A couple new articles

[Northern Girl]

for your viewing if you so choose:


http://www.antimusic.com/2c/04/july/vh.shtml


http://www.freep.com/entertainment/music/halen9_20040709.htm

[edvanheineken]

The antimusic article was a great read....thanks!

[Chong Li]

Good articles.

But depressing.

[Halen High]

Thanks Northern Girl!

I found both articles interesting reads. I agree with Chong Li in that both were a little depressing.

I hope Chuck DiMaria's lead is wrong. It'll be a rock 'n roll tragedy if VH finish off with Sammy.

[Panamark]

antiMUSIC is pleased to welcome aboard with Chuck DiMaria, who will be giving us his 2 cents every week on a variety of music topics.

As always the views expressed by the writer do not neccessarily reflect the views of antiMUSIC or the iconoclast entertainment group
.




Might As Well Jump



David Lee Roth is never going to front Van Halen again.

It took me almost twenty years to finally figure that one out. (Not bad, given the density of my skull.) But the reality has finally and inexorably set it.

It’s over, baby. The fat lady sang, took her bow and is currently dining at Spago.

I’ll bring those of you who weren’t there pre-1984 up to date:

Once upon a time, there was a real badass walking the face of the planet. His name was Roth and he fronted a band out of Pasadena called Van Halen.

It was a glorious time to own a radio.

Unmistakable guitar riffs, unmistakable background vocals and the unmistakable scream of David Lee Roth.

But, as all good things do, it ended. And it was a pretty messy divorce. Accusations, innuendo, you name it. Some blamed Eddie, some Dave and some even blamed Val. (I doubt it was her fault, though. I’m clinging to my hopes that she’s still a nice Italian girl.)

Roth went on to score some hits after that, but never quite managed to take it to original VH level. The brothers Van Halen did pretty nicely for themselves, though. Picked up Hagar and hit the ground running.

Years went by and we (the fans) were often teased with the rumor of a VH reunion. But you can only cry wolf so many times.

And now, after losing Sammy, getting Gary, losing Gary, almost getting Dave then finally getting Sammy again, Van Halen is back on tour.

I always thought Gary Cherone was a stellar talent. I was talking to him once right after he got the job. I told him congratulations, but he just shrugged his shoulders and said, “We’ll see what happens. I think he was just trying to keep things in perspective.

And to Gary’s credit, he’s the one lead singer that Eddie never said an ill word about. Not one. That tells you something there.

I’ve watched this man tear up a soccer stadium full of screaming fans and it was a shame he didn’t get a fair shot at this. Most people only knew him from More Than Words. Too bad, because the man rocks.

So Sammy is back with Mike, Alex and Eddie while Dave is currently doing his own thing, be it as an EMT, an extra on The Sopranos or fronting the Boston Pops. (He tends to keep busy – I doubt he’ll ever sweat the rent.) And Gary’s got Tribe of Judah now.

But what do we have?

You know, it wasn’t that I was hoping for a reunion because of the sense of nostalgia. It wasn’t like I was hoping to see a bunch of chicks with blue eye shadow and tube tops on heading towards the show. (Well, maybe a little…)

All I really wanted was to see those four guys back on stage again. It was an amazing show. In their heyday, back in the late 70’s and very early 80’s, the guys were just hungry for it. You could see it in everything they did.

Watching them on stage was a true experience. Hard to believe this was just a cover band out of Pasadena only a few years before. Now they were setting the world on fire.

It was inspiring. Made you want to start a rock band. At least it did for me. I can trace it back to one live video for a song called So This Is Love. The video ended and I knew that was what I wanted to do.

I had never seen a bunch of guys having that much fun on stage before in my life. Damn few since then, too.

I’m sure a lot of the people who frequent this site aren’t only fans of music, but also musicians themselves. They know what I’m talking about. You only get that kind of magic once in a great while onstage. You can take some of the best players out there, put them in a room together and get absolute garbage out of them.

But every once in a while, you get a bunch of players where the whole is definitely greater than the sum of its parts. It’s what every band dreams of.

They had it. They definitely had it.

Of course, they had a lot of success with Sammy in the band, no doubt about it. It wasn’t the same. Neither worse nor better, just different. But it wasn’t Van Halen.

