AVH Autobiography 'Brothers' Due In October

[Seshmeister]

You catch anything lifted from you?

[VHscraps]

You catch anything lifted from you?

I only just listening to the audiobook - have print copy on order.

There’s some things in the tales from around the early years on the Sunset Strip that possibly originate in my book - the crumbling Hollywood sign, Alice Cooper donating money to save the letter ‘O’, and some other bits - that made me think the ghost writer has taken a sequence of events from a chapter in my book. I don’t think anyone had really put together the story of that period using primary or historical sources before I did, and he runs through a lot of the same things to paint a picture of the Strip at that time.

But, Alex also cites a book called ‘Nothin But a Hood Time’, which I have never looked at, and it could be that it is that book copping bits of my book.

I’d need to look at the actual book, and then I’ll be able to get a better sense of the citation / referencing practices.

I don’t really care one way or the other, it is just good to hear Alex fill in some details around things that I have taken from primary sources that I cite.

But the Hollywood sign thing and Alice Cooper. I found that, and in fact I have just used it again in another book that is coming out that has a chapter about LA (not about VH or music), to add a bit of colour, and I was thinking, fuck! people might think I am copping it from Alex.

But you know, as someone who works on historical writing, I simply don’t see Alex as the person who put it together by poring over other books.

The omissions where they exist will be down to the journo he worked with on it. I think his collaborator will have drafted certain bits of writing to give Alex a chronology, which would spark off recollections and stories.

It’s not unusual for rock n roll musicians to have a bad memory of certain details. Nailing down things like that through published primary sources, newspapers, other historical texts or biographical accounts, etc, is usually necessary.

[Seshmeister]

I finished the audio book today. The one thing I maybe took away from it was I knew Alex kind of got on a bit better than Ed with Roth but not the full extent. In Spinal Tap terms sounds like he spent more time as lukewarm water between the fire and ice fighting to keep the two onside - quite rightly realsizing what they both brought.

Also a lot of the things ring true about the strengths and weaknesses of Dave Roth and what made the band special.

Not important musically but the biggest 'factual' difference is that Dave says he was in the restroom while Ed was throwing up at his wedding while Alex says he didn't show up at all because of his dislike of Val, That's a weird once for them to get mixed up on.

[VHscraps]

II am only up to mid70s period in the audiobook, so still a fair bit to go. But with respect to his relationship with Dave, in the first few years after VH1, Dave and Alex did a lot of press stuff together, and they were a bit of a comedty team, finishing each others' anecdotes etc. I just don't buy the post-86 angle on the relationship, and that they always just tolerated each other.

I agree that his assessment of strenghts and weaknesses of Dave seems fair.

Regarding factual errors. Again, I think this could be due to a combination of not really remembering the detail of an event combined with the researcher / ghost writer digging up 'what happened' from sources, and Alex subsequently remembering 'oh, that's what happened'.

Another is that when talking about punk and the first aborted version of the debut album cover, he says that aside from the Ramones, VH had no real connection to punk because they did not share its negative attitude. He then says that he remembered playing with the Ramones once at the Golden West Ballroom. But he seems to be reading this memory from the gig flyer, which he quotes.

I looked up this flyer and found a link to a Greg Renoff tweet from some years ago saying that VH never made the gig, and that the only time VH and the ramones played together was somewhere else in the US on the 78 tour where both opened for Sabbath.

Yet, even that 'only time' is not clearly the end of the matter. I recall a Ramones biography that listed all their tour dates and it showed that they played quite a few shows together, in Europe, I think (I no longer have the book). In another book, possibly a Dee Dee Ramone book, he recounted that on that tour Dave was his 'best buddy' and that they had a great time getting high.

As you say, Sesh, not important details in terms of the overall picture, but these are things that illustrrate that no one was going around taking notes or recording details. I can remember certain details of my brother's wedding day 30 years ago, for instance, but there's not (unlike now) a lot og photographic evidence, a lot of booze was consumed, etc, so I could not tell you with any confidence things that happened even where I participated in them.

