Noel Monk book out 13th June

[Va Beach VH Fan]

Podcast with the Dave & Dave dudes....

https://www.spreaker.com/user/daveanddaveunchained/episode-15-ex-van-halen-manager-1978-198?utm_medium=widget&utm_source=user%3A8664826&utm_term=episode_title

[Terry]

Have skimmed through most of it, while reading some parts with keen interest, as part of an initial glance before I read it all cover to cover.

Interesting stuff. Hadn't seen any of the pics before.

First impressions.

A fairly human portrayal of Van Halen. Doesn't blanche in terms of describing the warts-and-all behavior of the band members, but doesn't come across as a hatchet job or a puff piece.

Was interesting in how it certainly amplified my impressions of the personalities of the band members. Anthony comes across as just a nice guy. Eddie comes across as a bit clueless- almost an idiot savant - with just about anything that doesn't involve having a guitar in his hands. Roth comes across as someone with an ego that got more and more overblown as the band became more and more successful, with an entirely self-centered personality that loses whatever offstage charms that might have to offer rather quickly when one has to spend an appreciable amount of time with him.

The personality of most interest in the book is that of Alex, who has always been the toughest one (for me, anyway) to figure out: was he merely Eddie's rubber stamp and had his back, or did Alex in his rare moments of sobriety exert just as much control over the band as Roth and Eddie?

The one thing I stumbled across in my quick blast was the story of how Anthony's percentage was whittled down during the 1984 tour, and that was one thing both Roth and the Van Halens agreed to at a point in the band when those three seemingly could barely tolerate each other's presence. And Anthony willingly signed the agreement. Which, when I take that in conjunction with that off-the-record phone 1982 interview Ed gave where he basically said Anthony was lucky to be in the band and wasn't pulling his own weight, sort of explains the rationale of the ease by which Anthony was finally and permanently ejected for Eddie's kid in 2005: not only did Eddie not place any type of premium for what Anthony brought to the table as far back as the CVH days, but neither did Alex or Dave. Also explains why Dave didn't have any problems going forward without Anthony in 2007.

But, yeah, Anthony seems like a sweetheart of a man, Eddie seems like he could be childishly charming when he wasn't too drunked or coked out, Alex seems like a drunken goon (although I didn't quite agree with Monk's assertion that Alex was merely a competent rock drummer...while I never thought of AVH up there with the all-time great rocks drummers, I thought he was quite a good one) and Roth seems like a guy who would gladly stick his head between his legs to whiff his own asscrack, which doubtless smelled like roses to him. Definitely a guy totally, totally in love with the sound of his own voice and his every utterance.

Then again, I think we all have instinctually known that about Dave, right?

Looks like there's quite a bit of Rock and Roll Business 101 stuff in there regarding CVH's business dealings as well, which I look forward to reading about in greater detail.

Fairly readable in terms of grammar. Fairly well-written.

Decent stuff.

[Jetstream]

Podcast with the Dave & Dave dudes....

https://www.spreaker.com/user/davean...=episode_title

I liked Monk's perspective because it seems void of any agenda concerning the members, like some old guy who was once in the mafia and no longer cares and just is telling you like it was. He is direct, his stories all coincide with each other and I think gives a very accurate portrayal of the band and what happened to them then and after. I do not feel a need or any fabrication of the truth on his behalf and he is careful not to make assumptions... put it this way, if he was in a cell being questioned by a cop, they would believe him lol

[Va Beach VH Fan]

I liked Monk's perspective because it seems void of any agenda concerning the members, like some old guy who was once in the mafia and no longer cares and just is telling you like it was. He is direct, his stories all coincide with each other and I think gives a very accurate portrayal of the band and what happened to them then and after. I do not feel a need or any fabrication of the truth on his behalf and he is careful not to make assumptions... put it this way, if he was in a cell being questioned by a cop, they would believe him lol

I haven't started on the book... LOL, took me a while to get going with Van Halen Rising as well....

But I've seen a comment or so on FB saying that he's coming across as bitter....

I guess I'll see after I read it, but I don't see how he can be called bitter by merely confirming for all of us in a first-person point of view about the massive egos in that band....

[Seshmeister]

He claims credit for quite a few things that Roth implied were his own ideas over the years.

I'm about 2/3rds of the way through and some of it is reminding me of Ian Faith, but then they both had very similar jobs...

For one thing that goes wrong... one... one single thing that goes wrong, a hundred things go right. Do you know what I spend my time doing? I sleep two or three hours a night. There's no sex and drugs for Ian, David. Do you know what I do? I find lost luggage. I locate mandolin strings in the middle of Austin!

[ZahZoo]

I haven't started on the book... LOL, took me a while to get going with Van Halen Rising as well....

But I've seen a comment or so on FB saying that he's coming across as bitter....

I guess I'll see after I read it, but I don't see how he can be called bitter by merely confirming for all of us in a first-person point of view about the massive egos in that band....