Same thing with Dave’s post-Van Halen bands: All great players, but no “me wise magic”. Hell, he even had Steve Vai and Billy Sheehan playing with him at one point, but it just wasn’t the same.

Neither worse nor better, just different. But it wasn’t Van Halen.

You take it personally when something happens to your favorite band or favorite player. Maybe it’s because we need rock stars.

That was something Rikki Rocket told me once. We were having a smoke in a cigar bar in Woodland Hills – A little place called Sierra Cigar. My buddy Al ran the joint.

Rikki is still one of the most approachable, down-to-Earth guys you’d ever want to meet. “We need rock stars, Chuck,” he said, “we need heroes.”

Maybe Rikki was right. When you’re looking up at those guys on stage, you’re really not thinking to yourself, “Wow, did you see the way he justified that chord progression with the diminished minor at the end? Outstanding!” Not likely.

What you’re probably thinking is, “Wow, I wanna be just like this guy.” And that’s a hero.

They walked and talked and did whatever the hell they wanted. What’s not to admire?

So I wasn’t really all that interested in seeing David Lee Roth with the Boston Pops over the weekend. I doubt it could compete with the Fair Warning World Tour.

They set a pretty high standard.

When you’re trying to get a record deal – a bunch of guys with nothing more than their instruments, their drive and their dreams – you’ve got your whole life to write that first album.

Try doing it while your bouncing around in a tour bus for 10 months and you’ll see the problem. It’s a different world when you break on through to the other side. That’s the funny thing about being hungry; you do whatever you gotta do to get to that feast. Then you eat your fill and – surprise - you’re no longer hungry.

Enter the dreaded sophomore jinx. Some fall prey to it, some slide right by it. But eventually it will catch up to you.

The trick is to stay hungry, but that’s no small feat. How do you stay hungry when you’ve got it all?

Maybe Steven Tyler was right. Maybe you do gotta lose to know how to win.

I think that’s why I’m not really interested in a VH reunion anymore; they’ll never be that hungry again. The standard is set way too high, and no matter what, it probably won’t even come close.

Neither worse nor better, just different.

But it won’t be Van Halen.

That’s my two cents, now gimme my change.

[Sarge's Little Helper]

antiMUSIC is pleased to welcome aboard with Chuck DiMaria, who will be giving us his 2 cents every week on a variety of music topics.

As always the views expressed by the writer do not neccessarily reflect the views of antiMUSIC or the iconoclast entertainment group
.




Might As Well Jump



David Lee Roth is never going to front Van Halen again.

It took me almost twenty years to finally figure that one out. (Not bad, given the density of my skull.) But the reality has finally and inexorably set it.

It’s over, baby. The fat lady sang, took her bow and is currently dining at Spago.

I’ll bring those of you who weren’t there pre-1984 up to date:

Once upon a time, there was a real badass walking the face of the planet. His name was Roth and he fronted a band out of Pasadena called Van Halen.

It was a glorious time to own a radio.

Unmistakable guitar riffs, unmistakable background vocals and the unmistakable scream of David Lee Roth.

But, as all good things do, it ended. And it was a pretty messy divorce. Accusations, innuendo, you name it. Some blamed Eddie, some Dave and some even blamed Val. (I doubt it was her fault, though. I’m clinging to my hopes that she’s still a nice Italian girl.)

Roth went on to score some hits after that, but never quite managed to take it to original VH level. The brothers Van Halen did pretty nicely for themselves, though. Picked up Hagar and hit the ground running.

Years went by and we (the fans) were often teased with the rumor of a VH reunion. But you can only cry wolf so many times.

And now, after losing Sammy, getting Gary, losing Gary, almost getting Dave then finally getting Sammy again, Van Halen is back on tour.

I always thought Gary Cherone was a stellar talent. I was talking to him once right after he got the job. I told him congratulations, but he just shrugged his shoulders and said, “We’ll see what happens. I think he was just trying to keep things in perspective.

And to Gary’s credit, he’s the one lead singer that Eddie never said an ill word about. Not one. That tells you something there.

