No longer vital, RIP DLR.
I love David Lee Roth. His music takes me back to a time when all I had to worry about was getting drunk, being with my friends and making sure the skins where kept dry. But that was almost 15 years ago, and even then the music we were just discovering was old school to our older brothers and friends.
I'd give anything for those days to come back, but sadly all the bitching about Sammy Hager, regardless of the fact he deserves it, isn't going to rewind the world to a time when Dave's music charted and made money on the road.
The people he's playing with now are irrelevant and boring. I can't help but hope that Dave knows this, that in the back of his mind he's all too aware of how NOT some of these shdrules are, and I hope, more than I hope he gets back to a place where his music is actually exciting again, that he at least recognises this is one of the reasons no one buys his records anymore. Not because we, the silent majority of his fans, don't love him as much as ever, but because Shoop Bop, or whatever it's called, just isn't Knucklebones, or Elephant gun. It isn't even Women and Children first or Take your Whiskey home. It's tired and fun-less - NOT what DLR is all about at all.
The guy's a legend, but he's just not vital anymore, and I think the forum members who, like me, are dead center with Eat em and smile / 1984 / VH 1 & 2 / Skyscraper Dave will agree, if they're honest about it.
All he's doing now, by marching on with the same thing he was doing when he was still young enough to get away with it, is trampling on our memory of what his music used to be all about - and worse than that he's become what he least wanted to be.
It's time not just Dave but all the hair rock idols of the past, Steve Vai in particular, just fessed up to the fact the only reason they keep churning product out is because it makes them more money than just hanging up their spandex and growing old gracefully. Unfortunately for as long as the kind of people who'll no doubt flame me for saying it carry on buying into it and being strung along in the belief it's all still real and happening, they'll be there to re-jig the same old formula and trade in our nostalgia.
Frankly, it's all just sad - and if I was as clear about it as I am except my name was Eddie Van Halen, I'd have a drink problem too.
In short, the party is well and truly over. Clean up after yourself when you leave and tommorow, when you've calmed down, go out and buy some new records. I recommend Billy Sheehan's new album - there's actually something new and exciting on it - which I suspect will make a change to some of the people who post their poorly informed opinion all too frequently in here on why people like me are wrong.
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