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Lately I notice that there's a lot of name-calling and venomous insults between the Dave faction and the Hagar fans who are so mysteriously drawn to a Diamond Dave site. Well, here's an article from The Village Voice written by Deborah Frost which explains why Van Hagar was (and still is) inferior to the original model. Ms. Frost isn't even a huge Dave fan.She simply pinpoints the problem with Sammy Hagar with incredible and well-written accuracy. Who knows? Maybe 3 Lock, Thorman, et al, will learn something.
Van Halen: Monsters of Rock Weenie Roast
Deborah Frost, Village Voice, 28 June 1988
VAN HALEN'S resident virtuoso launched a zillion whammy bars and charted heavy guitar's course for the '80s. The band's high-concept ex-vocalist sent a nation out for peroxide and made hard rock front men sex symbols again.
David Lee Roth, from whom Van Halen can't be divorced yet anymore than Mick can be discussed without the Stones, liked to describe what Van Halen did as Big Rock. And in the decade since the band burst out of suburban L.A., Van Halen set records for the biggest noise, the biggest load of equipment, the biggest haul for a single performance (a million dollars, at the US Festival). With Eddie Van Halen delivering six-string soliloquies like Olivier on one hand and the Enola Gay on the other, Van Halen exploded pop (even if every time their synth-bolstered number one single, 'Jump', came on the radio in 1984 it sounded like the best song Journey ever did) and melted most flash 'n' burn metal competition.
Live, Van Halen's music takes on other dimensions. With OU812 (Warner Bros.), their eighth album (second with singer/pugilist Sammy Hagar), topping the charts, and the band headlining the massive Monsters of Rock tour, Van Halen's bigger than ever. At noon on June 10 in RFK Stadium, Washington D.C., it looked like school was out forever. And for the next nine hours I had plenty of time to wonder about stuff like if all the hair there was laid head to head, where would it reach? After four merely platinum warm-up bands – Kingdom Come, Metallica, Dokken, and the Scorpions – you'd think Van Halen would be the monster of them all.
That was the design, but many D.C. headbangers weren't buying it. With the exception of Metallica, Van Halen chose safe, workmanlike acts that offered little competition or excitement. And despite the hype, many seats and much of the field were empty. Perhaps the potential audience was not jazzed about seeing Kingdom Come (deflated Led Zep), Dokken (despite a guitarist who's the best of the Eddie-ots), or the Scorpions (peaked in '84). Monsters? Where's AC/DC? Aerosmith? Motorhead!
Van Halen's the only group that goes on after dark, the only one with the light show, fireworks, scoreboard-sized logos mounted on PA stacks as tall as office buildings. But as big as it is – and as good as the band can be, live and on record – Van Halen sometimes seems very small. By the time they hit the stage, 8:20, many fans were catatonic (326 drug/alcohol treatments, according to The Washington Post). And with all the big bangs, a drum set that revolved (like Rush's, only bigger) and levitated (like the Scorpions' used to), and zillions of lights that achieved the effect of one disco mirror ball, Van Halen couldn't galvanize us. It's not that the band didn't sound great – they did, especially Eddie's riffs. But sound alone does not a monster make.
Hagar's singing at RFK made us realize that oldies like 'Runnin' With the Devil' and 'Panama' actually have melodies. Sammy can sing. He just can't do much else. Where Roth (whose voice was never his strong point) is the master of the grand gesture, tile ultimate showman, Sammy comes off like a surfer out of water. His jerky aerobics and remedial raps can't sustain a stadium's attention. When he cried at RFK, "Give me everything I need!" the crowd upfront responded with Frisbees and bedsheets.
Then they flicked their Bics. Then they lit cardboard popcorn boxes and held them like torches. Then they set a fire on the Redskins' 50 yard line. Guards rushed with blankets to smother it, as another started on the 20, then yet another across the stadium, and then another. The kids danced in the glow, forgetting the stage. Arms outstretched, they worshipped the flames. At one point there were three good-sized bonfires on the field.
When the tier below me began to glow, I decided not to stick around. Van Halen's show wasn't over, and I joined the hordes streaming out. This was not my idea of a smokin' set.
