Van Halen III

[loucap81]

I said this in another thread, but I'll say it here as well. There were some good riffs and ideas on there, notably in "Dirty Water Dog" and "Ballot or the Bullet." But Eddie clearly can't write a coherent song on his own to save his life and the production was horrible. Calling it "Van Halen" instead of an Eddie solo record is what really made it a total joke.

I really believe if it were called an EVH solo record, if it were all instrumentals (or maybe some guest singers sprinkled in), and it were produced better, people wouldn't be so hostile towards it. It still wouldn't be a great record (probably 3 stars out of 5 on AllMusic instead of the 2 stars they gave it), but I think people would have appreciated Eddie's desire to experiment and do something different, which is what all good musicians try to do with each successive record.

[DLR Bridge]

Agree with that all the way. I may have mentioned this before, but George Lynch did a solo album like you described. Handful of singers and some instrumental tracks. Think it was called Sacred Groove.

[Romeo Delight]

To be honest, IMO, that's one of the good things about that album... it's a bit raw. Things in this era sound too air tight. Eddie was playing pretty fucking well on that album, some real nice lead work. The album as a whole is thrown together and not awesome, no doubt. But I can appreciate it on the Eddie solo album level. That's how I see it anyway..

I hear you, but it's like he just plugged in the amp and pushed play...feedback be damned. C'mon now, it was ridiculous.

I think it was a Year to the day where there is the quiet part in the beginning, you can hear the buzz of the amp throughout the intro. rofl...

[DLR Bridge]

Personal preference. The purposeful feedback of, say, any Nirvana song is forced dirtiness in my book. A little bit of speaker hum and fizz here and there on a VH record puts you in the room with him. His guitar breathes! I dig it.

[chefcraig]

I hear you, but it's like he just plugged in the amp and pushed play...feedback be damned. C'mon now, it was ridiculous.

I think it was a Year to the day where there is the quiet part in the beginning, you can hear the buzz of the amp throughout the intro. rofl...

Christ, that was annoying, as it shows up on a couple other tracks as well. It reminded me of the crummy first apartment I shared with my first wife. Every time she turned on the blow dryer, the tv screen would go sideways and that same ponderous buzz would come out of the speaker while I was trying to watch Sportscenter. I always wondered if Al was running the microwave or Ed was standing next to the fish tank when he recorded his guitar parts.

[Romeo Delight]

I think you have something there Chef! Maybe Al was "Baking" some of the old tapes in the microwave, desperatly making the taples playable again and searching for some tasty riffs?

[Romeo Delight]

The Feedback in the Nirvana songs is good feedback...the buzzing on VH III was not...it was just incompetence/laziness or both

[DLR Bridge]

Agree to disagree. Look, I know III was no gem, but the Nirvana feedback is just something any and all people with a guitar in their hands are capable of doing if they drunkenly meander towards and away from their blaring amps. It's pedestrian. Ofcourse, in 1993, it was brilliant because everything was so damn clean and tight in the studio til Mr. Flannelshirtnrippedjeans hit the scene.

[chefcraig]

Ofcourse, in 1993, it was brilliant because everything was so damn clean and tight in the studio til Mr. Flannelshirtnrippedjeans hit the scene.

True, but when you think about, the guy stole his outlook, appearance and sound lock, stock and barrel from Neil Young & Crazy Horse.

[DLR Bridge]

Ah true indeed! The man MTV Unplugged referred to as the "Godfather of Grunge."

[fourthcoming]

Wanna learn how to suck pretty much all of the oxygen out of a barely-filled concert hall? Try pulling this off with a straight face. Any percussive sounds you hear are provided by the feet of people stomping their way toward the exit signs. And hats off to you depraved, more than likely twisted masochists that can endure the entire clip.

Fuck this piece of crap and the crippled horse it rode in on. Just looking at the album cover (no need to listen to the miserable dreck contained within) is like seeing a girl you once thought of as nothing short of lovely now married to the sweaty fat-ass who never used antiperspirant but loved picking his nose and eating the results in 10th grade hallways.

That was so difficult to watch......I could only make it to the 90 second mark. Who are the delusional, depraved fans cheering this in the background? Did Ed think he was Tom Waits....a really really terrible version of Tom Waits? That was an encore? Wow.....

[TJMKID]

I really believe if it were called an EVH solo record, if it were all instrumentals (or maybe some guest singers sprinkled in), and it were produced better, people wouldn't be so hostile towards it. It still wouldn't be a great record (probably 3 stars out of 5 on AllMusic instead of the 2 stars they gave it), but I think people would have appreciated Eddie's desire to experiment and do something different, which is what all good musicians try to do with each successive record.

I'm glad VH III turned out so shitty ---- it proves the point that Van Halen is a magical mixture of both Dave and Ed ---- not just Ed.

Which is why Ted Templeman sounds retarded when he says on the Japanese TV show ---- "I only signed VH because of Eddie".

Sweaty Teddy needs to listen to VH III to see how his theory holds up.

[katina]

I never heard Van Halen III, as I never heard a single song of VH without Dave. That was not Van Halen for me.

