VAN HALEN: Every Album, Every Song (On Track) NEW BOOK

[DLR Bridge]

It's no coincidence that the band got rid of Cherone when they got rid of Danniels, which was when they were in the middle of recording the followup to VDIII in 1999.

I remember Gary being jettisoned within just a few days of a public open-letter feud he was embroiled in with Eddie Vedder over pro-life, pro-choice opinions. Gary being pro-life. I remember thinking Ed and Al must’ve been scratching their heads, wondering how things got to such an odd point in their band. All the while, blaming anyone and everyone but themselves, of course.

[Catfish]

I could only get 1:35 into the Upchuck for Breakfast song and had to stop, you can hear his voice too much.

[ZahZoo]

I could only get 1:35 into the Upchuck for Breakfast song and had to stop, you can hear his voice too much.

One benefit of decades of audio engineering and live sound mixing is I can isolate pretty much every instrument in my brain and tune out the rest easily. Vocals are what I usually ignore the most... the instrumentation is 90% of what matters in a good mix.

Today I'm thankful for digital mixing consoles where I can easily create channel groups for separating vocals and instruments then isolate with the punch of a button. I never tire of hearing singers whine about why I'm muting them during sound checks and tell them to keep their in-ears on and do their damn job while make the real music sound good.