As with the show, OU812's problem is Hagar. He can croon anything thing Eddie asks him to. Not like Roth, a smart-ass, a narcissist who wraps himself in chains and pouts for Helmut Newton, a nonmusician, a Jew, an outsider. But that's the way the behemoth crumbles. Van Halen Mach II is one for all and all for one. Hagar, whose greatest solo hit was a speed-limit protest song, is so eager to fit into this happy millionaire boy's club that he can't quite figure out how to do the rest of Roth's job, most of which had very little to do with singing. If Roth the cockrocker wasn't completely offensive, it was because he played it so (of course) big, and funny, and injected thumpers like 'Runnin' With the Devil' with semiastute insights – "I found the simple life wasn't to simple."
Corny where Roth was camp, Hagar is simply simple. He tops some of Eddie's steamiest OU812 riffs ('Black and Blue'), jams ('Source of Infection'), and uncharacteristically funky, clean Knopfleresque picking ('Finish What Ya Started') with some of the basest sexist platitudes ever perpetuated. Is it any coincidence that 'Black and Blue', which kicks off with "Bitch sure got the rhythm" and continues "Baby I ain't through with you/The harder the better" shares its name with a Stones album notable for its obnoxious ad campaign?
The shame is not only that this junk is coming from a middle-aged man who's been married for years, has kids, and should know better. It's that Eddie's playing is more seductive than ever, even if on his own songs he hasn't yet come up with a moment as transcendent or perfectly realized as 'Beat and Blue' any more than the jaws of death or the IRS. As the content has become ever more reactionary, the form (despite the usual VH-LP filler – 'Feels So Good', 'Cabo Wabo', 'Sucker in a 3 Piece') has become more sophisticated and expansive, continually pushing the limits of the power chord. So you find yourself humming along with Hagar's "I got the tools" boasts and gimmee-uh grunts, wondering, all the while, when Eddie is going to make an instrumental album.
Hagar was more modest in his solo career and even demonstrated fine taste in covers (he once did a credible, completely unexpected version of Patti Smith's 'Free Money'). He's given Van Halen a conventionally macho personality – chain choking bitches dominate his rockers, ideal virgins the ballads. When not trying to fill Dave's tights, he writes incredibly sentimental goop, like 'Why Can't This Be Love', off 1986's 5150. This year he rewrites it as 'When It's Love'. (What's next? 'Is It Love Yet?') The guy's got leather lungs and a leather brain. Still, as long as Eddie keeps whipping out those party guitar licks, Van Halen will stay above the flames.
Van Halen: Monsters of Rock Weenie Roast
Deborah Frost, Village Voice, 28 June 1988
VAN HALEN'S resident virtuoso launched a zillion whammy bars and charted heavy guitar's course for the '80s. The band's high-concept ex-vocalist sent a nation out for peroxide and made hard rock front men sex symbols again.
David Lee Roth, from whom Van Halen can't be divorced yet anymore than Mick can be discussed without the Stones, liked to describe what Van Halen did as Big Rock. And in the decade since the band burst out of suburban L.A., Van Halen set records for the biggest noise, the biggest load of equipment, the biggest haul for a single performance (a million dollars, at the US Festival). With Eddie Van Halen delivering six-string soliloquies like Olivier on one hand and the Enola Gay on the other, Van Halen exploded pop (even if every time their synth-bolstered number one single, 'Jump', came on the radio in 1984 it sounded like the best song Journey ever did) and melted most flash 'n' burn metal competition.
Live, Van Halen's music takes on other dimensions. With OU812 (Warner Bros.), their eighth album (second with singer/pugilist Sammy Hagar), topping the charts, and the band headlining the massive Monsters of Rock tour, Van Halen's bigger than ever. At noon on June 10 in RFK Stadium, Washington D.C., it looked like school was out forever. And for the next nine hours I had plenty of time to wonder about stuff like if all the hair there was laid head to head, where would it reach? After four merely platinum warm-up bands – Kingdom Come, Metallica, Dokken, and the Scorpions – you'd think Van Halen would be the monster of them all.
That was the design, but many D.C. headbangers weren't buying it. With the exception of Metallica, Van Halen chose safe, workmanlike acts that offered little competition or excitement. And despite the hype, many seats and much of the field were empty. Perhaps the potential audience was not jazzed about seeing Kingdom Come (deflated Led Zep), Dokken (despite a guitarist who's the best of the Eddie-ots), or the Scorpions (peaked in '84). Monsters? Where's AC/DC? Aerosmith? Motorhead!
