van halen 3

Youtubin’: Van Halen – “Without You” Live in Australia 1998

While I will admit that Van Halen 3 didn’t live up to the potential of the collaboration between Cherone and VH, it ain’t bad.  Many people said, “They should have changed their name and called it something else.”  That’s one perspective, but I don’t think Van Halen ever needed to go by any name other than Van Halen so long as Eddie and Alex were there.  Just my opinion.

“Without You” was arguably the best song (with the outtake “That’s Why I Love You” also a contender).  This live version from Australia helps illustrate what was working and what wasn’t.  The truth is, while Gary Cherone is a unique frontman, his gangly-geeky stretches and contortions didn’t suit Van Halen’s live show.  Vocally though?  No issues with Gary Cherone in Van Halen.  When they go into “We Can Work It Out” by the Beatles at the end, I’m sold.

#845: VHIII

This piece is a followup to the Friday July 17 live stream “Lead Singer’s Disease”.

GETTING MORE TALE #845: VHIII

We carried two magazines at the Record Store:  Spin, and Rolling Stone.  I cannot remember which printed the following comment in 1996, when Van Halen announced their new lead singer.  After a tumultuous few months with Sammy Hagar quitting and David Lee Roth briefly re-joining, the Van Halens decided on Extreme frontman Gary Cherone to carry the VH torch.

Spin or Stone, in a brief paragraph, commented:  “Roth, Hagar, Cherone…the downward spiral continues.”

Bullshit!

I called bullshit then and I call bullshit now.  That is crap journalism, and so typical of the anti-rock attitudes of the 1990s.

First of all, we hadn’t heard one note of Gary Cherone’s new music with Van Halen, so how could they make that judgement?  Second, it severely short-sells Sammy Hagar, who took Van Halen to their first #1 and scored some seriously massive followup hits with the band.  Critically acclaimed ones too, like “Right Now”.  So:  bullshit!  They were absolutely out of line to print that, and we had many reasons to be optimistic about Gary Cherone.

Some of the thoughts that crossed our minds when the Van Halen news hit:

  • Will Van Halen play “More Than Words” live, like they use to give Sammy a solo song or two?  Eddie would sound amazing on that, wouldn’t he?  He’d put his own spin on it, surely.
  • With Cherone, Van Halen would be able to play a wider variety of Roth tunes again.
  • Gary’s natural charisma, as witnessed at the 1992 Freddie Mercury tribute concert, was bound to bring new life to Van Halen.
  • His lyrics, usually more serious than Hagar’s, would allow Van Halen to adapt to the 1990s.
  • The only drawback I saw was that Gary didn’t play guitar, bringing Van Halen back to just one guitar, live.  The tiniest of issues.

I was not only optimistic, but I was excited.  It’s natural, when two bands you like merge in such a way.  One of my favourite singers working with one of my favourite bands?  Yeah, I was overly excited.  At that time, coming off three amazing Extreme albums in a row, I was a bigger Gary fan than Sammy.  However, when Van Halen III finally came out in 1998 after an agonising wait, I was not immediately impressed.  Nor were a lot of people.  But I gave it more than a fair shake, cranking it as much as I could get away with at the Record Store.  And it grew on me.  It was my favourite album to play in the car during the spring of ’98.

I bought the album in the limited edition tin.  I got it from Al King at Sam the Record Man.  I had a lot invested it in emotionally and monetarily.  T-Rev will remember me praising the record, but also telling him, “Something about it doesn’t sound like Van Halen.”  What I sensed then was the lack of Michael Anthony who only appeared on three tracks.  His lack of vocals was very obvious.

When Eddie first decided upon Gary Cherone as singer, one of the things he commented was that Gary had the “voice of an angel”.  I found that encouraging, but when they made Van Halen III, Gary bellowed almost every single song at the top of his lungs.  His blown-out voice carried none of the nuance it did on the same-titled Extreme album III.  It was a disappointing choice, making Cherone sounding overly similar to Sammy Hagar.

“Why bother changing singers if the new guy is trying to sound like the old guy?” I wondered to myself.

