Will we get a new album from Van Halen?

[DONNIEP]

Man, I wouldn't even know how to watch a clean copy of the US Fest. Sure, it would be cool and all. But I like my somewhat shitty version. It just feels right. Nah, it ain't perfect but neither was a live Van Halen show and I kinda like it that way. Plus, every time I've showed it to someone who's never seen the show I get to tell the story about how it used to get passed around as a VHS copy and how I got mine and how I shared copies around the world. That's a better story than:

"Whoa! You got the Van Halen US Fest show?? Where'd you get this?

"Walmart"

Yeah, I'll just keep my boots. What I would like is unreleased studio tracks, not really demos but where they were working the songs up in the studio, out takes and shit. All of it. And any photos and video shot in the studios. Toss in all the video and photos the band shot themselves here and there and I'd buy that. The truth of the matter is there may not be that much that the band shot themselves since they were kinda busy living it and probably not documenting it for us lunatics that want all this stuff lol.

[chuckjitsu]

Man, I wouldn't even know how to watch a clean copy of the US Fest. Sure, it would be cool and all. But I like my somewhat shitty version. It just feels right. Nah, it ain't perfect but neither was a live Van Halen show and I kinda like it that way. Plus, every time I've showed it to someone who's never seen the show I get to tell the story about how it used to get passed around as a VHS copy and how I got mine and how I shared copies around the world. That's a better story than:

"Whoa! You got the Van Halen US Fest show?? Where'd you get this?

"Walmart"

Yeah, I'll just keep my boots. What I would like is unreleased studio tracks, not really demos but where they were working the songs up in the studio, out takes and shit. All of it. And any photos and video shot in the studios. Toss in all the video and photos the band shot themselves here and there and I'd buy that. The truth of the matter is there may not be that much that the band shot themselves since they were kinda busy living it and probably not documenting it for us lunatics that want all this stuff lol.

Somewhere in a box in my garage is a VHS tape of VH at the US Festival. It's obviously a 3rd or 4th generation tape, but the picture and sound are pretty good, all things considered. I got that back in the early '90s from a VH bootleg company I found via an ad in Rolling Stone. Man, that was like getting treasure! I also ordered a few audio boots from that company (Fresno '79, Indianapolis and Charlotte from '84) and they were also pretty good sounding as well. The audio stuff wasn't even on CD- all cassettes baby! They had a pretty extensive bootleg collection, but the sound quality on a lot of that stuff was so-so, so I only stuck with the high end stuff and that limited my options. My only venture in to the poorer quality stuff was a cassette of unreleased stuff that was pretty poor sound wise. The only songs I remember being on that were Honolulu Baby and Voodoo Queen (hey, it's Mean Street!!!). Sound was so shitty I only listened to it a couple of times.

[Terry]

Somewhere in a box in my garage is a VHS tape of VH at the US Festival. It's obviously a 3rd or 4th generation tape, but the picture and sound are pretty good, all things considered. I got that back in the early '90s from a VH bootleg company I found via an ad in Rolling Stone. Man, that was like getting treasure! I also ordered a few audio boots from that company (Fresno '79, Indianapolis and Charlotte from '84) and they were also pretty good sounding as well. The audio stuff wasn't even on CD- all cassettes baby! They had a pretty extensive bootleg collection, but the sound quality on a lot of that stuff was so-so, so I only stuck with the high end stuff and that limited my options. My only venture in to the poorer quality stuff was a cassette of unreleased stuff that was pretty poor sound wise. The only songs I remember being on that were Honolulu Baby and Voodoo Queen (hey, it's Mean Street!!!). Sound was so shitty I only listened to it a couple of times.

I got my copy of the US Fest from a mom n' pop record store in the mid 1990s (a place that closed own quite some time ago). Along the same lines in that it was clearly a copy of a copy of a copy (etc), but was in a hardshell vhs case with the evh Frankenstein stripe logo all over it. Just happened to stumble across a section in the back of the store where bootleg concert vids on vhs were being sold for $20 a pop in what was otherwise a fairly legit record store. Just happened to stumble across the store and that part of the store and find that tape. This was around 1994 or so.

A couple of years later, I was in a different record store that had been long known (for at least 15 years or so) as one that sold a bunch of swag and bootleg stuff. This one was going out of business because (according to the owner when I asked him) "fuckin' Strawberries" (which was then a big chain record store that had fairly recently moved into the area). I had remembered from visits there in the 1980s that this store used to carry Van Halen bootlegs on vinyl, but the cost was something astronomical back in those days (like $40) for a show or something. Anyway, in the days before THAT store shut down I got a cd bootleg called 'Dave's Back' which was comprised of a bunch of 1977 Simmons demo stuff, some live soundchecks of club dates in 1976/1977 and some 1983 South American live stuff.