Van Halen's the only group that goes on after dark, the only one with the light show, fireworks, scoreboard-sized logos mounted on PA stacks as tall as office buildings. But as big as it is – and as good as the band can be, live and on record – Van Halen sometimes seems very small. By the time they hit the stage, 8:20, many fans were catatonic (326 drug/alcohol treatments, according to The Washington Post). And with all the big bangs, a drum set that revolved (like Rush's, only bigger) and levitated (like the Scorpions' used to), and zillions of lights that achieved the effect of one disco mirror ball, Van Halen couldn't galvanize us. It's not that the band didn't sound great – they did, especially Eddie's riffs. But sound alone does not a monster make.
Hagar's singing at RFK made us realize that oldies like 'Runnin' With the Devil' and 'Panama' actually have melodies. Sammy can sing. He just can't do much else. Where Roth (whose voice was never his strong point) is the master of the grand gesture, tile ultimate showman, Sammy comes off like a surfer out of water. His jerky aerobics and remedial raps can't sustain a stadium's attention. When he cried at RFK, "Give me everything I need!" the crowd upfront responded with Frisbees and bedsheets.
Then they flicked their Bics. Then they lit cardboard popcorn boxes and held them like torches. Then they set a fire on the Redskins' 50 yard line. Guards rushed with blankets to smother it, as another started on the 20, then yet another across the stadium, and then another. The kids danced in the glow, forgetting the stage. Arms outstretched, they worshipped the flames. At one point there were three good-sized bonfires on the field.
When the tier below me began to glow, I decided not to stick around. Van Halen's show wasn't over, and I joined the hordes streaming out. This was not my idea of a smokin' set.
As with the show, OU812's problem is Hagar. He can croon anything thing Eddie asks him to. Not like Roth, a smart-ass, a narcissist who wraps himself in chains and pouts for Helmut Newton, a nonmusician, a Jew, an outsider. But that's the way the behemoth crumbles. Van Halen Mach II is one for all and all for one. Hagar, whose greatest solo hit was a speed-limit protest song, is so eager to fit into this happy millionaire boy's club that he can't quite figure out how to do the rest of Roth's job, most of which had very little to do with singing. If Roth the cockrocker wasn't completely offensive, it was because he played it so (of course) big, and funny, and injected thumpers like 'Runnin' With the Devil' with semiastute insights – "I found the simple life wasn't to simple."
Corny where Roth was camp, Hagar is simply simple. He tops some of Eddie's steamiest OU812 riffs ('Black and Blue'), jams ('Source of Infection'), and uncharacteristically funky, clean Knopfleresque picking ('Finish What Ya Started') with some of the basest sexist platitudes ever perpetuated. Is it any coincidence that 'Black and Blue', which kicks off with "Bitch sure got the rhythm" and continues "Baby I ain't through with you/The harder the better" shares its name with a Stones album notable for its obnoxious ad campaign?
The shame is not only that this junk is coming from a middle-aged man who's been married for years, has kids, and should know better. It's that Eddie's playing is more seductive than ever, even if on his own songs he hasn't yet come up with a moment as transcendent or perfectly realized as 'Beat and Blue' any more than the jaws of death or the IRS. As the content has become ever more reactionary, the form (despite the usual VH-LP filler – 'Feels So Good', 'Cabo Wabo', 'Sucker in a 3 Piece') has become more sophisticated and expansive, continually pushing the limits of the power chord. So you find yourself humming along with Hagar's "I got the tools" boasts and gimmee-uh grunts, wondering, all the while, when Eddie is going to make an instrumental album.
Hagar was more modest in his solo career and even demonstrated fine taste in covers (he once did a credible, completely unexpected version of Patti Smith's 'Free Money'). He's given Van Halen a conventionally macho personality – chain choking bitches dominate his rockers, ideal virgins the ballads. When not trying to fill Dave's tights, he writes incredibly sentimental goop, like 'Why Can't This Be Love', off 1986's 5150. This year he rewrites it as 'When It's Love'. (What's next? 'Is It Love Yet?') The guy's got leather lungs and a leather brain. Still, as long as Eddie keeps whipping out those party guitar licks, Van Halen will stay above the flames.
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