A Nice Hard Slap – Van Stupid

Van Stupid.

I recently finished the book Everybody Wants Some: The Van Halen Saga by Ian Christie and spent a few hours listening to all my Van Halen albums pretty much in sequence.

Even the horrendous and soul-ruining Van Halen III with Gary Cherone. To answer your question:

Because I Apparently Hate Me.

I have been a fan of Van Halen since there was a Van Halen to be a fan of. I have seen them three times, once in support of 1984, once for 5150, and another time for OU812. I loved Roth. I loved Hagar. I don’t even have the energy to argue about the different eras anymore. They both have plenty of filler and plenty of great stuff. Sammy’s stuff is more prone to be sap and Dave sometimes coasted on his own shtick. The bottom line was that both felt like Van Halen. That unique drum sound. Eddie’s virtuosity. The near absence of bass and Michael Anthony’s dog-alarming backing vocals. All part of the mixture whether Dave or Sam was riding the mic.

Watching this band so lose focus for over a decade now just leads me to confusion. I cannot imagine a ten year period more in need of an honest to God HARD ROCK BAND than the past one. I mean, I appreciate what Audioslave was doing, what some of the bands out there were doing with the definitely “garage” sound, but regardless of your personal tastes, the virtuosity of Eddie Van Halen would have been a nice compliment to the rest of it all.

Yes, it’s the nostalgia talking. Unironic “rocking out” is heavily frowned upon. The meager downloads MY OWN BAND gets is proof of such but still… what’s the harm in it?

Unfortunately, ol’ Eddie seems to have had his head up his ass for a very long time, and the reading of Christie’s book did little to change that. What the fuck, Eddie? Weird musician choices? No new albums? Just reliving the past, but with a retarded revisionist bent? I have Kiss for that purpose.

Another great band has bit the dust and fucked its fans in the mouth and for some reason I am very late to the party in realizing this, always assuming that at some point either Dave or Sammy would be back and ACTUAL MUSIC would come out of it.

You can now click away and listen to Arcade Fire and Radiohead. I apologize for the intrusion.

– Nick Nunziata thinks Feelin’ is Van Halen’s most underappreciated song.

And now… a  really old Mary Worth War Strip from the vault…

No Need to Large It Up!