Around 1998 or so I started mostly trading for various shows, but I bought a few here and there when I had to. So there IS a shitload of stuff out there.

[chefcraig]

Agreed. In the mid 1980s/early 1990s, you could find all sorts of VHS copies (of extremely dubious quality) shows rating from Zeppelin at Knebworth to Great White in somebody's garage, simply by going to a mom & pop record store.

The expiration of these places is a crime, as you also could find bad-assed indie mags, shirts on the cheap that were more than cool, gossip about great and not quite so great local bands...and what was happening tomorrow night.

Fuck, I found out about REM, Black Flag and the Replacements in stores like that. I also discovered Motorhead and a shitload of British NWOBHM, most of which stunk like a tuna sandwich you forgot about, sitting in your forgotten lunchbox... somewhere next to yer toolbox and ladder in the bed of your truck for about a week or so.

As stated, the demise of those places (along with any store that offers free thought about music or any art form) is diabolical, and totally unethical. Yet the economy gives no freedom or pardon to it's meandering ways.

I miss smelly old book stores. I miss head shops. I miss comic book stores, and independent music shops.

Most of all, I miss the freedom to find and enter any single one of them, and spend my hard-earned American cash within.

[Phil theStalker]

BuY o0N/LiNE

The expiration of these places is a crime...

i MMMisS THoSE LiTiTLE ELKTRoNics PLaCES DAt s0ld sWitchEs &shit. I neede o1ne f4or mmmy ELEKTRonIcal hEATER & RADi0 shak SUXX nUtz!

SaAme THINgG?

tHEY weRE MoTORHED swITCHES.

EVERYBODY STAY WHERE YOU ARE...
Whoaaa
THIS IS A CRIME SCENE INVESTIGATION...

[Terry]

Agreed. In the mid 1980s/early 1990s, you could find all sorts of VHS copies (of extremely dubious quality) shows rating from Zeppelin at Knebworth to Great White in somebody's garage, simply by going to a mom & pop record store.

The expiration of these places is a crime, as you also could find bad-assed indie mags, shirts on the cheap that were more than cool, gossip about great and not quite so great local bands...and what was happening tomorrow night.

Fuck, I found out about REM, Black Flag and the Replacements in stores like that. I also discovered Motorhead and a shitload of British NWOBHM, most of which stunk like a tuna sandwich you forgot about, sitting in your forgotten lunchbox... somewhere next to yer toolbox and ladder in the bed of your truck for about a week or so.

As stated, the demise of those places (along with any store that offers free thought about music or any art form) is diabolical, and totally unethical. Yet the economy gives no freedom or pardon to it's meandering ways.

I miss smelly old book stores. I miss head shops. I miss comic book stores, and independent music shops.

Most of all, I miss the freedom to find and enter any single one of them, and spend my hard-earned American cash within.

Oh, man, there used to be a TON of independently owned record stores floating around back in the 1980s and early 1990s. Much more so than any huge chain stores in terms of a ratio.

That store I mentioned that got, for all intents and purposes, shut down when Strawberries moved in the neighborhood used to in the early 80s be the only store that always had cool imports of bands like Mercyful Fate, Venom, Accept pre-Balls To The wall...the Steeler album with Yngwie and Hot On Your Heels on it...the first Alcatrazz album...all the latest releases by the band X...

You had to go out and FIND that stuff back then, or otherwise be content with whatever the limited selection at the bigger record stores was...like, the types of stores that would have 8,000 copies of Thriller in-store for sale but would only have Black Sabbath's first two albums in stock. Or they'd have plenty of copies of 1984 and Van Halen's first album in stock, but the other 4 of the 6-pack would never be available.

OR, you could always go to K-Mart and get Ronco's latest top-40 compilation...but they wouldn't carry Ozzy's Speak Of The Devil because the cover was too 'controversial'.

Man, THOSE were the fuckin' days.

[Seshmeister]

Seriously though. There are arguments about losing LP covers and so on but now you can listen to anything anywhere at any time while chatting to people from all over the world about liking even the most obscure new genre.

We don't because we have lots of other shit to do and music like everything else is now dulled like every other experience like you're are wearing a leather glove as a rubber. Realistically though very few young people though would not swap hanging about independent record stores for what they have now...

