This one is my favorite so far... solid rocker.
This one is my favorite so far... solid rocker.
"If you want to be a monk... you gotta cook a lot of rice...”
This one was Ed's favorite... I believe it's the more pop oriented on the album.
Writing In All Proper Case Takes Extra Time, Is Confusing To Read, And Is Completely Pointless.
Mammoth is one way to describe it. Sounds like 80's hair metal with more delivered pizzas. Fucking awful unlistenable shit.
His CD is $13 ($34 on vinyl) on schoolkidsrecords.com a place that I may remind you where you should do all of your music shopping. DO NOT give your money to corporate fuck monkeys like Cramazon or some brick and mortar corporate store because if you do then you're a fuck monkey asshole retard yourself. They may not have everything that caters to your shitty Montrose cover band taste but for a collector like myself they do have some interesting limited edition gems you can get. It's worth a look:
https://schoolkidsrecords.com/UPC/750238773480
So far I've enjoyed each of the songs released. It's all original work... the production and compositions are solid. Good energy and so far quite listenable.
For something that appeared to be a just home project of a kid using his dad's studio and resources... this has turned out far exceeding my expectations. Looking forward to hearing more...
I'd say what I've heard also exceeded my expectations, although I didn't really have any expectations to exceed...like, just him being "the kid of" Eddie Van Halen wasn't something that made me think [Wolfgang's] stuff was gonna be any good by default...
What I've heard is competent. As you say, the production and compositions are solid. Listenable.
All of that is a far cry from any of it being exceptional or memorable, which are two descriptions that I find I can't really apply to any of the Mammoth stuff I've heard.
None of which is to say I find any of it terrible by any means.
Scramby eggs and bacon.
I like all I've heard.
But, to me, it's missing the chemistry of a real rock band.
Definitely a talented kid.
The idea of the vid and the vid itself are really funny, though necessarily.
For a fraction of a second when the second Wolf arrives to grab a guitar before the other two, I thought hey, the other guitarist is just as hefty as he is.
The music sounds great, though maybe too polished. Some frying would have been welcome in there.
Anyway I like the vid a lot.
The chemistry element does seem to be missing... sort of... I keep finding myself focused on the fact that all the parts were performed by one person or actually reminding myself.
But then, if that fact weren't present, I wouldn't make the connection necessarily just listening to the songs. Plus, given Wolf's roots... the chemistry was such a prevalent element in his father's work... it's difficult not to consider it.
The exceptional or memorable aspect is true so far. Not hearing something that I think people will imprint on and still enjoy 20 or 40 years from now like some of rock's greatest songs.
But has that era past us all..?
Am I the only one thinking of Dave Grohl? Backup player loses the main element of his first band and decides to make his own record and hire road musicians to play live..and I like what Ive heard so far..The video is even fooish..
Okay, I'll agree, He is talented - for a hack. He's no Stevie Wonder or Todd Rundgren. I listened to his entire album on YouGoob and nothing struck me as interesting original or fun. Most of the songwriting is centered around the loss of his father. That's commendable but for an album its tedious. Riffs sound straight out of Warrant Jani Lane notebook with some Montrose thrown in. Eh, best of luck to the guy.
I can't really say if that era has come and gone, in terms of rock music. I will say I find a lot of what is being released under the 'rock' genre these days pretty disposable in terms of it being in one ear and out the other when I listen to it...
I mean, outside of the choice of using Van Halen's old 1970s backyard party band name for his project, I don't think Wolfgang's music is trying to ape what Van Halen did stylistically...and that is a positive thing.
I tend to think if this material had been released by a band of previously unknown rock musicians with no famous family connections, it probably wouldn't be getting the amount of attention it is getting. It's an obvious conclusion to make there, but the Mammoth stuff to my ears...while it is competently written, arranged and produced...none of it thus far has really made me want to hear it more than the couple of times I did in order to give the tunes a fair listen or fair shake.
In terms of chemistry, doubtless it's hard to conjure up any when it, as you say, is one person writing all the material and playing all the parts.
If I thought Wolfgang's Mammoth stuff sucked, I'd say so. While I don't think it sucks, none of what I've heard (and all I have heard are the tracks that have been posted on this site) has made me want to give the entire album a listen...and none of the tracks have jumped out at me to the point where I want to hear them again and again...
Well... Paul McCartney kinda did the same thing back in 1970. Nobody died, in his case, but he decided that he didn't want to put a band together to make a record, so he played everything himself. Prince also made his first three albums entirely on his own, so Wolf isn't entirely unique in that respect. Of course none of those guys played in their dad's band as a teenager either. (Paul actually might have, but Jim McCartney's band never played a gig outside of Liverpool, as far as I know)
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
As far as the "Don't Back Down" video goes, if you're going to clone yourself multiple times in the video (because you played all the instruments) you really should have all the different versions of yourself dressed differently.
(See "Silly Thing" by the Sex Pistols or that godawful disco song "Coming Up" by Paul McCartney for examples)
The songs are solid. What sticks out to me is how well the sound is engineered. Top grade recording.
No! You can't have the keys to the wine cellar!
Both Paul McCartney and Prince are in the musical genius category. Wolfgang manages to make half decent songs but nothing magical. Not too many children of great musicians match up to their parent. But hell, there will only be one Eddie Van Halen. The kid can make music. We will see where he is in five years. Right now people are just curious to see what he can do.
