Listening Post: Van Halen - OU812

When I was about 15 or 16 my best friend in the summer vacation town of Bar Harbor was a guy named Pete. I met him while we were both prep cooks at the town's greasy spoon. Pete was a metal guy all the way. Used to listen to Pantera before anyone knew who they were. He took me to see Ozzy at the Blizzard of Oz tour stop at the Bangor State Fair, (Randy Rhodes was 5 feet from me and a little band named Def Leppard was the opener). Pete also had a pair of pants tailor painted with white stripes to emulate Eddie Van Halen's guitar. While I was immersing myself in Queen, Pete was learning to shred. I never even gave the Pasadena boys a chance.
Let's remedy that now, shall we?



Van Halen - OU812 - 1988 (Buy it)

Remember that Pasadena rock band that stirred up the shit on Sunset Blvd in the mid 70s? Yeah. They're gone.
Van Hagar is a different animal. It's an arena band of a different color. The Yes meets Metal template continues and, in a way, Eddie, Alex and Mike are really just a backing band for Hagar. except that this backing band is comprised of dynamite musicians who write the songs as well. Does this make sense?
I'm sort of struggling to figure out what I want to say when what I really want to say is that while Van Roth is the reason these guys are successful, Van Hagar is the better band. The album is better produced, the rhythm section is an entity unto itself, the leads are where they belong, the harmonies are up to par and even exceed the past. This is a band that takes itself seriously, not a band whose lead singer insured his cock.
Van Roth is a rock band for chicks. Van Hagar is a band for dudes. All the fist-pumping, devil-horned way.
If I'm not mistaken this is the first VH album to break the 40 minute mark. 50, actually. Giving the fans their cd owning money's worth.
But, what a ride. The first three tracks alone culminating in the hellride that is AFU, (A track with more energy and power than anything on the first 5 Roth albums) is worth the price of admission.
The pallet cleansing 7 minute Cabo Wabo subsides and we are back in familiar territory. Source of Infection is so good that it makes me forget that I am listening to a glorified glam metal band.
OU812 really takes up where 5150 left off and leaves the previous incarnation in the dust.

Grade A
A Side: When It's Love & Finish What Ya Started
BlindSide: Mine all Mine & Source of Infection
Downside: Black & Blue

Listening Post: Van Halen - 5150

When I was about 15 or 16 my best friend in the summer vacation town of Bar Harbor was a guy named Pete. I met him while we were both prep cooks at the town's greasy spoon. Pete was a metal guy all the way. Used to listen to Pantera before anyone knew who they were. He took me to see Ozzy at the Blizzard of Oz tour stop at the Bangor State Fair, (Randy Rhodes was 5 feet from me and a little band named Def Leppard was the opener). Pete also had a pair of pants tailor painted with white stripes to emulate Eddie Van Halen's guitar. While I was immersing myself in Queen, Pete was learning to shred. I never even gave the Pasadena boys a chance.
Let's remedy that now, shall we?



David Lee quits the band because he's the money maker and the rest of the band has been shorting him on royalties. Okie dokie.
So, what to do? How to replace the Joel Grey MC of Rock?
While getting his lamborghini cleaned Eddie meets, befriends and decides to work with one Sammy Hagar. Oooooookay....
Flashback to my friend Pete. We're in a record store in Maine and he's STILL waiting for his Eddie Van Halen pants to be painted and he pulls out a record. It's by Sammy Hagar. Apparently this guy can't drive 55 or something. And Pete thinks the guy is brilliant.
I guess, looking back, the marriage of Van Hagar makes sense.
I was actually kind of tickled by preparing to listening to this version of VH because while he was with Montrose, Hagar wrote one of the best pop songs ever. Of course, his version is nearly impossible to listen to but Rick Springfield's cover of "I've Done Everything for You" is brill, baby!
How is 5150, then?
It's....not bad. It kicks pretty hard at the open with "Good Enough" and really doesn't let up for a while. When it does, it's for the quintessentially 80s synth sounding Dreams. Even that song, however, has more teeth than the average Jon Parr song (which it sort of sounds like). I don't even mind the stupid ballad, Love Walks In, in fact I kind of like it.
This is a bigger band than before. It's not Van Halen. It's something else. It's like Asia with shreddability.