[silverfish]

But with respect to his relationship with Dave, in the first few years after VH1, Dave and Alex did a lot of press stuff together, and they were a bit of a comedty team, finishing each others' anecdotes etc.

I remember listening to ROCKLINEs or INNERVIEWs when Dave & Al were on and they always
struck me as a "comedy team" - two guys having a blast doing the press that Ed and Mike
didn't want or weren't asked to do. Clearly (sounded like at least) a coupla buds riffing off
each other (or Al playing straight man to Dave being Dave.)

There is nothing even close to that shit in music these days. Find me a podcast like that.

[Seshmeister]

You will know that our memories are way way worse than we think, they are really not good at all. The more you dig into it everyone's memories are just terrible, there is all sorts of research into this and false memories and how we rewrite the whole memory every time we access it so that all you need is get mixed up once and that's it forever wrong in your head but feeling as reliable as anything else you think you know.

I guess in the future things may be a little bit more accurate because young people take photos with meta data all the time and post and text about everything. I think (see I'm not even sure of that and it wasn't that long since i read it), Monk claimed in his book that it was based on lots of contemporary notes but I don't think he was ending every day writing 500 words of memoirs, more likely he just had a big box of receipts and some letters.

Alex says something along the lines of nice guy terrible manager about Monk and I guess that may well be possible in financial terms at least when compared to how they did later.

[Seshmeister]

Hah!

[DLR Bridge]

I thoroughly enjoyed the first 50 pages. It gave me high hopes for the rest of the book. The very first time he quoted Dave’s book, I may have even gotten emotional! By the 10th or 15th CFTH quote, I asked myself, “what the fuck is going on here?” He truly built the narrative of his book around the work of others.

Funnily enough, Ed’s relationship with his interviewer, almost biographer, Tonechaser author Steve Rosen turned sour because Rosen was a part of that unauthorized Early Days documentary. As we all know, the VH’s blow their stacks at anything unauthorized. Red black and white striped sneakers, etc…. Anyway, Alex quotes people’s statements from that doc as well as Rosen interviews. I’m certain he knew about Ed’s split with him.
Al also went on to hate Rosen as he once was interviewing Ed and Al happened to be in the room and made an off the record, not so pleasant remark about Bon Jovi and Rosen printed it.

Regardless, it was an unusual way to write a book and spending so much time on the brothers’ dynamic with Dave and ending the book with the split almost creates the illusion that Al was cryogenically frozen from ‘85 the mid two-thousand teens.

I am certain the Hagar blowback is just around the corner.

[Von Halen]

I am so happy to hear the Hagar fags at the Stinks are up in arms over Al basically confirming all our thoughts and opinions on Van Hagar. Poor old Bertt. And to think, he banned me for saying the exact same things Al said about that capitalizing off Ed's death piece of shit, Clichegar. SUCK ON THAT BERTT!

One of the fucked up timelines I noticed, is at Ozzy's house. Al says Sharon brought the kids to kiss Ozzy goodnight. Sharon and Ozzy started dating in 1979, and even if this was in early 1979, there were no kids yet. But hey, my memory ain't what it used to be either.

I agree with others, not really much stuff in this book I hadn't heard or read elsewhere. I was so happy he ended it in 1985, when Van Halen ended!

Al seems to have a lot of respect for Dave. Ed and Al put in their 10,000 hours on their instruments. Dave didn't have to do that because he wasn't an instrumentalist in the band. However, I believe Al feels that Dave more than made up for that with his work ethic, and what he did for the band while they were trying to make it. Dave was willing to do whatever it took, and Al seems to acknowledge and respect that. Al appreciates Dave. He knows Dave's faults, but he also knows those very faults contributed to the band making it. Al mentions quite a few things Dave did he appreciates. When he said it was actually Dave's idea to put their Dad on "Big Bad Bill", that meant a lot to Al.

This is far from the best VH book I've read. But it is directly from a VH, so there's that. I'm glad I read it, but don't really feel like I learned much I didn't know about. OTHER THAN AL AGREES WITH ALL OF US THAT VAN HAGAR WAS IRRELAVENT!

