The are so so rock God

Sammy's mother died. R.I.P.


Personally, I wouldn't even bother with something as meaningless as the HOF induction, especially since he wouldn't be performing....but who knows with Sammy.






P.S. The Brothers have a seperate from the others....and you know there is no way that Sammy and Dave are sitting at the same table.




I really don't think a soap opera writer could make any of this s**t up.

I was listening to their demos with Gene Simmons and initial Warner Brothers' demos. It's really interesting how the songs changed for the official releases.

From the way Dave....sings especially on House of Pain for the Simmons' demo to Eddie's solos. At times there would be 3 guitar solos overdubbed on the Simmons. Some of the solos are not anywhere near what is on the official recordings....but Eddie's solo rarely had anythig to do with the rest of the song.


Mean Streets for example was origially a song called Voodoo Queen. They have the same basic music and break but with different lyrics.

Someone has put a couple of Warner Brothers' demos on youtube.

Voodoo Queen/Mean Streets

http://youtube.com/watch?v=Xdlka_R_jYU


On Fire


http://youtube.com/watch?v=H-FnJZ7jR_Y



Eruption (live)

1977

http://youtube.com/watch?v=XUZuTrZBAB0


1978

http://youtube.com/watch?v=pFQCNJc7EG8



I remember the first time I saw Eddie perform live and it was HTF? is he doing that....because he would play the solos with his back to the crowd in the really early days....I am talking way before they were even signed. He didn't want anyone seeing him doing the tapping and stealing it.

I had seen/heard hammer-on/off and/or tapping before with Hendrix, Page (Eddie would get the idea from seeing Page), and Steve Hackett....but ummmm....it didn't sound anything like what Eddie was playing.

[quote=Satchmo8101



I really don't think a soap opera writer could make any of this s**t up.[/QUOTE]

They sure could, but it'd be dismissed as not authentic and ridiculous, that is if it didn't include the term Van Halen.

About Ed playing with his back turned to the crowd: I've heard that there was another band that figured out about Ed's technique and tried to rush-release an album of their own BEFORE the VH debut came out. They had a similar version of You Really got Me, but VH1 came out two weeks earlier or so.

I find those demos very hard to listen to. The music quality is horrible. It seems the band hadn't really found their sound at the time, and sounded very much like a hack rock group, like the bands that VH would eventually inspire.

I've always found it very unfortunate that the majority of VH-inspired bands absolutely suck (ie, Mama's Boys. Ah, Skid Row. Er, Mr Big. Um, Extreme...*shudder*) because I still feel that VH's first five albums, and certain tracks on the sixth, are very good/excellent, well constructed, unique hard rock. VH sounded nothing like the other groups of the 80s, or should I say, the other groups of the 80s sounded nothing like VH. I think VH simply gets tossed into the pile of 80s atrocities by most people without an honest listen given to the subtle glimpses of greatness in their earlier music. This is easily seen regarding Eddie's guitar playing. He was a great soloist, but he was a phenominal rhythmist.

Anyway, I rarely listen to VH these days, or rock in general for that matter. Rock has been on about a year semi-hiatus from my headphones.

See, that's interesting. Is it the demo called "Zero" that we're talking about? I friggin' love that, I think it's from the Simmons sessions. Eddie's playing has more of a Michael Schenker quality to it, the way the guitars are harmonized and mixed. That rhythm break in "Big Trouble" when DLR says "I'm out the window...I'm gone!" -- as good as anything they ever did with Ted Templeman behind the knobs. I like the Volvo horns in that early version of "House of Pain" as well, again if these are the same sessions. If not, and this is that double-disc session from Simmons, I encourage you to check out the Zero demo. Amazing stuff, really.

As far as the reunion, did any of y'all see them with Roth back in the day? I love VH, but they always pissed me off live. Roths' sloppy refusal to sing with the music was and will always be a turn-off. I never cared for anything Hagar did after MONTROSE, but when I saw VAN HAGAR at Monsters of Rock in the 80s, at least Hagar represented that material well. Of course, we were walking around trying to pick up girls and paying no attention to them whatsoever (not a big fan of the Hagar era) but it was a much better live performance than anything I saw with Roth, unfortunately.

We spent the Van Hagar portion of the show trying to round everyone up so we could go home. At least Sammy did give props to the Detroit Pistons, who has just taken the Lakers to 6 games before losing in the Finals (I was at one of the games).

All this talk about VH is making my brain hurt.

buzz buzz