Useful to see all that info laid out like that. When I read his book and he was talking about how wildly successful his solo career was prior to joining Van Halen, I was like "I don't recall Sammy Hagar being a huge commercial success prior to joining Van Halen." He was a moderate success, but nowhere near approaching what Van Halen was doing when Roth was was in the band.
Hagar just deludes himself that it was Van Halen who were only moderately successful prior to his joining...the old "5150 went number #1, and was the first Van Halen album to do so, therefore Van Halen were more successful when I joined" bullshit.
In truth, the guy had a career that was nothing to be ashamed of in terms of sales. Why he still feels the need to ridiculously inflate his record sales is beyond me: I suppose it's because nobody ever calls him on his bullshit.
Like, in 2002, Hagar was saying how "Roth dragged himself out of the gutter" to do the Sam and Dave tour, and how after the tour was over "[Roth] will be right back where he was the previous summer" and I'm thinking "was Sammy Hagar filling 10-15,000 seat arenas on his own between 1996 and 2002?"
Scramby eggs and bacon.
I'm surprised at how many people read that book - I had no interest.
To me the fact that he has always been is such a liar made it pointless reading.
I just went to Amazon to see this write up in the flesh and all I got was a steaming pile of shit from the mindless skulls of Hagar backers, praising his meteoric Cinderella story of a career. Sadly, as Terry points out, the fact that no DJ or interviewer or columnist ever called him out on the lies has allowed him the ability to make the majority of them stick, especially in the minds of the lazy casual fan's of Van Halen who simply went with the ebb and flow of whatever the band did from '85 on. In a sense, Ed (no thanks to his mechanic, Claudio) gave birth to all of these numb nutted casual fans who actually think a singer may be a more qualified fit for the band by the fact that he can shriek "higher and higher" in a song called Dreams while doing jumping jacks on stage. This is where it becomes a fucking sin that official video footage of the 6 pack tours remains unreleased. The lazy dumb shits of the world are all too thrilled to watch their Van Hagar Live (not really) Right Here Right Now because they were able to go out and buy it!! Now just imagine these same schmucks suddenly getting to see Dave launch 18 feet in the air, belt out notes Sam only dreamt of hitting all while performing a well choreographed show with a band that was totally on board with the direction he was leading them in. They'd realize right quickly that they've settled for flavorless, light beer all of these years and would now heavily enjoy their new found, high octane, CVH brew until they drowned in it! Now if only this damn footage would surface already. The fact that it's collecting dust on a vault shelf somewhere is the crux of the matter I'm afraid.
It's a "know your enemy" thing I s'pose. It solidified my disdain for him, that's for sure. I actually never hated him until I read it, to be quite honest. Way back when the book was first advertised, I thought it might be interesting to see how his time in Montrose came and went and why the HSAS project was a one and done when there was clearly a chemistry there between he and Neal Schon. When I first read the few passages from his book in Rolling Stone (you know, the only ones they would bother to reprint because even they know how nothing he is without Van Halen) I became enraged and had to see more. I spent a couple of lunch breaks reading it at a Barnes & Noble. When you set aside the over blown statistics and just look at what he goes after and the manner in which he does it, it becomes pretty telling that he is not the cool, down to Earth guy he's been made out to be. He's an egomaniacal baby who thinks every buck starts with him and that everyone in his life prospered from being in his presence. It's truly a case study in narcissism like none I've ever read.
Oh, and everybody needs to at least read Mike's forward. Big mistake on his part. I mean huge mistake.
I never read Hagar's book, but if I get the chance to dig through the clearance box at my local Border's I might pick it up for a chuckle.
I don't think that real Van Halen fans read it because they're closet Sammy fans. I think it's simply a case of morbid curiosity.....like a bad car crash. You don't want to look at a horrible, nightmarish scene...but you have to because natural human curiosity gets the best of you.
And for others, it serves as reinforcement that mediocrity can be portrayed as success if you get lucky enough or can stick to a lie long enough to make people believe it.
Originally posted by perilouspete
fryingdutchman you pretty much own everyone.....sick comebacks, well put. top class wit.
Spot on Bridge...and that's the rub. It's the ego that he has that really gnaws at us.
DLR also has a huge ego and always wants the spotlight...he'd probably be the first one to tell you that.
But with Roth, it had a firm foundation. Hagar twists it and takes it to a whole different level.
Hagar prospered by being in Van Halen's presence...not the other way around. If Roth never left then Hagar would be playing supermarket openings at this point.