Van Halen did not play “More Than Words” or any other Extreme songs live.  One could argue that Extreme didn’t have the pedigree of Sammy Hagar and didn’t deserve to take up any time in a setlist when you could play another Roth song instead.  Many of them returned to the live setting after an absence:  “I’m the One”, “Unchained”, “Mean Street”, “Romeo Delight”, “Dance the Night Away”, “Feel Your Love Tonight”, and even “Somebody Get Me a Doctor”, albeit now sung by Michael Anthony.  The new Cherone album took up a generous chunk of the set, and the Hagar tracks were reduced to a few key hits:  “Why Can’t This Be Love”, “When It’s Love”, “Humans Being” and “Right Now”.

The new Van Halen underperformed to say the least.  I was shocked when we received 50 copies at the Record Store.  There was no way I was going to be able to sell 50 copies, and I tried.  Lord did I try!  I have been very critical of our regional manager in the past, because she was absolutely merciless in pointing out every one of my failures.  Now that she can’t hurt me anymore, I feel freer to talk about some of it.  She definitely can’t blame me for us getting stuck with a huge pule of Van Halen III.  I never would have ordered 50 copies.  20 was what I had in mind.  But she didn’t ask me.  Hand on the bible, this one was not on me.

YouTuber Todd in the Shadows tackled Van Halen III in one of his “Trainwreckords” episodes, and he goes into great detail about every single thing that went wrong with the album.  This excellent and funny analysis is well worth the 18 minutes of your time.

 

#806: Freestylin’ in 2 the New Year

A followup to #804:  Freestylin’

 

GETTING MORE TALE #806: Freestylin’ in 2 the New Year

Here we are, friends!  Only a few days into the new year and new decade.  Doesn’t really feel like it, does it?

One of the last things I did in 2019 was hang out with the ever-entertaining Uncle Meat.  The newest musical addiction he’s got me started on is a YouTube channel called Todd in the Shadows.  Todd has two series that we are currently enjoying:  Trainwreckords, and One Hit Wonderland.  Both series have been immensely entertaining and informative.

I’ll give you an example.  Remember the New Radicals?  They had a single hit at the end of the 1990s called “You Get What You Give”.  At the time, people thought singer Gregg Alexander was the next Mick Jagger, but the thing that caught the attention of the press were these lines:

Fashion shoots with Beck and Hanson,
Courtney Love and Marilyn Manson,
You’re all fakes, run to your mansions,
Come around, we’ll kick your ass in!

Manson was pissed off just to be mentioned in the same line as Courtney Love, who was far less amused.  The media focused only on those lines, and none of the rest, like “Health insurance rip off lying, FDA big bankers buying.”  The New Radicals split before they released their second single, with Alexander having achieved everything he set to accomplish.  He then moved behind the scenes, where he became an even bigger success.

Bigger success?  Indeed, Alexander’s songs have been recorded by Santana, America, Mandy Moore, Hall & Oates, Enrique Iglesias, Rod Stewart, some of the Spice Girls, Rivers Cuomo, and even Hanson who held no grudges.  The guy is definitely getting the last laugh.

I was aware of none of these things except for the media hype.  I wrote off Gregg Alexander as a poser with a dumb hat.  Well, he ditched the hat and found his niche.   Thanks to Todd in the Shadows, I know more about the New Radicals and I even like their second single, “Someday We’ll Know” as covered by Hall & Oates.

Todd in the Shadows also has excellent episodes on Van Halen III, Hootie and the Blowfish’s sophomore record, Mungo Jerry, Cyberpunk by Billy Idol, and CCR‘s Mardi Gras among many.  Did you know Mungo Jerry re-recorded “In the Summertime” as an 80s song?  While I don’t always agree with Todd, it’s remarkable how often our thought-paths do cross.  We had many similar misgivings about Van Halen III, including the lack of Michael Anthony’s vocals.  He concludes that it could just be that the Van Halen brothers are assholes.

Meat and I ended the decade by surfing the Tube, and enjoying a few laughs.  It occurred to me, you could just record us talking and put it online as-is, like a four-hour podcast.  I don’t want to start recording the conversations I have with friends, but that’s exactly what it is like.  At one point I said to myself “It’s almost a waste that I’m not recording all this talk.”  But then I smacked myself in the head and said, “No fucking way do I want to do that.”