Grade A
A Side: Why Can't This Be Love? & Good Enough
BlindSide: 5150 & Inside & Love Walks In
Downside: Summer Nights is the qeakest track on a very solid album.

Listening Post: Van Halen - 1984

When I was about 15 or 16 my best friend in the summer vacation town of Bar Harbor was a guy named Pete. I met him while we were both prep cooks at the town's greasy spoon. Pete was a metal guy all the way. Used to listen to Pantera before anyone knew who they were. He took me to see Ozzy at the Blizzard of Oz tour stop at the Bangor State Fair, (Randy Rhodes was 5 feet from me and a little band named Def Leppard was the opener). Pete also had a pair of pants tailor painted with white stripes to emulate Eddie Van Halen's guitar. While I was immersing myself in Queen, Pete was learning to shred. I never even gave the Pasadena boys a chance.
Let's remedy that now, shall we?



Van Halen - 1984 - 1984 (Buy it)

this is it. The one with all the hits. The one with the ubiquitous videos. The one with that great picture of cupid smoking on the cover (best use of a baby until nevermind).
So. After hearing all the tracks, all 33 minutes of this (holy god, these albums are short!) are there any revelations to be made?
Yes. Without David Lee Roth, Van Halen would never have existed. Well, that's not true, they just wouldn't have become megastars.
Roth is the star here. Screw Eddie. The truth is, Eddie's solos are boring as hell. Okay, not really *boring* just more about the virtuosity than the song. Songs are excuses for solos. That makes them boring.
Subsequently, this is the David Lee Roth show and he knew it.
He's stellar here. The music is fine, a little bland, the keyboards are an interesting addition and without them there would be no "Jump", but that's not really saying much.
The true star track here is "Hot For Teacher", which conjures it's video and the dancing teacher in blue even 24 years later.
Don't get me wrong, this is a great album and well deserved of its success, it just doesn't reinvent the wheel or the guitar pic or anything. It's just a really good Van Halen album.

Grade A
A Side: really? Okay. Panama, Hot For Teacher, Jump
Blindside: I'll Wait & Girl Gone Bad
Downside: 1984 (ah those crazy, bloated, self-important semi orchestral opening tracks of the 80s)

Listening Post: Van Halen - Diver Down

When I was about 15 or 16 my best friend in the summer vacation town of Bar Harbor was a guy named Pete. I met him while we were both prep cooks at the town's greasy spoon. Pete was a metal guy all the way. Used to listen to Pantera before anyone knew who they were. He took me to see Ozzy at the Blizzard of Oz tour stop at the Bangor State Fair, (Randy Rhodes was 5 feet from me and a little band named Def Leppard was the opener). Pete also had a pair of pants tailor painted with white stripes to emulate Eddie Van Halen's guitar. While I was immersing myself in Queen, Pete was learning to shred. I never even gave the Pasadena boys a chance.
Let's remedy that now, shall we?



Van Halen - Diver Down - 1982 (Buy it)

"Where have all the good times gone?" the band asks on the opening track and I feel the same way after listening to this entry in their catalog.
Diver Down was sort of where I come in during VH's history. Because, well, who didn't love Pretty Woman? I bought the 45, the b-side of which was another cover, the goody a cappella "Happy Trails".
Now, here I am, 26 years removed from the days when I would hum those tunes in Mrs. Sprinkle's english class and I am finally diving in (pun intended) and what do I find?
This is the least inspired album in the band's oeuvre. Obviously they were burned by testing experimental waters on Fair Warning.
There is still the Eddie solo masturbation excercise (cathedral) which is a signature of the group but the rest of this is a sleepy, slunky exercise in retread.
The damned thing is chock full of covers which I would have expected from the band on maybe their first couple of entries but they are seasoned vets here. It's sort of inexcusable. And yet, it worked. At the time, this album was huge.
But it's as boring as can be.
Whatever fire was ignited on VH, whatever cocksuredness was put forth on II and W&C1st and whatever branching out that was achieved on Fair Warning is put to rest here.
There are no surprises.
In short, you don't need this album. You don't even really need the singles. Although Pretty Woman IS one of the best covers ever and The Full Bug is a blues number that is a harbinger of things to come.