Everytime mike laps at hagars cock a fairy dies
fuck your fucking framing
Just....wow. That's fucked up.
Blind, cult-like worship....
Almost makes you think that Cabo Wabo Tequila is formulated with some mind controlling substance. Maybe that's how he keeps his fan base of "redheads." They've all been inducted into a Hagar cult unbeknownst to them through tequila mind control.
Oh that's just what they put on the jacket to try to help sell the thing. The major damage is his apology to Hagar for sticking by VH when things got ultra dicey around the end of his run. He literally goes on record to say that he backed the VHs when Sam really didn't do any wrong. Insert slurp sounds hear.
I remember watching this video for the first time and having mixed emotions. I liked the song and videos, but it felt off to me to see Dave fronting a band other than Van Halen- like the natural order of things had somehow been disturbed. Maybe it was the subconscious realization that the Samburglar era was now in full effect...
Anyone else have recollections of seeing this video for the first time?
Same thoughts here, Chuck. Seeing this and then seeing the Sam and Ed Farm-Aid Zep cover, I recall my annoyed, no CVH seeing, sorry ass thinking, "oh why's it gotta be like this?"
I like the comedic part of the video. Hated the song the first time I heard it, and still do.
Vai, like Satriani, is a solo guitarist. They have no idea how to structure songs with a singer, in my opinion. Dave had to have they keyboards at this point, to fill all of Vai's empty space.
Did anybody see any of the tribute to Ronnie Montrose on AxsTV? (love that channel) Satriani sounds fucking HORRIBLE playing the Montrose tunes. Sounds hollow, in a bad way. Thin. Tinny. Whatever. Sounds like shit.
Knowing this shit wasn't a side project for Dave, made it all the more painful. Going in a short time from "Drop Dead Legs", "House Of Pain" and "Girl Gone Bad", to this? Again, knowing it was not a one off side project? What a fucking let down.
Do yerself a favor, and don't. On the very same day, we got in not only the ghastly autobio of one Samuel Hagar, yet the totally inscrutable Steven Tyler book as well. I could literally feel the brain cells dripping out of my ears.
Succumbing to two volumes of utter, non-reconstituted gibberish lead me over to the reference section, where I promptly picked up a Stephen Hawking book just to put the universe back in substantial order.
“The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge.”
― Stephen Hawking
“The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge.”― Stephen Hawking
I remember seeing it for the first time...and I felt the same way. It just didn't feel "right."
Funny watching it again now. I bet that video wouldn't even make MTV these days (if they still actually played videos) because of the opening content.
The PC police would quash it because it promoted too many "ethnic stereotypes."
Fucking funny shit though!!!
DLR would include the backstory...the history as it was...with humor and for good measure a couple of drawings or include other people that were there to validate the entire sordid past.
Spammy? He's a two pump chump only after his own nut. He's no team player and when stuff doesn't go his way...he's the first to cry like a little bitch!
As for Spammy's book...I wouldn't even waste a penny reading it for fear it would end up in his pocket.
I downloaded the audio version of Sammy's book and was disappointed to find he wasn't reading it. I was ready to chop n' paste that sumbitch up!
Writing In All Proper Case Takes Extra Time, Is Confusing To Read, And Is Completely Pointless.
Or, in order to save valuable internet time, you could recite the following with the brain-dead twit's voice in your head:
"If anything cool ever happened, I'm responsible, including the invention of the internet (screw a bunch of Al Gore) and the defining moments in rock and or roll. I have successfully fucked over or bad-mouthed everyone I've ever come into contact with, be it business partners or my first wife. My defecate has no aroma, and only time will tell if we stand the test of time."
Not to sidetrack the OP but...yes I do remember the 1st time I saw this video. I was glad that he answered the "5150" salvo with a better album. Starting with this song. The humor was there from his EP...his band at the time? I'd match them against his former bandmates as to the output and maybe...just maybe Alex would be the only winner. With each release Van Hagar became a bigger joke...in EVERY category. Musically, sales, concert draw and image. Roth continued to maintain a sense of credibility towards the material that was crafted with Van Halen while they continued to take another appendage off.
Seeing them tour on this was like seeing a Van Halen show. It was fun. Unlike that trainwreck I witnessed with the Monsters of Rock tour. Ever notice you never see Bette Midler and Spammy in the same room...at the same time?
Roth continued to entertain fans with a solid show and recorded material...no matter how big or how small the venue. He really is the Toastmaster General, and he is why I'm such a huge fan of Van Halen.