[BITEYOASS]

That was so difficult to watch......I could only make it to the 90 second mark. Who are the delusional, depraved fans cheering this in the background? Did Ed think he was Tom Waits....a really really terrible version of Tom Waits? That was an encore? Wow.....

Nah, he sounds more like a drunk Leonard Cohen.

[BITEYOASS]

Has anyone got the clip of Howard Stern playing it to Roth? I haven't heard that for years, I remember much laughter...

I recall Dave saying that Eddie's singing sounded like pouring water over a sick cat.

[DONNIEP]

That was so difficult to watch......I could only make it to the 90 second mark. Who are the delusional, depraved fans cheering this in the background? Did Ed think he was Tom Waits....a really really terrible version of Tom Waits? That was an encore? Wow.....

Makes you feel bad for the road crew. Could you imagine having to sit through that train wreck, night after night, for months?

[BITEYOASS]

Frankly I wish this album was put in a rocket and thrown into the Sun.

[fourthcoming]

Makes you feel bad for the road crew. Could you imagine having to sit through that train wreck, night after night, for months?

I understand Mike and Gary not having a say in anything but Al never had the nerve to speak up and tell his brother it was ludicrous to ever even record that song let alone have it be an encore?

[DLR Bridge]

Man, the crowd does sound like they're genuinely going berzerk during that clip. I saw that tour at MSG. They were heavy on the CVH, 4 Hagar era and 3 III tunes. They didn't dare attempt that piano bit there. They closed with I'm The One. I still remember Ed saying, "not bad for the first time in 20 years." No Ed, but coulda been a whole lot better. Who strives for "not bad" when "fucking amazing" is within reach?

[fourthcoming]

The amazing version of I'm The One didn't reappear until 2007.

[DLR Bridge]

The amazing version of I'm The One didn't reappear until 2007.

Yeah, sadly, they skipped right over the barber shop segment at my '08 show. I remember thinking, "oh what the fuck!?"

[fourthcoming]

Did u see them in '08 in Jersey or MSG? I remember thinking why didn't they play Little Guitars in '08 but they did rip a fantastic couple of minutes of Crossroads.

[DLR Bridge]

The Izod center. That was a ripping Crossroads bit. Yeah, bummed about the no Little Guitars too, but the You Tube clips I've seen of that one really came off as though Ed half-heartedly tried to re-learn that one. I think that recent Esquire interview finally cleared up what cloud Ed was on when they finally reconvened with that tour. He definitely appeared spaced out and very still from my vantage point.

[VanHalenI]

I would have killed Gary and Ed if they dared to play a never-before-played song from CVH... say Dirty Movies.
Fuck the III era, shame on you ED

[katina]

I recall Dave saying that Eddie's singing sounded like pouring water over a sick cat.

I didn´t know it

[TJMKID]

Man, the crowd does sound like they're genuinely going berzerk during that clip.

I think the YouTube poster added in a generic audience roar --- or else just tweaked up the crowd noise in the video editor.

I saw the Van Cherone tour in Pittsburgh and Columbus and the crowd got awfully quiet during shit ballads like "Josephina" and "How Many Says I".

All I can remember is it was a good time to take a long piss and recharge at the beer stand.

[loucap81]

Sometimes they did the barbershop part in I'm the One in 07-08, sometimes they didn't. Roth particularly shined in that one, nailing the screams and everything.

[Coyote]

VH III isn't in my collection (anymore).

[BITEYOASS]

I wouldn't even torture terrorists imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay with this album!

[Terry]

Well, I guess one can certainly say that Van Halen III was (for better or worse...mostly worse) Eddie's album. He had control over the lyrical content, the musical content and the production.

In some ways it's very much like all the Van Hagar albums: some interesting musical ideas on an instrumental level are there to be found if one is able to ignore the inane lyrics. I thought the tracks Ballot or The Bullet and One I Want were decent enough tunes far as the guitar and drums went.

The overall sound was kind of dry and shallow; very little depth to the sonics.

To me, Cherone wasn't much worse of a fit for Van Halen than Hagar was (inasmuch as neither of them were a good fit to begin with). Honestly, listening to Van Halen III didn't make me think that the Van Hagar stuff was much better by way of comparison. I think Eddie wanted to take on a Pete Townshend role circa late-1970s/early-1980s Who in Van Halen by the point Cherone joined, in that Eddie was gonna be the primary creative force.

What Van Halen III really demonstrated is that as phenominal a talent as Eddie is, it's his guitar work that is the strength of that talent. Without a great frontman to bounce ideas off of (and the only one that has demonstrated the ability to get the best out of Eddie is Roth) and a producer who can do likewise, Ed left to his own devices is less than compelling.

[hambon4lif]

I'm thankful that to this day that I've never even heard this album. I heard the single "Without You" on the radio, and my first impression was "if they wanted Cherone to sing like Hagar so badly, why didn't they just keep Hagar?". I dug Gary and his work with Extreme, but I was immediately turned off by Ed and Al trying to turn him into Fatass Mach 2.
I'm especially thankful that "Slam Dunk" and the DLR Band hit the airwaves a few weeks later. By following the real heart and soul of that band, I was able to dodge that whole VHIII monstrosity entirely.