Grade C
A Side: Pretty Woman
BlindSide: Big Bad Bill is Sweet William Now (Pulling a Queen here with the dixie-swing/white man blues) & The Full Bug
Downside: Secrets

Listening Post: Van Halen - Fair Warning

When I was about 15 or 16 my best friend in the summer vacation town of Bar Harbor was a guy named Pete. I met him while we were both prep cooks at the town's greasy spoon. Pete was a metal guy all the way. Used to listen to Pantera before anyone knew who they were. He took me to see Ozzy at the Blizzard of Oz tour stop at the Bangor State Fair, (Randy Rhodes was 5 feet from me and a little band named Def Leppard was the opener). Pete also had a pair of pants tailor painted with white stripes to emulate Eddie Van Halen's guitar. While I was immersing myself in Queen, Pete was learning to shred. I never even gave the Pasadena boys a chance.
Let's remedy that now, shall we?



Van Halen - Fair Warning - 1981 (Buy It)

From the first crunchy sounds of Eddie Van Halen's guitar we know that this is a different sort of VH record. It's more progressive. It's more assured. It takes chances and risks.
Of course it was their worst seller.
It's a shame, really, because after two records that are carbon copies of the same roller rink rock idea, and one that sounds like the stadium version of the previous two, Fair Warning is a breath of fresh air.
David's sleaziness is match note for note by Eddie's guitar.
Fair Warning isn't a friendly album. It's a stinky album. It's a dense album. It's a short album. And it's a great album.

Grade B+

A Side: Mean Street & Unchained
Blindside: Sinner's Swing
Downside: Push Comes to Shove (We don't need creepy grooves from the party boys)

Listening Post: Rick Springfield - Venus in Overdrive

Taking a breather from the retrospective nature of Listening Posts (and the redundant nature of the Van Halen Brothers Masturbation Projects), I got a note today that there was a new Rick Springfield album released (thanks, Mr. Orwell, I mean, iTunes!).
If you know me, you know that I am a Springfield fanatic. I came to him late, which is sort of a theme of mine. I was actually buying my girlfriend a vinyl copy of Working Class Dog (mocking the whole way) and spent an afternoon listening and saying, "WTF? This is great!".
Since then I have collected every album of Rick's on vinyl, save Sahara Snow & Anger....which are on CD.
This is the first ephemeral only Rick purchase. So, when I want to share it with my daughter, I will be hauling out an external hard drive and saying, "THIS is my music collection, behold the....abstract disposable, intangible nothingness!"

Is Venus in Overdrive good?
It's a shitload better than that crapfest album of covers he did a couple years ago, that's for sure.
And it's an interesting companion piece to Shock/Denial/Anger/Acceptance. Where that album took the dense depression that was Rick's wheelhouse in the late 90s and early aughts and melded it to a thick power pop conceit, ViO is much more acceptable.
In a way, Venus bridges the gap between Jessie's Girl and Beautiful You. Rick is accessible again, visiting the same pop hookiness (and mining his own sound in the process) of the former and melding it with an elder statesman viewpoint.
Much of it sounds like he listened to too much Jimmy Eat World but, that's okay, because I like Jimmy Eat World.
She is as good a John Lennon song as anyone has ever mimicked (and without anything new, it's nice to have someone besides Utopia to ape the sound), it actually kind of reminds me of The Monkees' Porpoise Song.
Allmusic is pretty dead on when they say that Mr. PC is a dynamite Foo Fighters tune, but I think it's got a little more teeth than Mr. Grohl can muster.
I feel bad for Rick, to be honest. He's a good little popsmith who is pigeonholed as a nostalgia act. His appeal is limited, perhaps by age, perhaps by his dedication to a song style that no one seems to be interested in anymore. it's kind of a shame. The same thing is sort of happening to REM.
I'm not sure anyone will buy this album that isn't already a fan, so Rick is preaching to a pretty devout choir. I have to wonder if there is anything to get new fans to buy this, though. I wish they would. The world needs a little Power Pop.