Was Dave really filling 10-15000 seat arenas in 2002? Nope, seems like an embellishment to shine things up a little bit. Dave was able to launch himself 18 feet in the air? 18 feet? Really? THAT also appears to be a slight exaggeration. Calling BS on someone and using BS to make your point is an odd tactic. But the guy can twirl a stick with the best of them and spin like a pixie!
Was Dave really filling 10-15000 seat arenas in 2002?
Actually, he did fill the Bumbershoot Festival football arena in Seattle. So, yes, he did.
I brought my pencil!!!
Eat Us And Smile
Cenk For America 2024!!
Justice Democrats
"If the American people had ever known the truth about what we (the BCE) have done to this nation, we would be chased down in the streets and lynched." - Poppy Bush, 1992
In 1999 Sammy played "A Taste Of Cleveland," which is a glorified rib burn-off...
Meh. It was in a $5 or less bargain shelf at Barnes and Noble. I started thumbing through it, then said fuck it, might as well buy it. Was interested in what he had to say about the 2004 tour, but read the whole thing.
Even beyond his vague relationship with the truth (re: sales stats), the thing that really emerged from his book was a really charmless series of rationalizations for anything in his life that went wrong, in that apparently nothing was ever Hagar's fault to the point where not even the slightest bit of blame rests at Hagar's feet.
Cheating on his wife? It was his wife's fault for being a head-case. If his wife wasn't so fucked up in the head, Sammy wouldn't have cheated on her.
Record sales not everything Sammy thought they should have been for any given album? It's completely the record companies fault.
Various members getting kicked out of Montrose/Hagar solo groups? It's all either Ronnie Montrose or the other band members shot themselves in the foot. Nothing to do with Hagar.
And on and on.
He also wrote how great Cabo Wabo was when he first went there because it was a small village with virtually no phones and no tourists, then without the slightest trace of irony says it's even better now that he opened up his cantina and turned the town into a tourist trap. Like, "wow this place is such a great place to get away from everything, and the people that live here like it that way, so I suppose the natural thing to do would be to turn it into a cross between Margaritaville and Disneyland!"
The big thing on Amazon is the weighting of their review system based on how many useful votes it gets.
If you go to Amazon(US) then the top review is is a 5 star review from an ignorant person who describes it as "He's very honest and matter-of-factly".
This is just objectively speaking, a stinky pile of shit. Anyone that has been remotely following this story for the last 30 years knows that Hagar has never ever been adverse to bullshitting.
The post I copied here from Amazon is actually a 3 star review. I have 13 likes on my post here but the original at Amazon by the guy that actually wrote it only has 3 people who found his review helpful which means no one ever sees it.
http://www.amazon.com/Red-My-Uncenso...RankDescending
Please please please could people click on the 'This review was useful' button for that post so that people at least maybe take this book with a pinch of salt.
If even one in 10 of the people that have read this thread here did then that post would be in the first few on Amazon, i.e one of the ones people actually read.
http://www.amazon.com/Red-My-Uncenso...DateDescending
Zing would rather read Dave's book for the tenth time than Haggar's once.
My karma just ran over your dogma.
The thing about "Crazy From The Heat" is that you can drop it on the floor, allow it to open to any random page and after reading said page, come away with some profound insight. Not only about the dude doing the writing, yet life in general.
On the other hand, Hagar's effort justifiably comes in handy if you just so happen to be short of butt-wipe during a protracted, somewhat gastric session upon the shitter. And reading of his juvenile, highly imagined (and ultimately, false) tales of his adventures/victories in life can only be properly viewed through one's bunghole in the first place.
he probly does
Another one of those classic genius posts, sure to generate responses. You log on the next day to see what your witty gem has produced to find no one gets it and 2 knotheads want to stick their dicks in it... Well played, sir!!
God-damned Taco Bell.
Pardon me folks, I have to go take a Hagar...
It's called the rock n roll equation
DLR is > spammy , Hagar's. -a (circumference ) + s.a (surface area) = shit jump
Not too hard to estimate... Note the speakers on Ed's side. Each black hole is about 12 inches in diameter. Adding casters and the stage supports... lets say each layer is about 3 feet tall. Note: Al's platform appears to be about at Ed's shoulder height. So let's say 5 feet.
Dave's ass appears to be about 2 speakers above Alex's drum pedestal... So I'd estimate Dave's ass height at about 7.5 - 8 feet max...
"If you want to be a monk... you gotta cook a lot of rice...”
8 foot , no way
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