This Fuckin' Kid

[Nitro Express]

Did Wolf ever smack back at DLR for his 'this fuckin' kid' comments? It'd be unlike Wolf to keep his mouth shut, even if it was full at the time.

Wolf is a wimp. He doesn’t want to go there because Dave would mop the floor with him. Wolf knows he can’t win a slag war with Dave.

[Nitro Express]

My mom said once you reach a certain age you just don’t give a fuck. I think Dave has reached it. Wolf is smart enough not to hit back at the wise old Indian chief who really doesn’t give a fuck and the filter has been tossed away.

[Nitro Express]

Chubbo HATES his dad’s fans because they like daddy more than him. I might add we also like Dave more than we like you. Truth hurts. We gave you a chance. You blew it.

[Terry]

It seemed off even as far back as the 2004 tour when Ed would bring Wolfgang up onstage to play with him...I mean, Wolfgang was barely in his teens and my reaction was a head shrug, although truth be told Wolfgang being onstage for a few minutes on that tour was seemingly the least fucked up part of that whole Van Hagar reunion biz when compared to Eddie's appearance, the performances of the band on that tour, the sagging ticket sales, half empty arenas and all the rest.

Then Anthony is out of the band and Wolfgang is in per Eddie via an interview on Howard Stern in the fall of 2006. Then Dave is back and we get that single publicity shot of Ed, Al, Wolfgang and Dave in the winter of 2007. Didn't look right. Didn't look right when the band held the press conference, either. Wolfgang in the band just looked out of place to me. Always did. I can't really say who should have been playing bass in the band if not Anthony, but at least if the band had picked a name bass player it wouldn't have come across like somebody who won a contest or was picked out of the audience to jump onstage for a tune or two. Then came the whole biz with Mike Anthony's image being scrubbed from the first Van Halen album cover on the band's website: I don't give a shit what anybody says, there's no fucking way that happened as Wolfgang (much) later claimed...being the result of somebody the band employed to work on the website just taking it upon themselves to remove Anthony's image. THAT was fucking bullshit. And for at least that first Roth reunion tour, those backing vocals were augmented by offstage audio enhancements. I was there, and there's no way just Wolfgang and Eddie were sounding as good live as the studio albums where the backing vocals were concerned.

Most of the Wolfgang-generated nonsense that sticks in my craw has come after Eddie died, via interviews or social media comments, concerning the cheap shot method Wolfgang uses: blame it all on Dave by alluding it in a Trunk interview rather than being explicit about it and calling Dave out by name. That's not the 'high road' or being a gentleman about it. The high road or being gentlemanly would be to either say nothing or, at worst, to say whatever was in question didn't work out for a variety of reasons. Wolfgang decided to go the pussy route. THAT is why I'd tend to think Dave is being truthful about the shenanigans Wolfgang was supposedly up to on the last tour in terms of having people Wolfgang thought were guests of Dave ejected from arenas by security...because that is a pussy move in line with the pussy way Wolfgang has conducted himself.

I'd imagine Dave held back on his comments concerning Wolfgang as long as he did out of respect for Eddie and respect for Alex. Well, I guess Dave opted not to continue taking the gentlemanly high road, but at least he wasn't a pussy when he decided to throw some mud toward Eddie's kid.

[DLR Bridge]

I'd imagine Dave held back on his comments concerning Wolfgang as long as he did out of respect for Eddie and respect for Alex. Well, I guess Dave opted not to continue taking the gentlemanly high road, but at least he wasn't a pussy when he decided to throw some mud toward Eddie's kid.

Yeah, I think “psych. Fuck You!” was very cutting and real. He has his reasons and he has his ways, and both are never going to be understood by the casual Van Halen fan base. They don’t know anything of the concessions Dave had to make once he was back in the fold. From the gag orders to a no full-band reunion, etc… They just think he’s some guy who “can’t sing as good as Hagar” who’s “not as classy as Anthony” who’s “trying to stay relevant” all of which are misguided conclusions.