Ed was a great innovator and came up with great riffs but if VH3 was his best song producing ability then Wolfgang is better. Wolf can write lyrics, sing and patch a decent song together himself. Ed needed others to craft a full song but if he worked with the right people holy shit was it ever good.
And that's as it should be. When Julian Lennon's first album came out, everybody thought he sounded just like his dad. And looked a lot like him too. By his third album, he was tired of comparisons, so instead, he tried to sound like his dad's old friend, David Bowie. That didn't work too well.... and we really haven't heard from him since. But he probably had more success than his little brother Sean did (and from what I've heard of Sean's music, that's not really surprising).
Wolf has talent. He couldn't make an entire album by himself if he didn't. But whether he can channel that talent into a sound that people want to hear, well that's the question. I definitely DO think it's good that he's not trying to sound like Eddie, because (as Julian Lennon could tell him) that's not a good business plan for the long term.
Didn't Aldo Nova do his first album entirely himself?
Just like that shittard monkey boy in Boston. He played everything but drums and singing.
Michael Baskette who has most notably worked with Slash and Sevendust produced this. Baskette seems to big on big riffy distorted guitar and that 90's metal-ish robodrumming. He's sort of a one-trick pony producer because there's not much difference sonically between a Slash solo outing and Sevendust and even this. I guess daddy's money could not afford a better more suitable producer for the Staypuff Marshmallow Boy. So you do get what you pay for.
Yes, he god damn did play just about everything on those god damn Boston albums. Even god damn WikiNiki can confirm god damn Schlitz Beer Tom played geeee tar, bass fish, and key boredom and god damn per cushion. That god damn shit sounds like every other god damn shit that was out on god damn Epic Records at the time. God damn it.
Back when we had a music industry and back when you could make a lot of money with recorded music you had talented managers and producers who could improve an act and help them further their career. The story was always the same. Usually who ruined the career was the artist themselves. A very common story.
Wolfgang is like a trust fund kid. He’s set. He’s no different than the rich kid who paints in a loft apartment in NYC because that’s the cool thing to do. Wolf makes music. Sometimes the art is pretty good but these people live in a different world. They don’t have to make a living.
God damn it.
Rarely do trust fund kids make great entertainers. It’s usually some nobody getting a break. I often wonder how much brilliance we miss because someone didn’t get the break or someone wasn’t willing to starve for their art. Lot’s of talented people out there but crafting really good songs, making a living doing it and being able to keep that process going requires a lot of variables working right. It’s always been difficult but in today’s environment of fragmented tastes and suppliers of music and little reward for the producer of it, there might not be big acts anymore like there were. There’s no center to any of it. In the past it was to get your song on all the major radio stations. The days of Dick Clark’s, Wolfman Jack’s and Casey Kasum’s promoting new artists is over. MTV is done. It’s play live and sell merchandise but how do people know who your are? In the not too distant past it cost a million dollars to promote a new act and get them on the road. Usually the record labels footed the startup costs. Who’s going to give a new band that kind of money now? Sure you can digitally record yourself and put it on the internet but how do you get attention? How do you market?
Last edited by Nitro Express; 03-29-2021 at 07:28 PM.
You either turn people’s crank or you don’t. Some people that create with three chords really well can get you off more than some highly trained full on musicians that can spell boredom very well with a lot of notes. That’s the magic. Everyone is looking for it but nobody quite knows what it is but they know it when they hear it.
Joe Sumner's band Fiction Plane opened for his dad and the Police on the reunion tour. Songs were okay, Joe sounds a little like Sting. Don't remember if he played bass too.
Haven't heard much of Joe since. He was touring with the Bowie alumni/tribute thing that got postponed about this time last year.
I have a saying if you have to make an effort to stop and think if it’s good it’s not that great. Lot’s of good musicians but very few make your big toe shoot up in your boot. It’s either there or it’s not and people have been trying to catch that lightning in a bottle forever. Eddie Van Halen put it best. He said he had no idea where it came from but it just comes. Some people have the star dust and others don’t.
Well today, you can actually experience a million more brilliant artists than not so long ago thanks to the interwebs and social media. I believe there has always been about the same amount of talented people out there... As you say it's still a rare few that make a living at it.
But it does make you wonder... does the expanded access today actually water down the value of all those famous musicians. Pick any famous guitarist alive today... is his/her performance really worth multi-million dollar tours and $200 concert tickets..?
It's hard to say their performances justify the cost when there's 100+ kids 8-12 years old out there that can rip it, as well, if not better than the big rock star...
At this rate we won't have to buy an album, it'll all be on YouTube!
Feel
It's all decent compositions and some interesting bits and parts... well produced and recorded.
I guess the downside of the one-man band thing is it all starts sounding the same or shall I say the spectrum/variety of music is fairly narrow.
Especially vocal melodies and backing vocals... Without any strong hooks, the vocals are a bit monotonous sounding to me. Not bad... just sort of bland and not very interesting. Also the lyrical choices all sound somewhat dark, angry or sad...
I try not to judge Wolf's effort with any Van Halen specific expectations... but, so far what's lacking is a happy, playful vibe musically...
Wolfgang dropped a new one today... solid rocker!
Wolf is definitely talented for sure.
The songs are good but seem to be rooted in mid to late 90s radio rock. Not my cup of tea.
I'm not expecting him to release a heavy CVH style record by any means but the songs are nothing I would have on repeat.
=V V=
ole No.1 The finest
EAT US AND SMILE
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