Buy Venus in Overdrive

Grade B+
A Side: Victoria's Secret
Blindside: 3 Warning Shots & Mr. PC
Downside: God Blinked (Swing it Sister) [late model Adam Ant quasi-neurotic angular dance music.]

Defender!

Okay, mofos, this has gotta be quick. I'm in a coffee shop in Big Bear on vacation. Helped my niece get online for her college stuff.
There is an arcade in this town. It has a Defender machine. I used to play Defender every day as a lad in Bar Harbor in the summertime. I never got more than 50,000 points.
A few years ago Beth and I were in Big Bear and hit the arcade and I dropped about 3 bucks in the game, once again, never getting more than 50K.
2 months ago I was at a production company where they have the game in their lobby. It's free. I got killed before I got one extra ship.
I suck.
Then we walked into this arcade in Big Bear again. Beth, Aaron, Tommy and I. I put four quarters on the machine and started.
I cracked 50,000 and ran out of smart bombs. Then I lost my spacemen and I was in outer space, where it is all frenzied mutants and pods and it's impossible to survive, at least for me.
Something odd happened this time, though.
I survived space.
I got back to the planet.
I broke 100,000 points.
200,000.
If I could just get, 300,000 that would be cool, I thought.
Then 3, 4, and half a million points.
Beth was ready to go. Ready to GO!?!?!? Are you crazy????? Don't you see what's happening here? My thumb and last two fingers on my joystick hand are blistered and bleeding. Dare I hope? Do I dream of a million?
I've never gotten more than three screens on ANY video game!
Then it happened.
994,000...996,000...998,000.....
And the game turned over.
One million.
Back to zero.
After that I just tried to die so I could put my name in.
I had 25 smart bombs and 40 ships. I could have played all day. I was in the zone.
I saved the fucking galaxy and achieved a lifetime dream.
I'm a geek, yes, but a geek who turned Defender over, fuckers!

listening Post: Van Halen - Women and Children First

When I was about 15 or 16 my best friend in the summer vacation town of Bar Harbor was a guy named Pete. I met him while we were both prep cooks at the town's greasy spoon. Pete was a metal guy all the way. Used to listen to Pantera before anyone knew who they were. He took me to see Ozzy at the Blizzard of Oz tour stop at the Bangor State Fair, (Randy Rhodes was 5 feet from me and a little band named Def Leppard was the opener). Pete also had a pair of pants tailor painted with white stripes to emulate Eddie Van Halen's guitar. While I was immersing myself in Queen, Pete was learning to shred. I never even gave the Pasadena boys a chance.
Let's remedy that now, shall we?




Van Halen - Women and Children First - 1980 (Buy it)

This is different. This sounds like the soundtrack to Almost Famous. This is classic rock determined to stand shoulder to shoulder with the giants of the day. There's a broader palette being drawn here. The soundscape is wider and more dense than anything that has come before.
Once again, the party atmosphere is present but, like I said, this is....different. It's a sound best played in a 50,000 seat amphitheater but it works great at a kegger, too.
The roller rink atmosphere is gone, though. Replaced by a prog-rock sensibility. W&C1st is not as easy to sink your teeth into. It's actually a more demanding record. Chunkier, groggier. At the same time it's a quick record and not just by elapsed time. Though that is swift, it's a breeze to get through most of this stuff. It sits nicely in the background and works well on your headphones.
Behind it all, VH has a sound and formula that just works. I'm not sure you need to hear anything but the first record, though.