I’ve watched this man tear up a soccer stadium full of screaming fans and it was a shame he didn’t get a fair shot at this. Most people only knew him from More Than Words. Too bad, because the man rocks.

So Sammy is back with Mike, Alex and Eddie while Dave is currently doing his own thing, be it as an EMT, an extra on The Sopranos or fronting the Boston Pops. (He tends to keep busy – I doubt he’ll ever sweat the rent.) And Gary’s got Tribe of Judah now.

But what do we have?

You know, it wasn’t that I was hoping for a reunion because of the sense of nostalgia. It wasn’t like I was hoping to see a bunch of chicks with blue eye shadow and tube tops on heading towards the show. (Well, maybe a little…)

All I really wanted was to see those four guys back on stage again. It was an amazing show. In their heyday, back in the late 70’s and very early 80’s, the guys were just hungry for it. You could see it in everything they did.

Watching them on stage was a true experience. Hard to believe this was just a cover band out of Pasadena only a few years before. Now they were setting the world on fire.

It was inspiring. Made you want to start a rock band. At least it did for me. I can trace it back to one live video for a song called So This Is Love. The video ended and I knew that was what I wanted to do.

I had never seen a bunch of guys having that much fun on stage before in my life. Damn few since then, too.

I’m sure a lot of the people who frequent this site aren’t only fans of music, but also musicians themselves. They know what I’m talking about. You only get that kind of magic once in a great while onstage. You can take some of the best players out there, put them in a room together and get absolute garbage out of them.

But every once in a while, you get a bunch of players where the whole is definitely greater than the sum of its parts. It’s what every band dreams of.

They had it. They definitely had it.

Of course, they had a lot of success with Sammy in the band, no doubt about it. It wasn’t the same. Neither worse nor better, just different. But it wasn’t Van Halen.

Same thing with Dave’s post-Van Halen bands: All great players, but no “me wise magic”. Hell, he even had Steve Vai and Billy Sheehan playing with him at one point, but it just wasn’t the same.

Neither worse nor better, just different. But it wasn’t Van Halen.

You take it personally when something happens to your favorite band or favorite player. Maybe it’s because we need rock stars.

That was something Rikki Rocket told me once. We were having a smoke in a cigar bar in Woodland Hills – A little place called Sierra Cigar. My buddy Al ran the joint.

Rikki is still one of the most approachable, down-to-Earth guys you’d ever want to meet. “We need rock stars, Chuck,” he said, “we need heroes.”

Maybe Rikki was right. When you’re looking up at those guys on stage, you’re really not thinking to yourself, “Wow, did you see the way he justified that chord progression with the diminished minor at the end? Outstanding!” Not likely.

What you’re probably thinking is, “Wow, I wanna be just like this guy.” And that’s a hero.

They walked and talked and did whatever the hell they wanted. What’s not to admire?

So I wasn’t really all that interested in seeing David Lee Roth with the Boston Pops over the weekend. I doubt it could compete with the Fair Warning World Tour.

They set a pretty high standard.

When you’re trying to get a record deal – a bunch of guys with nothing more than their instruments, their drive and their dreams – you’ve got your whole life to write that first album.

Try doing it while your bouncing around in a tour bus for 10 months and you’ll see the problem. It’s a different world when you break on through to the other side. That’s the funny thing about being hungry; you do whatever you gotta do to get to that feast. Then you eat your fill and – surprise - you’re no longer hungry.

Enter the dreaded sophomore jinx. Some fall prey to it, some slide right by it. But eventually it will catch up to you.

The trick is to stay hungry, but that’s no small feat. How do you stay hungry when you’ve got it all?

Maybe Steven Tyler was right. Maybe you do gotta lose to know how to win.

I think that’s why I’m not really interested in a VH reunion anymore; they’ll never be that hungry again. The standard is set way too high, and no matter what, it probably won’t even come close.

Neither worse nor better, just different.

But it won’t be Van Halen.

That’s my two cents, now gimme my change.

Oops. I wasn't paying attention. Tell me again what is going on.

[Panamark]

Legendary rockers Van Halen promise a party

July 9, 2004


BY BRIAN McCOLLUM
FREE PRESS POP MUSIC WRITER


There are two places these Van Halen shows can go this weekend: into the land of rock 'n' roll redemption, or into rock 'n' roll hell.

