So, I decided to give the Smithsonian thing another viewing yesterday to see if there were any points of interest I missed the first time around. Not too much to speak of, yet, while taking in all of Ed's words again, about "the music coming first" and it all starting with him and Al, it just amazed me how, to this day, he still refuses to properly acknowledge, the importance of the chemistry developed between both he and Dave. Their chemistry is every bit in the vain of Lennon and McCartney or Jagger and Richards that Dave had alluded to in his book.
At one point, Ed states what kind of music the members of the band were into at the time of their development, and he mentioned Dave was into disco. The majority of the crowd laughed. A telling sign of just how many were in attendance that just never got it and just never will. Even though I don't believe he meant it as a joke, that statement is still a tremendous downplay of the wide breadth of Dave's musical influences. Influences that we all know were responsible for the creation of one of the most outrageous and creative front-men the genre of Rock and Roll has ever known.
That lead to the segment in which he is describing the feat of VH I succeeding during the era of punk and disco. I began to think of the age old argument I'd had with countless forum posters and people face to face through out the past 25 years. I know. Kind of pathetic to be so moved by a band to want to set people straight about their origins. There are way bigger fish to fry in life, but I digress. The argument is: would the band Van Halen have succeeded at all if they never crossed paths with Roth? With this recurring question, a Back To The Future scenario sprung to mind. What if Ed and Al had teamed up with a mediocre mouth-breather like Don Dokken instead?
Imagine that, while imagining the non-existence of a Dave-lead Van Halen. You know. The band that blended summer fun with the viscous attack of Sabbath and Zeppelin. The band that crafted hooky pop gems that the youth of the '70's and '80s could and would gladly sing along with. The band that kept rock and roll sounding original and fresh among the din of noise created by disco, punk and corporate shlock-rock. A band as a whole that was so creative, it paved the way for others influenced and inspired by them to come to be. A band proving to be such a commodity for record labels, that the labels were desperate to create coat-tail riders to follow in their wake with the hopes of lining their pockets even more. Just imagine that band never came to be. I wholeheartedly believe that there's a good possibility that Eddie Van Halen wouldn't have gotten the chance that players like George Lynch, Mark Kendall, Warren Demartini and countless others had to break in, in the first place. For it was the band Van Halen, the sum of of all it's parts, that took the world by storm in 1978. Not just the virtuoso and his guitar. VH I is not an instrumental record. It is band record. One for the ages that would never have been created for us to hear had the band been fronted by the likes of Don Dokken.
And that's the Back To The Future moment right there. All of the L.A. based bands like Dokken, Great White, Ratt and the countless others would have remained in the muck and the mire that was, for all intents and purposes, a rock scene that was limping to it's own grave. Eddie Van Halen, with a lackluster front-man, would have been just as much of a stick in the mud as George Lynch, who's The Boyz failed to launch, or Mark Kendall, who's Great White might never have taken flight, or Warren Demaritini, who's Ratt would never have been created by Marshall Berle to ride the coattails of a successful band, if the Dave-lead version of Van Halen never came to exist!
So to you, Mr. Edward Van Halen, I extend my congratulations on you're phenomenal American dream story and all of your success as an innovator with the guitar, but know this: it was David Lee Roth who helped keep that spot light shining on you from the day you hired him. It was David Lee Roth who kept your brand of rock guitar playing relevant in an era of disinterest in rock guitar playing, and it was David Lee Roth, who helped Van Halen achieve their goal of getting signed, recording an album and succeeding in the business of rock and roll during it's most bleakest phase. And so, on behalf of David Lee Roth, I say this:
You're welcome.
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Originally Posted by ELVIS