It’s like I mentioned a few chapters back.  I can’t just write about music, or talk about music.  I have to spend more time just listening to it.  And it’s the same with friendships.  Just because he speaks solid gold every time he opens his mouth, that doesn’t mean I have record it for posterity.  In a way it’s too bad, because our discussions would blow away 90% of the podcasts already out there, but life matters more.  You gotta just live it, not constantly worry about missing an opportunity to post something and get hits.

Even though it would be awesome.

In 2020, I aim to live a little bit more, and search for content a little less.  Some folks (not naming names) feel that perhaps I’ve become too critical – that I can’t enjoy things without critiquing them.  While I’ve always been writing reviews, perhaps my gears are a little stuck.

Two more things I’d like to change:

  • Less politics
  • Less time on social media

Neither of those two things have made my world a better place.  They suck up too much time and energy.  It might be hard to be less political in 2020 knowing what it yet to come, but it’s not like a political rant is going to make the world a better place.

Don’t mistake this for “resolutions”.  New Year Resolutions are just lies we tell ourselves for a few weeks before we slowly but surely resume business as usual.  I’m not planning on ditching any of my bad habits, just some unproductive behaviours.

Music can make the world a better place.  So let’s consume more of it!  Let’s chat like Uncle Meat and I can, about all the great stuff out there that’s filling our ears!

 

Part 186: The Van Halen Tin

RECORD STORE TALES Part 186:  The Van Halen Tin

March 17, 1998.  The wait was over – Van Halen 3 was out!

Van Halen’s 3 was kind of like The Phantom Menace for me:  I was really excited about it, so much that it clouded my judgement of the music.  I wanted new Van Halen so bad I would have taken just about anything I guess.  Just like I would take Phantom Menace the following year.  T-Rev, always the level-headed one, questioned whether I was enjoying the album more simply because of the absurd money that I had paid for it.

I paid $45 for the “collector’s tin”.  I was hoping for bonus tracks, but there was nothing like that.  A pick, a tin, some paper stuff, a sticker.  It was still pretty cool to look at, and collectible.

I was living with T-Rev at the time.  I was and still am very “OCD” about my CD collection.  I don’t lend discs out anymore for example.  Back then and today I am very fussy about the condition of the album.

A day or two after Van Halen came out, our buddy Neil came by to play N64 and have a beer.  I was working the night shift that night, so I didn’t get in until after 9.  When I came in, I played some N64 with Neil and headed off to bed.

The next day I woke up and wanted to play the new Van Halen.  I grabbed it off my CD tower, and noticed something…not right.  A fingerprint!  On the tin!  I could see it!  But it wasn’t mine!  Before I filed it, I distinctly remember wiping the tin.  It had no fingerprints!

When T-Rev got up I asked him, “Hey, I know you wouldn’t have done it, you know me too well, but did Neil happen to look at my Van Halen 3 yesterday?”

T-Rev grinned and asked how I knew.  I explained the fingerprint.

“The funny thing,” said T-Rev, “is that I told Neil you were going to notice if he touched it!  He didn’t believe me!”

Trevor assured me that Neil was very careful with it, and didn’t touch the CD itself, etc. etc.  We couldn’t help laughing at the fact that I did notice.  That’s the OCD!  I had a lot invested in that Van Halen disc, emotionally and monetarily.

Listening to it today with fresh ears, it’s not the disaster that some (cough cough Craig Fee cough) think it is.  But it’s certainly not worthy of the praise that I gave it back in ’98.  If it were an Extreme album, it wouldn’t be the best Extreme album.  As a Van Halen album, well…

NEXT TIME ON RECORD STORE TALES…A Day In the Life (VIDEO BLOG!)

REVIEW: Van Halen – 3 (1998 collector’s tin)

Welcome back to the second installment of our Van Halen two-parter review.  Last time we talked about the Can’t Stop Loving You singles.  Today, we’ll be discussing the controversial Van Halen 3, with a special emphasis on this neat but overpriced collector’s tin.

Van Halen – 3 (collectors’ tin 1998)

In this day and age, bands always release different editions of albums, to jack up the price and hopefully also sell multiple versions to the same buyer.  Today we get bonus tracks, entire bonus CDs, or a DVD to get us to pay a higher price.  In 1998, at least with this Van Halen album, we got nothing of the sort.  We got paper, plastic, and tin, but no extra content.  It is bonus content that gets me to pay the higher price, normally.  Throw on exclusive music and the collector in me salivates.

