Van Hagar To Tour In 2017

[chuckjitsu]

If they do bring Mike back for some type of 40th year deal, my hope would be that Dave would understand the moment and step up his game accordingly, like he did in 2007. It's been mentioned before, but I think 75-80% of Dave's vocal issues are the same bad choices being made over and over again. The remaining percentage is due to the ravages of time, although all the smoking Dave has done certainly hasn't helped. If he prepared like he did in '07 and simply SANG THE SONGS AS THEY WERE WRITTEN, I think he'd be fine.

As for Samburglar pushing the co-lead singer deal, I'm not sure what to make of it. Is it as simple as he thinks it would be a cool thing to do? Does he think that's the only way he could be part of VH again? Would he still consider the dual lead singer thing if one of the conditions was Mike not being involved? I don't know. What I do know is that I personally have zero interest in a dual lead singer arrangement. Hell, I'm doubtful that even the current iteration of VH will be doing anything next year.

We'll see, but we all know the deal with these guys- don't believe anything about a new album until you're actually listening to it and don't believe anything about another tour until the band is literally standing onstage in front of you.

[twonabomber]

A small preview of Wolfgang's solo project. Is he working with Ric Ocasek? Reminds me of the Cars.

http://www.vhnd.com/2017/08/26/wolfs-sneak-peek/

[Seshmeister]

A small preview of Wolfgang's solo project. Is he working with Ric Ocasek? Reminds me of the Cars.

http://www.vhnd.com/2017/08/26/wolfs-sneak-peek/

Sounds like a song that was written on a bass guitar...

[Jérôme Frenchise]

A small preview of Wolfgang's solo project. Is he working with Ric Ocasek? Reminds me of the Cars.

http://www.vhnd.com/2017/08/26/wolfs-sneak-peek/

Interesting. Makes me want to hear the rest.

[Terry]

Interesting. Makes me want to hear the rest.

I'd like to hear some more of that as well.

[Nickdfresh]

Ditto. Working with Ric, eh?

I didn't realize that The Cars reunited in 2010 (after Benjamin Orr's death unfortunately) and toured in '11. They're still technically together. They never replaced Orr, which I think is pretty cool...

[Terry]

I was aware of the reunion only inasmuch as I read about it at the time. I couldn't be bothered to listen to whatever music did come out of it, or even see the band when they toured.

I enjoyed their first four albums. Still do. I dropped off in a fairly big way with Heartbeat City: didn't much care for the material. Didn't much care for any of the solo stuff, either. Didn't care for any of the post-Heartbeat stuff, of which there was...what? Another album and a single?

And The Cars were never, ever a band name I ever heard described in terms of "you gotta see them live, man!" You know? Even the live clips I saw of them filmed back from '78 to '82 were pretty underwhelming. From everything I can gather, as much as they made some really great pop rock records, they weren't quite as good live.

[ThatArtGuy]

The new release album was cool.

[twonabomber]

Heartbeat City is a great pop album. Played the shit out of it that summer. That was the start of my two cassette a week habit, I bought Heartbeat City and 1984 the same day. My brother won a copy of Shake It Up by calling in to the old WGCL, Cleveland's big pop station at the time. I had to settle for Tommy Tutone 2 when I called in.

I remember reading that most of Heartbeat City was done on the Fairlight, and David Robinson wasn't happy about his drums being replaced by the Fairlight. Ocasek kind of took over. Kind of the beginning of the end, much like when Sting took over during Synchronicity. Lead singer disease, anyone?

During the Door To Door sessions, Orr wanted his collaborator (and longtime girlfriend) to get co-writing credit, and Ocasek said no. Orr got pissed, and supposedly had his own bus during the last tour.

I saw the Cars in '87, and yeah, easily one of the most boring shows I've seen. Very structured, no surprises. I don't even remember who opened.

I like the first two Ocasek solo albums. Steve Stevens is on This Side Of Paradise, the second one. Ocasek usually had the Cars' Greg Hawkes on keys, so some of the material was familiar sounding.

The solo on Tonight She Comes is perfect.

[Terry]

Heartbeat City is a great pop album. Played the shit out of it that summer. That was the start of my two cassette a week habit, I bought Heartbeat City and 1984 the same day. My brother won a copy of Shake It Up by calling in to the old WGCL, Cleveland's big pop station at the time. I had to settle for Tommy Tutone 2 when I called in.

I remember reading that most of Heartbeat City was done on the Fairlight, and David Robinson wasn't happy about his drums being replaced by the Fairlight. Ocasek kind of took over. Kind of the beginning of the end, much like when Sting took over during Synchronicity. Lead singer disease, anyone?

During the Door To Door sessions, Orr wanted his collaborator (and longtime girlfriend) to get co-writing credit, and Ocasek said no. Orr got pissed, and supposedly had his own bus during the last tour.

I saw the Cars in '87, and yeah, easily one of the most boring shows I've seen. Very structured, no surprises. I don't even remember who opened.

I like the first two Ocasek solo albums. Steve Stevens is on This Side Of Paradise, the second one. Ocasek usually had the Cars' Greg Hawkes on keys, so some of the material was familiar sounding.

The solo on Tonight She Comes is perfect.

Heartbeat City IS a good (perhaps a bit more timely than timeless) pop album. I dunno about the band politics when it was made, but if you say Ocasek sort of took over during that period, that would sort of make sense: to me, a tune like Magic sounds like a pretty standard, non-descript pop tune from an instrumental standpoint made only distinctive by Ocasek's voice. (even the lyrics are pretty middle-of-the-road: I could picture any number of top 40 bands during that period putting out a tune like this). Overall, though, it's not really representative of what I liked best about The Cars. Same thing with Drive. Great pop tune, but synth-laden to the point of overkill and typical Moon/June rhyme scheme lyrics, devoid of the quirkiness that made the Cars memorable. And, to be sure, the absence of Robinson's acoustic drums wasn't for the better to my ears.

Tommy Tutone?! Actually, I've never heard anything other than 867-5309 Jenny, but that WAS a GREAT pop rock tune...does make me wonder if he had anything else on that album half as good, since even if the rest of the album WERE only half as good, that'd still be an album worth listening to.

The solo on Tonight She Comes WAS perfect.

[Nickdfresh]

I can't find the video on YouTube, but there is a proshot live Cars vid that gets destroyed in the comments because they're obviously triggering backing vocals because no one feels like singing besides Orr....