Tweet
Why is the Uglier, Less Talented Van Halen Brother such a royal dickhead?
Ed, Sam and Bassplayer are a Sack of Assholes, no question, and they deserve all the lumps they take here, but it seems to me that Shemp has said some of the harshest things of all about Dave.
He has two very different tactics that I've noticed. The first is to speak all calmly and rationally and pretend he's stating reasonable facts when he isn't. Case in point, on that MTV special back when they first got together with Sammy -- where he claimed that Warner Brothers had wanted Sammy to be the lead singer from the very beginning, etc. Or more recently, during the What A Joke Tour of 2004, where he went on national radio and talked about how no one is a bigger Van Halen van than the guys in Van Hagar, but Dave just can't hack it and would never be part of Van Halen again (p.s. hope you eat those words in 2007, bitch).
The second tactic is to just be a bitchy girl, even worse than Sammy sometimes. I'm thinking back to a Van Halen retrospective one of the big guitar mags did a few years ago. Shemp was quoted as saying the only reason Dave was asked to join the band was because he owned a PA system -- the exact quote was something like, "He couldn't sing for shit, but he had a PA system. We thought he'd get better, but he never did." What a douchebag. The article was a celebration of Halen, a quarter century later, and that's what he says about Dave. For all of Ed's talent, that band likely would never have gotten a deal with DLR and Shemp knows it. Again -- what a douchebag!
Does anyone know why Shemp is this way? Secret love affair with Sammy? Bitter over all of his divorces? Frustrated by living in the shadow of his mentally challenged brother, much as Sammy lives in the shadow of Dave? Some other reason?
Ed, Sam and Bassplayer are a Sack of Assholes, no question, and they deserve all the lumps they take here, but it seems to me that Shemp has said some of the harshest things of all about Dave.
He has two very different tactics that I've noticed. The first is to speak all calmly and rationally and pretend he's stating reasonable facts when he isn't. Case in point, on that MTV special back when they first got together with Sammy -- where he claimed that Warner Brothers had wanted Sammy to be the lead singer from the very beginning, etc. Or more recently, during the What A Joke Tour of 2004, where he went on national radio and talked about how no one is a bigger Van Halen van than the guys in Van Hagar, but Dave just can't hack it and would never be part of Van Halen again (p.s. hope you eat those words in 2007, bitch).
The second tactic is to just be a bitchy girl, even worse than Sammy sometimes. I'm thinking back to a Van Halen retrospective one of the big guitar mags did a few years ago. Shemp was quoted as saying the only reason Dave was asked to join the band was because he owned a PA system -- the exact quote was something like, "He couldn't sing for shit, but he had a PA system. We thought he'd get better, but he never did." What a douchebag. The article was a celebration of Halen, a quarter century later, and that's what he says about Dave. For all of Ed's talent, that band likely would never have gotten a deal with DLR and Shemp knows it. Again -- what a douchebag!
Does anyone know why Shemp is this way? Secret love affair with Sammy? Bitter over all of his divorces? Frustrated by living in the shadow of his mentally challenged brother, much as Sammy lives in the shadow of Dave? Some other reason?
Comment