Before we get into all that, let’s talk about Van Halen 3, the album.

Fact: Van Halen shot themselves in the foot when they went through the whole Sammy-quit-now-Dave-is-back-no-he-isn’t thing. I remember watching the MTV Awards in 1996, and thinking that Dave being back in Van Halen was about the best thing that had ever happened.   And then when I found out that Gary Cherone was lead singer?  Hoping for the best, fearing for the worst.

I’d been following Cherone for years, and his touch on Extreme’s III Sides To Every Story was absolutely sublime.  But even though both Extreme and Van Halen had a penchant for flashy solos and the odd ballad, it just didn’t seem like the right match.  Cherone was a spiritual and political lyricist, nothing like the party animal of Hagar nor the ringmaster of Roth.

Van Halen 3 was as complex and mature as you could have hoped, which is fine, but it also sounds decidingly unlike the band Van Halen. And vocally, something is wrong. Listening to this album, Cherone is not singing in his old style. He’s shrieking, pushing his voice to the breaking point, and sounding unfortunately a lot like Sammy Hagar, confusing the fans even more. On top of that, when I played the album I noticed right away that something didn’t sound right with the band itself. Turns out, I was right — Michael Anthony only played on three tracks. The rest was all Eddie on bass and backing vocals.

Van Halen 3 (still don’t really get the name) is a semi-triumph for the band, in certain senses. It is long, mature, diverse, progressive, and paradoxically it is also similar to 1984, soundwise. It has a similar coldness…like a chill was in the room where you can hear Eddie’s amp humming away. “From Afar” is so spare and epic, one can only wonder what would have happened if it was on 1984.  Elsewhere, Eddie’s warm synth has returned on tracks such as “Once”.  The guitars have that warm-amp fuzz to them that you just can’t fake with pro-tools.

Yet it is only a semi-triumph. As much as I want to like this album, I have to admit, these don’t sound like finished songs. Aside from my “highlight” songs (below) a lot of the tunes sound like they’re only half finished. As if Van Halen were songwriting amatures, and this is an overindulgent and underplanned demo tape. Eddie’s guitarwork is great, as always, but much of the time it sounds like he’s just jamming with himself. While this is fantastic to listen to from a technique point of view, you’re not humming the riffs an hour later, like you can every time you listen to Fair Warning or even Unlawful.

My highlights (not including instrumentals):
“Without You”
“One I Want”
“From Afar”
“Once”

Other songs, like “Ballot or the Bullet” just barely hang together.

The album especially stumbles when Eddie takes his first lead vocal on the smoky barroom ballad “How Many Say I”. The song is no good and Eddie can’t sing lead.

The best song, and the most Van Halen-like, wasn’t even on the album. “That’s Why I Love You” appeared on early promos, and should have been the single, but was dropped by Warners in a monumental error of judgement. If it had appeared, and if it was the first single, the fate of this album would definitely have been different. Track it down. You’ll see what I mean.

The tin itself is nice.  It has the Van Halen 3 cannonball guy printed on it, the VH “globe” logo printed on the back.   Incidentally, the CD inside is unique.  The regular retail edition did not have the checker pattern or the “circus” Van Halen logo.  If you’re buying one of these used make sure you’re getting the correct CD with your tin.  Also make sure it’s not scratched.  It is stored in a paper sleeve prone to this.

         

Inside are a pick (a pink one?) with VH logo, a 3 sticker, and numerous pieces of slotted card paper with pictures on them  Some pictures are of the band, and some with just a “3” theme.  The band photos are pretty cool.  It almost looks as if Van Halen were a real band at the time!  Some of these paper cards have lyrics and liner notes too.

The slotted paper cards have instructions that you can assemble them in a number of unique ways.  Never having done this before, I took this review as the opportunity to try it.  Fun??  No, not really.

Rating:

3/5 stars for the album

2/5 stars for the tin

Coda: 

I thought while we’re at it, let’s also take a look at the “Without You” promo CD single.  It contains a 4:57 edit (album version is 6:28 so a significant edit version).  It is mostly notable for its packaging:  A clear red case, giant puffy 3 sticker stuck to it, and a Van Halen logo sticker in the upper right corner.  The CD is designed to look like a 3″ single.  Definitely worth tracking down for collectors who love unique looking discs.