Engineer Brian Kehaw discusses Van Halen History and whats in the Warner Bros. Vault...
Discusses box set of unreleased stuff...that was potentially being worked on, with engineer Brian Kehaw, discussing box set contracted by Warner Bros., with first step being going through vault of Sunset Sound Recorders where first five albums were recorded. I'm still watching this as I type, Kehaw discussing the pre-debut demos. This guy says the vault here also has the outtakes from 1984...everything else (post-1984) remained in 5150 Studios. I'm presuming Warners has the 1984 tapes because Ted Templeman (I presume) took the tapes to do a mix he was happy with at his usual haunt of Sunset Sound. (WOMEN AND CHILDREN FIRST was recorded at Amigo Studios, but they have the tapes at Sunset, I'm presuming, because Ted took them back to mix at Sunset.)
This box set was being considered 15 years ago...he says, "I haven't heard the tapes in 15 years."
I'm presuming that some of this stuff will be reconsidered now with vault releases being a priority after Ed's passing.
ALSO, this would be a separate release from whatever Wolf is considering with the tapes because Warners owns the tapes from the old albums. A DIFFERENT KIND OF TRUTH was recorded for Interscope. Ed's outtakes and jamming tapes would be re-worked, I'm presuming, for a new album (maybe on Interscope?).
HOLY SHIT!!! THEY FOUND THE MULTI-TRACKS OF THE DEMOS AND HE'S MADE NEW MIXES!! Only the original mixes of the demos are missing. They had the multi-tracks...and he's mixed them using the first album as a reference (matching the guitar sound, drum sound, vocal blend from the 1st album). I'm still watching, hope he doesn't end this by saying Warner Bros. has decided to release none of it...but they already decided not to do any of this 15 years ago. He keeps stressing that his multi-track remixes of the 1977 demos alone would make a great album. The '77 demos were recorded great, the multi-tracks were great and his mixes, he says, sound exactly like the debut album's sound. There are all the alternate versions of songs from the six-pack, and then the MANY unreleased songs. His versions of the demos sound so much better than what he describes as the really crappy quality of the bootleg copies of the '77 demos.
There's an entire session tape of Eddie doing intro to LITTLE GUITARS...
...entire session of him working on CATHEDRAL...
...no alternate ERUPTION exists. That's a disappointment.
Still listening.
THEY ACTUALLY THREW AWAY THE ALTERNATE TAKES OF OTHER SONGS. Jesus Christ.
There IS a completely alternate version of LITTLE DREAMER cut during the first album sessions.
There's an alternate take of HOT FOR TEACHER with completely different lyrics.
Ed apparently plays bass on HOT FOR TEACHER. Not Mikey. The intro has Eddie doubling his guitar part with bass.
He says, "There are four CDs of useable unreleased material, including the demos." There are a few other unreleased songs, some just instrumental outtakes from the six-pack. Four CDs were put together and sent out to various people. Alex definitely got them.
Years later, Ed asked for the tapes when they were working on A DIFFERENT KIND OF TRUTH (they wanted to hear better copies of the old demos for the songs they were re-working). Now, he could be confused, because Ed claimed when they were about to do the 2015 tour and were looking for the original mixes of the demos to release. When those original mixes couldn't be found, they released TOKYO DOME instead. Apparently, Ed said they had a bunch of studio outtakes and live tapes at 5150 but were considering releasing the original demos, but wanted the original mixes. Who gives a fuck? I'd rather new mixes...especially if they sound like the first album (though even the bootlegs, with the crappy quality, have that sound from the six-pack, albeit with muffled sound).
This guy discusses VOODOO QUEEN a lot (I never put together that its ending was literally re-used for the ending of HOT FOR TEACHER...obviously, the main riff is MEAN STREET).
This is fascinating. Some disappointments, some exciting things.
Hey, four CDs of useable stuff? The fucking demos have already been remixed?
And this is only vault stuff up to 1984 (recorded in 1983)? This would be a great first release.
Maybe Dave could go back and put vocals on the instrumental outtakes from the six-pack? And some of those have vocals...he doesn't deny that.
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