[Vinnie Velvet]

I think secretly Al probably wanted Sam out and Dave back by 1988. Or even 1991. But I guess the money they were making was too good or he didn't want to upset his brother.

[DLR Bridge]

A Dave-ism that really stuck in Al’s craw, so much that he referred to it twice was, “nobody ever leaves a concert hall singing the guitar solo.” Pretty good burn, Dave!

[Terry]

I am so happy to hear the Hagar fags at the Stinks are up in arms over Al basically confirming all our thoughts and opinions on Van Hagar. Poor old Bertt. And to think, he banned me for saying the exact same things Al said about that capitalizing off Ed's death piece of shit, Clichegar. SUCK ON THAT BERTT!

One of the fucked up timelines I noticed, is at Ozzy's house. Al says Sharon brought the kids to kiss Ozzy goodnight. Sharon and Ozzy started dating in 1979, and even if this was in early 1979, there were no kids yet. But hey, my memory ain't what it used to be either.

I agree with others, not really much stuff in this book I hadn't heard or read elsewhere. I was so happy he ended it in 1985, when Van Halen ended!

Al seems to have a lot of respect for Dave. Ed and Al put in their 10,000 hours on their instruments. Dave didn't have to do that because he wasn't an instrumentalist in the band. However, I believe Al feels that Dave more than made up for that with his work ethic, and what he did for the band while they were trying to make it. Dave was willing to do whatever it took, and Al seems to acknowledge and respect that. Al appreciates Dave. He knows Dave's faults, but he also knows those very faults contributed to the band making it. Al mentions quite a few things Dave did he appreciates. When he said it was actually Dave's idea to put their Dad on "Big Bad Bill", that meant a lot to Al.

This is far from the best VH book I've read. But it is directly from a VH, so there's that. I'm glad I read it, but don't really feel like I learned much I didn't know about. OTHER THAN AL AGREES WITH ALL OF US THAT VAN HAGAR WAS IRRELAVENT!

I appreciate your take re: it isn't what you'd consider the best VH book you've read. Mostly because I've been pretty ambivalent about picking it up. Between Roth's book, Templeman's book, Monk's book and Renoff's book, I'm pretty satisfied in terms of written chronicles regarding the band. As was mentioned in the thread, the ERUPTION Conversations With Eddie Van Halen book came off like quotes from a bunch of Eddie interviews many of which had already been printed in Guitar World with some narrative passages added in between.

I tend to doubt I'm going to bother with Alex's book. Particularly since some of you guys have pointed out that chunks of it are cribbed from other books (e.g. CFTH, etc.)

It is interesting that apparently Al ended the book in 1985. But I suppose it makes sense for Al to have a degree of respect for Roth that he doesn't for Hagar. Roth was there at the beginning through to when the band was arguably the biggest rock group in the world circa 1984. They never got any bigger after Roth left and Hagar joined. Hagar joined the band when they were already at the pinnacle of their success on top of the summit. Roth was with them when they were playing Black Sabbath covers at backyard parties through the club years and first tours in larger venues. Whatever personality differences surfaced or continue to surface can't negate the fact that Roth was the voice and face of the band when they were kings.

[Nitro Express]

There’s pictures of Dave at Ed’s wedding. Dave said he got Ed the white tuxedo. What’s a trip is one of my college roomates got married at the same church in Santa Montica so I’ve been to that church.

[Nitro Express]

I think Alex is right about Dave. Dave bought into his own bullshit. He thought he was off to make a movie and blew the band off. Blew it off right when they were at the top. Then you have Ed who’s got no common sense and has anxiety issues. He’s hitting up everyone to be the singer. Unfortunately Sam got the gig. Van Halen boosted Sam and he got rich off of Cabo Wabo and that motherfucker just won’t go away. He’s fucking 80 and he’s everywhere.

[Nitro Express]

I think secretly Al probably wanted Sam out and Dave back by 1988. Or even 1991. But I guess the money they were making was too good or he didn't want to upset his brother.

I think Al was ok with it. He was making money, they had a manager he liked. Al knew Dam was limited artistically but he was taking his dad’s advice and doing his job. It was better than working at the machine shop.