As soon as I posted the item about reviving careers, I got mail from the Cowboy. He was not happy with the samples of people who could use a career boost. He thought that I had left someone very important off the list. The first paragraph of the email was not surprising, but when I got to the second paragraph, my jaw dropped.
Okay, if we're going to resurrect careers, can't we do better than Fiona Apple or Mission of Burma? How about David Lee Roth's solo career? Especially in the wake of all the Hagar/VH "news" that's been pouring out in the last week or so...
You now have my full support in bashing the hell out of Van Halen, because Eddie and Alex are totally lost causes if they think Sammy is the way to revive their band...
I came to the conclusion a couple of summers ago that DLR was better off solo and not back with VH anyway, but Iím still disappointed they went with Sammy instead just because Dave deserves the break again and Sammy doesn't. Did I mention that he sucks really, really bad!?
I know Hagar has Journey connections, but I hope you hate him enough for being part of VH to make that detail a non-issue (because he is evil, the bad kind)...
Wow. The Cowboy ditching Van Halen is nothing less than shocking. It makes me think that it's tough times ahead for the Van Halen brothers if the Cowboy has turned on them. This is the man who consistently hassles me for not liking Van Halen, and even he has given up. I can finally stop arguing with him about Van Halen! In the past, I always tried to patiently explain that I didn't set out to dislike Van Halen, it just happened.
I started listening to Top 40 radio right around the time David Lee Roth left Van Halen, so the first Van Halen singles that I heard on a regular basis were the ones from 5150. I sort of knew the singles from 1984, but for the most part my introduction to Van Halen came with the song Dreams. I see that Why Can't This Be Love? and Love Walks In are also on that album. I know those songs now, but I don't remember listening to them at the time.
What I mostly remember about those first albums with Sammy Hagar are his pants. I recall at least one video where he was wearing pants that looked as if they had been stolen from MC Hammer's wardrobe trunk. When I think of late '80s Van Halen, I picture Sammy Hagar hopping around in giant yellow pants. I think he had a red pair too. I cannot for the life of me remember if they went with 5150 or OU812, so I called CEB. He claims that the poor fashion choices spanned many albums. I really think it was OU812, possibly the video for Black And Blue.
But the bad pants are not the reason I dislike Van Halen. The reason I dislike Van Halen is not even technically the fault of Van Halen. At least, it wasn't originally their fault. I started playing guitar in the fall of 1987 and soon after that I started buying guitar magazines. I eventually subscribed to my favorite of the bunch, Guitar For The Practicing Musician. For the four years of my subscription, I'm pretty sure Eddie Van Halen was on the cover every month. The only time this was not true was whenever Steve Vai or Joe Satriani released a new record.
Okay, Eddie wasn't on the cover every month, but he was featured all the time. They would find any excuse to include tablature for the newest Van Halen single, so that usually meant at least a minor article on Eddie, if not an interview. When they didn't have current singles, the magazine would provide the music for a classic tune from the Roth era.
While I understand that many guitarists wanted to learn to play Van Halen songs, I wasn't one of them. So my original quarrel with Van Halen was due to their overexposure in my guitar magazine. I am sure it was great for the magazine's circulation, but it caused me to avoid Van Halen at all costs.
Then I met a Van Halen fan. Then I married that Van Halen fan. Then I had an experience a month or two into married life that makes me think I should have just gotten it annulled right then and there. One fine fall day I had just finished washing my hair, and when I shut off the tap I could hear the stereo playing in the living room. I removed the towel from my head just in time to hear a horrible version of Roger Daltrey's scream from Won't Get Fooled Again. A version so terrible my hair stood on end, and then fell out of my head.
I stormed into the living room and hollered, "What was that?" "That was Sammy Hagar." "What are you listening to?" "The Van Halen live album."
Yes, I was once married to someone who listened to Live: Right Here, Right Now on purpose. That is when I no longer begrudged the guitar magazines for Van Halen. That is the day I started to begrudge Van Halen for Van Halen. I have not heard that version since that afternoon in 1994, but I am still pissed. This was the live album that also contained an awful lot of tracks from For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge. The less said about that stupid record, the better.
Since the Live: Right Here, Right Now incident, my (already low) opinion of Van Halen has been on a steady decline. Thanks to my former spouse, I attended a Van Halen concert (on the Balance tour, no less) in 1995, but I finally caught a break when Van Halen III was released. Since Van Halen III is unlistenable, my spouse-at-the-time shunned that record, as did most of the population. I had conflict because I like Gary Cherone, but I didn't need any more Van Halen in my world.
I tried to ignore the rumors that went around after the poor reception of Van Halen III, but some of them were just too good. Gary's out, Sammy's back! Now Sammy is out and Dave is back! Wait, now everybody is out and they are talking to Billy Squier! Oh, how I wanted that rumor to come true. I think I could have enjoyed Van Halen with Billy Squier as a member. But it was not to be. Then Eddie needed hip replacement surgery, and I thought that was pretty interesting. But my interest was more about hip surgery for someone so young and less about the future of Van Halen.
As near as I can recall, that was the last time I paid any attention to Van Halen. Maybe other stuff has been going on since then, but I divorced the Van Halen fan and have not been subjected to boring ass Sammy Hagar news for a few years now. In fact, until the Cowboy sent the email, I didn't even know there was Van Halen news. But I do know that if the diehard fans like Cowboy are abandoning them, they are in for a sad end to a once-illustrious career.