Reality isn't always so pretty and neat when viewed with no filters... Most folks have this comfortable image of their heroes built from sound bites and staged imagery. They blame the messenger when the celebrity is portrayed as the flawed human being they really are...

Once you recognize we're all just filthy animals in fancy clothes... the magic fades pretty quick!!

[Terry]

I liked Monk's perspective because it seems void of any agenda concerning the members, like some old guy who was once in the mafia and no longer cares and just is telling you like it was. He is direct, his stories all coincide with each other and I think gives a very accurate portrayal of the band and what happened to them then and after. I do not feel a need or any fabrication of the truth on his behalf and he is careful not to make assumptions... put it this way, if he was in a cell being questioned by a cop, they would believe him lol

Well, he doesn't speak to things he wasn't there for, like recording sessions and the like. The things he does speak to in terms of saying this event or that event factually happened are things he was physically present for. And none of it struck me as beyond belief in terms of hyperbole.

[Terry]

Reality isn't always so pretty and neat when viewed with no filters... Most folks have this comfortable image of their heroes built from sound bites and staged imagery. They blame the messenger when the celebrity is portrayed as the flawed human being they really are...

Once you recognize we're all just filthy animals in fancy clothes... the magic fades pretty quick!!

This book, much like Van Halen Rising, humanizes the band.

And that's not a bad thing: the truth is always more interesting than a concocted myth.

You really didn't hear much when CVH was operating about the behind-the-scenes stuff. It was only after the Roth split (the end game of that being something else Monk doesn't address in terms of the particulars, since he left the organization in January of 1985, thus wasn't there for it) and the barbs in the press were exchanged in the wake of that event, that we got a real sense of the insider stuff.

[Terry]

I haven't started on the book... LOL, took me a while to get going with Van Halen Rising as well....

But I've seen a comment or so on FB saying that he's coming across as bitter....

I guess I'll see after I read it, but I don't see how he can be called bitter by merely confirming for all of us in a first-person point of view about the massive egos in that band....

[Monk] certainly conveys his sense of anger at - in essence - being let go in early 1985 as to how he felt at that time, when he pushed for a permanent management contract with the band rather than the existing month-to-month renewal that had been the modus operandi prior to that.

Beyond that, I think it's exactly like Jetstream said, in that Monk does approximate the tone of one of those old mafia guys who has been out of the organization for so long any excess of emotion he once felt has been replaced by a "whatever...you want to hear how it was in the old days, here it is" attitude.

[Seshmeister]

The one thing I stumbled across in my quick blast was the story of how Anthony's percentage was whittled down during the 1984 tour, and that was one thing both Roth and the Van Halens agreed to at a point in the band when those three seemingly could barely tolerate each other's presence. And Anthony willingly signed the agreement. Which, when I take that in conjunction with that off-the-record phone 1982 interview Ed gave where he basically said Anthony was lucky to be in the band and wasn't pulling his own weight, sort of explains the rationale of the ease by which Anthony was finally and permanently ejected for Eddie's kid in 2005: not only did Eddie not place any type of premium for what Anthony brought to the table as far back as the CVH days, but neither did Alex or Dave. Also explains why Dave didn't have any problems going forward without Anthony in 2007.

I guess Anthony had 2 options at the point, leave with his 1984 writing royalties or give them up and stay. Given the sales of 1984 it must have been a long time before that decision became the correct one financially offset by Van Hagar.

The thing that always struck me about that, which when you hear how it was done in this book only makes it worse is the massive hypocrisy of Alex Van Halen retaining his publishing.

I've just finished the book and I'm trying to work out who comes out of it worse Dave or Alex and who Monk disliked more at the end.

[Seshmeister]

Another intervew about the book and Monk has Anthony's share as being $20 million.

I would guess it's possible he never made that back with his whole Van Hagar career?

I don’t understand it, never will. I really liked Michael. He never gave me a problem, ever. I didn’t understand why they did it to him, what he allowed to be done to him. Basically, what I would have said [to him] was, “Leave tonight and say goodbye and keep your $20 million. And they can’t do a show tonight. What are they going to have? No bass player and no [backing] vocal?” I couldn’t believe what they did to him. Usually, David and Edward and Al would have come to me and said, “What should I do”? Michael never came to me and said, “What should I do?” Because I would have told him what to do.

Or maybe he misspoke, a quarter share on writing royalties sounds more like $2 million?

[Terry]

I guess Anthony had 2 options at the point, leave with his 1984 writing royalties or give them up and stay. Given the sales of 1984 it must have been a long time before that decision became the correct one financially offset by Van Hagar.

The thing that always struck me about that, which when you hear how it was done in this book only makes it worse is the massive hypocrisy of Alex Van Halen retaining his publishing.

I've just finished the book and I'm trying to work out who comes out of it worse Dave or Alex and who Monk disliked more at the end.