Grade B+
A Side: And the Cradle Will Rock
Blindside: Everybody Wants Some! & Could this be Magic
Downside: Fools. It's just a little bloated amidst the streamlined stealth.

listening Post: Van Halen - Van Halen II

When I was about 15 or 16 my best friend in the summer vacation town of Bar Harbor was a guy named Pete. I met him while we were both prep cooks at the town's greasy spoon. Pete was a metal guy all the way. Used to listen to Pantera before anyone knew who they were. He took me to see Ozzy at the Blizzard of Oz tour stop at the Bangor State Fair, (Randy Rhodes was 5 feet from me and a little band named Def Leppard was the opener). Pete also had a pair of pants tailor painted with white stripes to emulate Eddie Van Halen's guitar. While I was immersing myself in Queen, Pete was learning to shred. I never even gave the Pasadena boys a chance.
Let's remedy that now, shall we?



Van Halen - Van Halen II - 1979 (Buy it)

Softer. That's my first sense of this album. A little more sheen. A little more pandering to the sounds of the times. Not as much edge. This is a supergroup that wants to sell more records the second time around.
This is not a bad thing. It just means that it's not full of surprises. It is EXACTLY what the title says.

Number 2.

Just another collection of songs by the rockingest cockrockers from Pasadena, California.

It opens with a sleepy, creepy blues cover of a Clint Ballard tune. Not how I would choose to open the album, but what the hell, doesn't matter.
This is more party rock.
Actually, it's better than that. This is roller rink rock.
There is no change to the formula. It worked the first time, it works the second time around.
Trouble is, after the first album there's really no reason to own this. Together, the two albums are barely over 1 hour in length so, by today's standards it would qualify as one cd.
However, 30 minutes is perfect. It's just right. Albums really shouldn't be much longer than 35 minutes, should they? Is there really anything you can't say in 35 minutes?
There's another Eddie solo piece on this. It's very different from "Eruption". "Spanish Fly" is an acoustic treat.
Eddie Van Halen. Show off. If only he wasn't so fucking good.
God, I can hear future Motley Crue all over this. And Poison. And Ratt and Warrant and all those big haired buggers. Just how influential was VH? Considering that they are really just Zeppelin Lite. But I hear the future of Rock and Roll through this album and it's just around the corner.

Grade A (But you don't need it if you have the first album)
A Side: Dance the Night Away
Blindside: Somebody get me a Doctor & D.O.A. & Beautiful Girls
Downside: You're No Good.

VH1 honors The Who

My good friend Jeff Christian, a high school buddy and school radio show co-hort has been extolling the virtues of The Who and the VH1 honors show for weeks. He emailed me his thoughts this morning so I thought we would make him Guest Blogger for the day.



From Jeff:
A few random thoughts on the VH1 show...

1. Dave Grohl is the coolest mofo on the freakin' planet! "Young Man Blues" was absolutely searing. I only wish they hadn't let that douchey little guy in the fedora come out to do vocals on “Bargain.”

2. Incubus gave "I Can See for Miles" just the right psychedelic edge, but missed the mark on "I Can't Explain.". I was craving Moonie's machine-gun fills and Pete's jangly Rickenbacker lead.

3. The Flaming Lips are totally insane…in a good way. And I want to crowd surf in a hamster ball before I die.

4. I loves me some Jack Black, but does he need to appear on every awards and tribute show?!? At least Mike Myers stayed home.

5. Eddie Vedder's vocal cords must have looked like ground beef after "Love Reign O'er Me," but it was worth every burst capillary. I think he's the most powerful vocalist of his era.

6. The introductions were fawning and generally unnecessary. When I think "rock gods," David Duchovny does not leap to mind. A little more Who history would have been appropriate.

7. I'd like to shake the hand of the VH1 salesperson that convinced Garnier Fructis that women15-24 are huge fans of The Who!!

8. Roger and Pete still have that amazing sound and interplay. But the banter was forced and Townshend's windmilling is beginniing to look unbecoming and self-parodic at his age. If they (as Daltrey foreshadowed) choose to do this into their nineties, I hope they won't keep smashing instruments.

9. My 4-year old was inconsolable when the show started because when I told her we were going to be hearing The Who, she assumed it would be Dr. Seuss.

Long live rock!!!