier. It was filmed at a welding shop in Calgary, Alberta. Because metal? (Bad, bad idea! Audio engineers, your thoughts on this setting?)
Williams played Metallica’s “One”, and “Hunger Strike” by Temple of the Dog. The shape of things to come.
The episode also features an interview with a new band called The Scream, featuring an up-and-comer named John Corabi. A couple years later, and Corabi would be the new singer in Motley Crue.
The very last band ever played on the Pepsi Power Hour was Van Halen. It was a big interview by Kim Clarke Champniss regarding the new album For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge. The very last song ever played was “Runaround”.
The Power Hour was supplanted by the inferior Power 30. It was a significant change. I rarely missed a Power Hour. The Power 30 was rarely worth catching. However, look for the ad for a promising new Saturday show called Start Me Up – three hours of rock!
YouTube has forced me to butcher this video to get it up, so there are no music videos. The Van Halen interview is mutilated. There are some ads and all the talking. It’s history!
Speaking of history: 100 VHS Archives! And counting! I started posting these in 2019 and I still have plenty of files left to upload, and a few more tapes to play. I’ve been taking it easy lately because the software is user-unfriendly and my VCR is making odd noises. But we’re not done. Not by a long shot.
Click here to check out all the VHS Archives!
GETTING MORE TALE #872: “Tattoo”
On January 10, 2012, Van Halen released their first new single with David Lee Roth on vocals since 1996: “Tattoo”, from the forthcoming album A Different Kind of Truth. An exciting day to be sure.
I had not yet started this site, but if I had, on that day nine years ago I would have written this story.
In 2012, radio station 107.5 Dave FM (now Dave Rocks) was still running the contest that put me on the map locally speaking: The Four O’Clock Four-Play. Afternoon host Craig Fee would play four songs in a row, and listeners had to guess what the common thread between the four songs was. I won more often than anyone else and became a local celebrity named “LeBrain”, and that’s why you’re reading this today. But on January 10, Craig stumped me.
The Four-Play that day was, of course, Van Halen’s “Tattoo”, played four times in a row! Craig, who has since left the radio business, was a massive Van Halen fan. He was the kind of guy who would see “Love Walks In” on that day’s play list, and remove it in favour of “Hear About It Later”. He was unafraid and that combined with a diehard love of Roth-era Van Halen must have been all it took to play “Tattoo” four times in a row on the Four-Play.
Truly it was a glorious time to be listening to the radio. You never knew what Craig was going to play on any given show. He had a penchant for “Rainbow in the Dark” by Dio, and of course Roth-era Van Halen deeper cuts. He played half of Fair Warning on his show once. I don’t know what the real-world consequences were for these musical shenanigans, but Craig’s bravado was inspiring. After the Four-Play contest was discontinued in April of that year, the show’s format became more of a listener call-in program, and the glory days came to an end.
But what was the “common thread” for the purposes of the contest that day? “Tattoo” played four times? Arbitrarily, it was the Elvis tattoo in the lyrics. “I got Elvis, on my elbow…” Of course it could have been anything, but Craig just needed an excuse to play the song over and over and over again and still give away that day’s prize.
This post is dedicated to Craig, who I hope is doing well out there in his post-radio life. I feel very fortunate to have had his show to listen to at work, playing all this stuff that no other radio station would have dared. We Van Halen fans were in our glory that day, getting our fill of the new tune and enjoying every moment. Of course, people who hated the song were in agony for that show. Oh well! So sad, too bad.
Hard to believe David Lee Roth was back and an album was really coming — and now we had the proof in our ears! Almost as hard to believe Craig got away with playing “Tattoo” four times in the space of a 30-minute contest.
A story for the rock n’ roll history books; a memory for the ages.
Big thanks to 2020 for making this our most successful year at mikeladano.com yet. The final tally is:
284,513 hits from 135,708 unique viewers. This is a massive uptick from our previous best year, 2018, which received “only” 215,440 views. Thank you pandemic, because that’s what this totally is. I had no new ideas for 2020; I had given up on “growth”, only for 2020 to come to the rescue with a goddamn pandemic!
One way you can tell this uptick had nothing to do with me: All the top hits are old, old posts with deep roots on Google searches.
The death of Eddie Van Halen caused October to be our best month ever, and helped push Van Halen to #1 this year as well as contributing to the record hits overall. The Van Halen Zero review is now the most popular thing I’ve ever written, having been read 12,294 times.
By comparison, the best-read “new” post this year was:
I guess the message here is: recycle, recycle, recycle!
Hits by country in 2020: Top Five usual suspects – the same countries as last year, just in a barely different order!
I already posted the stats for Youtube views on live streams, and I’ve also already done my look ahead at 2021.
What do these stats show us? The power of both Eddie Van Halen and a worldwide pandemic. I’m pleased that people chose to read my stuff at those times, but I’d give just about anything to get Eddie and our normal world back. Since I can’t, I can only tell you this: I don’t plan on stopping in 2021! And that’s about all I can say. 2020 taught us that life doesn’t give a shit about your plans. I had plans in 2021 and they didn’t involve sitting in this little space live streaming. This time there is no plan except give ‘er. The universe tends to unfold as it does.
I wish you nothing but peace, happiness and harmony in 2021. Let’s give ‘er together.
mikeladano.com 