[DONNIEP]

Yeah, the local record store used the be the place where you'd go to find out about, well, everything. There was always one long haired dude in his 30s working there, and that motherfucker knew everything. One of those dudes worked at our local Record Bar. And it was named Record Bar because it was supposed to be a place where people hung out and not just ran in, bought their stupid CD and then ran out. As teenagers we'd hang out in there all the time. Dude would be playing some record on the store stereo system and you could actually ask to hear a record and he'd put one on. Chicks would hang out in there too so it was a great place to check stuff out, listen to music, and you could ask The Dude and he knew - off the top of his head - which bands were coming to town and when. Plus that's where we'd go to buy tickets to shows. Show up on Saturday morning, there would be one entrance to the mall open, you'd go in and get in line. Then you'd buy your tickets there. It was fucking awesome. Now you want to go to a show you got to go online and pay some bullshit fees and I HATE those sheet of paper tickets you print off. I want a goddamn real ticket!

And contrary to what Sesh says, at least down here - young people ARE buying records and I'd bet that they'd dig having a real store that sold only music and music related stuff to hang out in. My 15 year old kid's Christmas list has three RECORDS on it so far. Actual vinyl. Not CDs. And a lot of her friends are buying vinyl, it's the damnedest thing. Sure, they buy all the same shit as digital copies too. But they're digging records and they've "discovered" our music- straight up 70s and 80s rock and "pop" or whatever you call it. It's probably not to the point where you could open a store and actually make a living off it...but it might be coming.

You know what I hear that they like the best about records? The covers and all the other shit that comes with it. And that's the same thing most of us used to dig about records. Digital is great for portability. But there's something about having a tangible piece of something that you own. I'd pretty much given up on kids before I saw this swing in the pendulum.

So all you aging Dudes out there...there may be a job for you in 10 years, other than saying "Welcome to Walmart"...

[Terry]

Seriously though. There are arguments about losing LP covers and so on but now you can listen to anything anywhere at any time while chatting to people from all over the world about liking even the most obscure new genre.

We don't because we have lots of other shit to do and music like everything else is now dulled like every other experience like you're are wearing a leather glove as a rubber. Realistically though very few young people though would not swap hanging about independent record stores for what they have now...

Oh, I wouldn't trade what we have on a technological level for the way things were. You can't go back, and I wouldn't want to even if I could.

I'm just being an old cunt waxing in a wistful manner about the days when finding something like the US Fest in a small record store was sort of like discovering a small treasure by accident, which was kinda neat compared to now when you just click a button and there it is.

[Seshmeister]

Apologies for my horrific assault on the English language in that last sentence... I had to read it 3 times there myself.

[ZahZoo]

I'd pretty much given up on kids before I saw this swing in the pendulum.

So all you aging Dudes out there...there may be a job for you in 10 years, other than saying "Welcome to Walmart"...

LOL

You do realize that pendulum swung you right out into middle age..?

Are we all not "aging dudes"..? Except for those that think they are dudettes...

[DONNIEP]

LOL

You do realize that pendulum swung you right out into middle age..?

Are we all not "aging dudes"..? Except for those that think they are dudettes...

Don't I know it.

[Terry]

Apologies for my horrific assault on the English language in that last sentence... I had to read it 3 times there myself.

I'll admit it took me more than a once-over twice myself to get the essence of it (the first reaction was one along the lines of 'What the FUCK is Sesh on about here, because this sentence is mong as fuck') but eventually I caught on. And agreed.

[sonrisa salvaje]

Seems like even the picture discs are coming back (or maybe they never went away and I am just an old fuck and didn't know it). I miss going into those independent record stores and finding those Ozzy and Maiden picture discs with the cool artwork. You weren't going to find that stuff anywhere else. Also, if they had a used cd bin I would be scouring that thing like a mad man.

[chefcraig]

Oh, I wouldn't trade what we have on a technological level for the way things were. You can't go back, and I wouldn't want to even if I could.

I'm just being an old cunt waxing in a wistful manner about the days when finding something like the US Fest in a small record store was sort of like discovering a small treasure by accident, which was kinda neat compared to now when you just click a button and there it is.

Me too.

Thing is, you pick up the sopping wet newspaper from the driveway, wring it out, then read horror stories, both locally and worldwide. Dunno about you, yet it all makes me want to drink and think of a former, if even falsely remembered time.

Yet there is indeed a truth underlying remembrance, IE...things were indeed the same as now, except the thought of them only sees the good.

On one hand, I'd give both nuts to drive a fucked up Delorean to revisit those days in real life. On the other, I'd be terrified of running into an earlier version of my own admittedly completely fucked-up self.