Well, I'd tend to guess Anthony - quite reasonably - thought he wouldn't be where he was BUT for having hooked up with the Van Halens and Roth. Anthony, by his own admission, didn't write anything. Plus, who knew in 1984 that Van Halen was going to go the way it went? I mean, I can see Van Halen still having made it big without either Anthony or Alex. Dave and Eddie were the creative nucleus. Granted, it wouldn't have been the same band by default, but even back in the day, you never heard people raving about the drumming or the bass playing (both aspects I quite enjoyed, but to say anything other than that Dave and Eddie were the primary focal points for me would be disingenuous).

In terms of Alex and his publishing royalty hypocrisy, one word: nepotism. Not even by way of particular criticism. It's just the way it was and is.

Monk generally paints a picture of Alex being a major, major alcoholic in the CVH days. It kinda comes off like Monk to a degree excuses or writes off a lot of the things Alex did as a result of the alcohol consumption, which by all accounts was out of control in his case. With Dave, Monk says that although Roth did like to indulge now and then, it was rarely to excess in proportion to Alex or Eddie: Roth's drug of choice as the band got more and more successful was ego.

[Seshmeister]

This issue comes up again with Monk on the VH Unchained Podcast. He says again that if Anthony had come to him he could have fixed it and again says Mike was mad to let this happen.

I hadn't previously realized the role Roth had in all of this, I had thought it happened a bit later and was purely a Van Halen brothers move.

I wonder if the (weak) argument would be that since Ed recorded and played the music before presenting it to Dave that Alex had an influence on it. There is another slight argument that Alex did deserve more because he did at least help with the publicity.

On the podcast Monk also states that he is a hoarder and still has crates full of all the original documents, contacts, notes etc and so is sure of the accuracy of his story. Talk of writing a definitive history of the band using the band themselves maybe overestimates how much they would remember at this point given the amount of booze and everything else they were on a lot of the time.

[Terry]

Yeah, I had also assumed it had happened later as well, like, in the early 1990s or something. I thought it definitely hadn't happened until after Roth left, because I was aware that the songwriting credits on the first 6 albums were attributed to all four band members. I honestly couldn't tell you offhand how the songs were credited after Roth left, mostly because I never bothered to look. I think the impression I was under was that when the Van Halen management changed in the early 1990s, that THAT was when Anthony's end started to get whittled down. And, as you said, this was the result of the Van Halen brothers. As opposed to the reality which was, assuming what Monk said was true, that Roth had an equal hand in making that happen.

I suppose a weak case could be made for Alex retaining his credits if the creative process was such that the instrumental end of it often found a genesis in Ed and Al practicing/jamming together, and the result of that was what was usually presented to Dave.

All of it recalls something Roth said maybe 20 years ago, something along the lines of Anthony being firmly under the Van Halen brothers thumb because Roth refused to allow himself to ever be put in that position. And as shitty as the Van Halen brothers treated Anthony from my viewpoint (doubtless the Van Halen brothers - and Roth - frankly thought Anthony was the weakest link and was lucky to be there at all...and perhaps to a degree a case can be made for THAT viewpoint, too), I also think Anthony in the end got what he should have expected, if not deserved, for allowing himself to be treated that way.

The fact that Anthony went back and did that 2004 tour when it was made abundantly clear to him neither of the Van Halens wanted him there...I mean, I know a buck is a buck, but I don't know if I could have done it. Making music, to me, should be something that fills a musician with positive emotions. What strikes me is how so many of these professional musicians eventually end up doing these gigs, even when they are very successful, that have all the romance of factory assembly work: punching a clock to churn out the same thing over and over again, often alongside people they can barely stand to be around.

Anthony's level of passivity toward all the demeaning treatment he got...either it's zen-like beyond belief, or just spinelessness at a Jello-like level of consistency.

I mean, were I Anthony and the Van Halens contacted me about a 40th anniversary tour, I'd say I'll play with you if you want, but I get 25%. Otherwise, just like before you called, we've got nothing left to talk about. Go back on the road with your kid.

But Anthony continues to remain fairly silent about all of what happened. I assume he must have signed a non-disclosure agreement, too. I guess Roth and Hagar never did, because neither of them had/have any problems telling the brothers to go fuck themselves.

[Full Bug]

Love this quote!

ultimateclassicrock.com/noel-monk-van-halen-book-interview/

What were your thoughts when they brought Sammy Hagar into the band?

I didn’t give a s—. Van Halen was over. They brought Cherone in — What did I think? Nothing. This is not Van Halen; this is Van Cherone. This is Van Hagar. But without Edward and David, and I gotta press this point, there is no Van Halen. You cannot take the two seminal people who created that band and take one of them away. And right now, this guy Hagar [Laughs] is trying so hard to be Van Halen, he’ll even split it with David. It’s unbelievable! He will give up anything to have his legacy that he’s “a real Van Halen.” Give me a f—in’ break.