Other than "Without You" and the 10 seconds of "Fire In The AssHole" they played during a quick scene in 'Lethal Weapon 4', I still haven't heard that piece of shit.

Howard Stern tried to play "How Many Say I" for Roth during an interview, and 8 seconds into it Roth said that it sounded like someone was pouring hot water on a cat.
That's my gauge.
If VHIII had even half the heart that DLR Band did, it probably would've been O.K., but it didn't.

It was Ed in the midst of his meth hell, and it fucking sucked!

[FORD]

True, but when you think about, the guy stole his outlook, appearance and sound lock, stock and barrel from Neil Young & Crazy Horse.

Yeah, I can see where it might appear that way, but if you asked Kurt what he and Nirvana were trying to sound like, he would have answered either " Beatles meets Black Sabbath" or "REM with a fuzzbox". (Probably a little Black Flag, The Wipers, and The Pixies in there too.)

[ThatArtGuy]

Why is this in main?

How quickly people fall into the old ways when the tour stops.

[loucap81]

In some ways it's very much like all the Van Hagar albums: some interesting musical ideas on an instrumental level are there to be found if one is able to ignore the inane lyrics. I thought the tracks Ballot or The Bullet and One I Want were decent enough tunes far as the guitar and drums went.

Yes and no, in my opinion. Yes, in that you run into some cool grooves on Van Hagar songs like Judgment Day, Pleasure Dome and AFU, of course promptly ruined by Sambo's screeching and horrible lyrics (also bear in mind that some of those licks were written in the Roth years). But the divergence is that other than a couple of token songs clearly written for radio airplay, VHIII was hardly commercial friendly. Very, very few Hagar songs, even the non-singles, didn't have a safe, formula-following commercial feel to them. Horrible as it was, VHIII took risks, I'll give it that much.

I almost wonder if Eddie was trying to do a full-out prog rock album, especially with the guitar tone. "Dirty Water Dog" and "Once" clearly are going for those kind of sounds. Fair Warning is the only other VH album that I think has some prog influence in it.

[fryingdutchman]

"Josephina" was a last minute inclusion on the album, replacing "That's why I love you" but I do not think it's a poor song. Released under the name Van Halen doesn't do it any favours though.

If memory serves, "Josephina" is a tribute to Ed's mom...so you have to leave the song alone purely on that basis.

"That's Why I Love You" actually had potential, and should have been included over that steaming pile of shite called "How Many Say I?"

[fryingdutchman]

VH III is a total train wreck on almost every level, but in some strange way it has a purity and honesty about it because it mirrors Eddie's life at the time.

His marriage was crashing down around him, he was kidding himself that he was clean and sober and that Gary Cherone was "a brother" and the final cure to everything that had been ailing Van Halen as a band, and he was firmly convinced that all of the music was good and needed to be heard.

That record is a tangible representation of Ed's universe at the time, and none of it was good.

Eddie needed to vent his spleen, and he did it with that record. If it were any other band the record company would have laughed at them and the music would have never gone public. But he's Eddie fucking Van Halen and that will always mean something to the music industry.

I consider it a collector's item and hopefully Eddie uses VH III as a lodestar to ground himself whenever he starts getting too far out on the fringe....

[fryingdutchman]

Makes you feel bad for the road crew. Could you imagine having to sit through that train wreck, night after night, for months?

Meh....as long as the checks cleared I doubt they cared....

[fryingdutchman]

I try to view the Cherone era as the beginning of Eddie's true awakening that the CVH tunes were the only ones that ever really mattered.

He clearly got off on playing them again on tour with Cherone singing, and Gary liked singing them. Gary clearly had some sort of reverence for DLR and the CVH era.

Then Wolfgang stepped in and reinforced it, and here we are today with a killer new record in ADKOT and a huge tour.

So I take VH III with the perspective that "it's always darkest just before the dawn."

[Yount]

Other than "Without You" and the 10 seconds of "Fire In The AssHole" they played during a quick scene in 'Lethal Weapon 4', I still haven't heard that piece of shit.

If you haven't listened to that piece of shit, how do you know it is so?

[Yount]

Van Halen had some degree of success in Australia in 1998. They'd never toured before, so they were still going to sell even with Cherone. The album and single charted well enough early (Without you was the "most requested rock song of all time" or something like that.) There was some hype on channel 9 in particular.
But it was because of the release of Best Of Vol. 1; can't get this stuff no more and Me wise Magic, that got the fans back. I was there in the moment, 1998, and there was confusion, cos the internet was still not yet pop, when Cherone played instead of Roth. I've still got an interview on VHS with Ed so PC it's silly. But I was young then, I half believed it. All that brother angel voice elephant balls stuff. I reckon if he was sober since '95 like he said maybe he was on prescription meds instead, feelin' a little too much love for Gary, oblivious to the FACT that the last two releases with Roth pretty much hammered it home that Roth-VH was it and there's nothing more. I know, I figured, fuck it.