I agree with Nitro on the age thing. You get to Dave’s age and you really could care less about the ramifications or blow back from things you say. I remember an elderly Jack Palance telling Billy Crystal he made craps bigger than him. At the Oscars no less.

Both the DLR Podcast and Dave & Dave Unchained seem to maintain a vibe of displeasure or disgust with the things Dave has said. I feel they should be aware by now that he operates in a ‘you hit me, I’ll hit you back harder’ fashion, if he feels it’s worth it. Dave and stayed quiet for years, then it became worth it to speak up for himself.

[Nitro Express]

Dave’s accomplishments are in the record. He’s done and that means you can burn bridges and dance in the light of the flames. Sammy is like Pol Pot. He wants to kill off anyone who remembers the past and rewrite history. What a sick fucker.

[Nitro Express]

Wolfie is a manipulative brat. Piss him off he loses his shit.

[Nitro Express]

Van Halen really ended in 1984. Everything after that was a parade of faggotry.

[Terry]

Even the stuff that transpired under the Van Halen name from 2007-2015...it was a positive thing that Roth came back and Ed eventually got his CVH ability back, but it all felt like it was ten years too late and not really a proper Van Halen reunion because Mike wasn't there as he should have been. It was a case of Roth and the Van Halens doing what I assume was the best they could after having pissed away a decade they were on the wrong side of 40 years old for re: wasting time. And frittered away because of egos, addictions and control issues.

Nobody's ever gonna convince me that the 2007-2015 period was an essential part of Van Halen as a rock band. 1974-1984 were the essential years. I wouldn't say ALL the years after 1984 were faggy, but a majority of those years were useless to me and even the years Roth was back with the band...it never felt like Dave was back and the band was better than ever or on a level that they were during the CVH years.

[DLR Bridge]

Definitely too late. Knowing Dave’s vocals on Blood & Fire, which sounded great, were most likely recorded in 2000, is proof positive that crucial time was wasted and lost.

[Seshmeister]

No the recordings in 2000 were not whole songs. Time was wasted though by Ed being wasted until 2008.

[DLR Bridge]

I was under the impression only 1/2 the songs length appeared on a tape someone had, and not that they only recorded up to the halfway point of the songs, which seems like an odd thing to pull off. If I’m wrong, it still sounds like a younger Dave voice on that and a couple other of the tracks. I think that John Shanks guy culled from previously recorded tracks in some cases.

[Terry]

With ADKOT, I presume the material that was reworked from the songs the band had recorded for the 1977 demos up was recorded by Shanks.

Frank Meyer has claimed that in 2004 Roth's then-manager played [Meyer] 4 songs the band had worked on in 2000 with Roth, the four songs being As Is, Honeybabysweetiedoll, Trouble With Never along with Blood And Fire. Meyer said what he heard in 2004 were live demos the band recorded with Roth and they were different from the versions that ended up on ADKOT. Meyer said Roth's manager told him in 2004 that Roth was willing to do live demos with the band in 2000 but was unwilling to actually lay down separate finished vocal tracks in 2000 until Roth and the Van Halens had a deal signed and in place.

So if all that is true I tend to think all of Roth's vocals on ADKOT were recorded by Roth with Shanks in 2011, because it doesn't sound like any of the post-1970's material on ADKOT had been tracked for lead vocals by Roth prior to the Shanks sessions.

[Warham]

The stuff on the 2012 album sounds like it was recorded for that album.

[DLR Bridge]

I suppose I’m wrong, God dammit. One thing that I thought tracked with the vocals being from earlier sessions is Dave’s use of 1-800 in both Blood And Fire and The Trouble With Never. He used that 1-800 gimmick during interviews in the early ‘00s. Same with “whole lotta Shakespeare going on.” I became convinced they used older vocal efforts on tape for at least a few tunes.