Based on the band's erratic past decade, we may very well be carted along to both.

In a concert season marred by slow ticket sales and growing industry panic, Van Halen should be jumping out as one of the summer's highlights: Sammy Hagar back out front. Eddie Van Halen back on stage after six years away. One of rock's most storied outfits back in action after an extended absence.

The band has used the word "celebration" to describe this 47-city tour, which kicked off last month in North Carolina and lands in Michigan this weekend for three shows. But for fans who have learned to be leery -- even in the prime Van Halen territory of Detroit -- the party hats aren't tied on just yet.

Van Halen long ago earned itself a place among the 20th Century's giants, rightly standing elbow to elbow alongside Led Zeppelin, AC/DC and Black Sabbath inside the hard rock showroom. But few great bands have done as much grave injury to their names as these onetime California mavericks, who gloriously roared onto the scene back in the disco days of '78. And that leaves the question hanging as the quartet visits Grand Rapids tonight, Joe Louis Arena on Saturday and the Palace on Sunday: Is Van Halen beyond damage control at this point?

This is a band, after all, that has some fans still steaming over frontman David Lee Roth's dismissal two decades ago. The seemingly relentless turbulence that has followed that 1985 move -- the hiring and firing of Hagar, Gary Cherone's awkward frontman stint, Eddie Van Halen's public disappearance -- has only served to taint what once was among rock's most solid legacies.

Tension has defined Van Halen since the Roth split, manifested in various guises: dirty laundry aired in public, fans' well-honed griping, reports of physical confrontations between band members. Roth and Hagar even managed to build a whole summer tour out of the feud game, partnering for a 2002 run that caricatured the two singers' perceived animosity.

There's a lingering bright side, however, to the topsy-turvy Van Halen saga: The group knows its way around a comeback. These days, 49-year-old guitarist Van Halen is as regarded for his survival skills -- triumphing over alcoholism, cancer and hip-replacement surgery -- as for his groundbreaking hammer-tap technique. The Roth firing, which came at the crest of the band's commercial success, turned out to be not a nail in the coffin but a nifty turn of the screw, as the Van Hagar incarnation whipped out five multiplatinum records.

But we wait with bated breath. "The Best of Both Worlds," a two-disc career anthology due July 20, features three new songs -- three not-so-magical new songs. The lone saving grace is Van Halen himself, who seems to have retained his facility on the fretboard and whose quarter-hour solos on this tour have reportedly sizzled.

It's weird, and too bad. Far lesser bands have more successfully negotiated their mature years. Van Halen's members, to their credit, seem to understand what they're up against. In recent interviews, they've delivered the standard reunion lines: We're not licking old wounds. We're a family. We're using our past to look ahead, not back.

Maybe so. There are too many moments of brilliance in the Van Halen legacy to lose all optimism. But when you're talking about a group that has spent more recent effort on stuff that doesn't have much to do with music or brilliance, it's hard not to find a little skepticism mingling with your high hopes.

Of course, in a summer where the pickings are slim, that might be just enough to make for one intriguing rock 'n' roll weekend.

[Panamark]

Thanks Northern Girl !

[ELVIS]

Triumphing over alcoholism ???

[BrownSound1]

Yeah Elvis, he's managed to triumph over alcoholism.....it is no longer a chore to get drunk for him. He kicked its ass. :D

[Panamark]

LMAO !

Eddie doesnt have a problem with alcohol. He buys it, he drinks it.
No problem !

[guwapo_rocker]

Originally posted by Panamark
LMAO !

Eddie doesnt have a problem with alcohol. He buys it, he drinks it.
No problem !

I just had to write to this "journalist"?

mccollum@freepress.com.

Do you check your facts before you write your articles?

Eddies triumph over alcohol? It is well documented

that Edward Van Halen is drinking heavily on this tour.

Other articles have even mentioned it. Did you not

read about Edward staggering into a Boston eatery,

bottle of wine in hand?

Go to a show, watch Ed carefully, how many bottles of red

wine does Ed consume in a two hour set?

Triumph my ass.

Guwapo Rocker.