CraigSmith.us

My Kind of Truth – By Craig W. Smith

What is it about the Van Halen record that would make a 40 (almost 41, [sigh]) year-old guy write about it? Did I just say “Record”? Yes record. I still call ‘em records. I haven’t bought a CD in probably 8 years since I started using Macs and actually got my behemoth music collection under control … digitally speaking … but why.. why waste the time? Its not as if there are any shortage of reviews, tweets, Facebook posts and blogs popping up all over the internet with increasing frequency even as I type this.. but why me? Why does anyone care what I think about the new Van Halen?

Maybe its because I’ve spent over half of my life doing this thing called ROCKING. Playing guitar … but mostly rocking. Rocking out with my cock out. ROCKING YOUR FACE. Melting it. Playing everything from Disco to Classical and everything in-between but mostly ROCKING. I do it for living after all. Its not a great living but it “Beats Workin’” as Dave says on track #13. Don’t kid yourself either, my job is better than your job monetary gains aside. I do this because Eddie Van Halen made me do it. No really.. he made me do it… and its still fun. Actually its the most fun. I knew I wanted to do this for a living when I was 13 and I first heard Eruption/You Really Got Me on WMMS in Cleveland. Van Halen changed my life… no..  not changed it… they defined it and then shaped it into what it is now. Van Halen single-handedly set the course of my entire existence.

Maybe its because the new Van Halen album is good. Really Good. How good could it really be?… or as my lovely wife reminded me after hearing the first single “Tattoo”.. “what do you expect from these guys.. they’re all pushing 60?”. Mikes’ not even in the band. Mikey. Michael Anthony who for what he may have lacked in technical bass prowess gave us arguably the best background vocal parts ever recorded in a ROCK band.. and thats without Pro-Tools or even that dude that produced those Queen and Journey records. Besides.. who wants to hear Mike and Eddie fight for riff space in a 4 minute song? Ok.. well yeah I wouldn’t mind it, after all my second favorite rock band is Racer X. Lets face it though, there is a reason Van Halen has sold over 56 Million albums and Racer X has sold less than 56,000. Regardless Mikey is not in Van Halen anymore and we all need to just get over it. I need to get over it. Chickenfoot is doing pretty well (#4 Billboard debut) and there are some great VH-like harmonies all over both records. Good for them. I still love Mad Anthony but he’s not in Van Halen anymore…. there I said it.

Van Halen as a band growing up in the 1980’s was a force to be reckoned with. They did everything bigger, better and with more style, power and raw musicianship than anyone before or since. This past weekend everyone was going crazy over Madonna’s completely ridiculous performance at the Super Bowl half-time show. Puh-lease. Van Halen did that in 1981. They did it every night. They did it every night and sold out arenas and stadiums EVERY NIGHT. They did it without backing tracks and without backup singers for 3 hours a night, 200 times a year for 6 years straight (with DLR). They did it in-between tiny little pockets of time recording material that was artistically and historically relevant. Relevant and hugely popular. All of the first 6 Van Halen records were recorded in under a month. Some in under a week. Who does that now? They did it all while completely reinventing a genre that spawned a million dudes just like me who wanted to be like Eddie. Guys like Randy Rhoads, Paul Gilbert, Slash, Dweezil Zappa, Nuno Bettencourt, Dimebag Darrell, Zakk and the list goes on and on….

…… You know who wanted to be like Madonna?  – Britney Spears.

I bought into Van Halen. Literally bought into them. Hook, line and sinker baby. I bought ‘em all on cassette, vinyl and cd. I even bought Van Halen II on 8 Track so I could play it in my Mom’s ‘78 Cutlass Supreme. I have 2 copies of everything on vinyl.. because when I was 15 I somehow thought that if I did that I’d still have a “good” copy to listen to when I was older.. jeeesh. I have in my possession now over 500 Van Halen cd’s, VHS tapes, DVD’s etc., all of varying quality from every incarnation of the band from backyard parties in L.A. in the early ’70’s to the [gasp] 1998 tour with Gary Cherone. Keep in mind bootlegs were a big deal before the internet. You can get all this shit for free now. I had all the posters, I had all the magazines. I cut out pictures and taped them to my wall. To my ceiling. I painted stripes on a T-Square and played air-guitar with it. I had a  jean jacket with 100 Van Halen buttons on it and a .22 bullet in the Levi’s logo. I still have an EVH poster in my home office/studio. I have a Kramer replica guitar,,, I can play all the Van Halen licks. If I had the dough I would have outbid Jeff Spicoli and had them play at MY Birthday Party. Yeah I’m kind of a fan.

Soooo, WTF happened around my 14th birthday in 1985? DLR puts out a shitty EP and MY world was shattered at the news of the DLR/VH split. Damn, I was just old enough to start going to shows and maybe even have a beer and get funny in the back of my car. Actually, um…  it would have to be YOUR car because like any aspiring musician I didn’t have a car or even my driver’s license until I was 18.

I loved 5150, still do. I think the title track is one of the best things Van Halen has ever done both musically and from a song-writing standpoint from any era. I also think Eat ‘em and Smile is a classic “fuck you guys” from Dave. Every song is fantastic. I saw both tours. Emotionally the 5150 tour hit me harder and Eddie was top of his game`. Musically DLR’s 4-ring circus of Sheehan, Vai and Bissonette was like being run over by a dump truck full of rock. That wasn’t a typo, I didn’t mean “rocks”,, I mean just like one big giant ROCK. It was gooooood.

Then OU812 happened. What a great record. For years I’ve said that was the last TRUE Van Halen record. (Until today) The summer between my Junior and Senior year. Monsters of Rock 1988.. Metallica finally breaking through after Cliff’s tragic death. What a great time in my life.. and if you were there I bet you feel the same way about that summer. The best Summer ever in a time and a place (Northeast Ohio) where Summertime really meant something..something to keep you cool…

DLR.. not so much. Everything Dave did after Eat ‘em was a let down with the exception of some stellar stuff with Jason Becker like “Its Showtime”. Then the unthinkable happened… Van Halen started sucking too. Sucking BAD.

Van Halen became the biggest let down in my life. Every year it seemed to get worse and worse. From the “I been drinking wine and eating frozen hotdogs all day” outtro solo in “Humans Being” to the positively embarrassingly NAMM show stuff floating around on YouTube. My hero Eddie was truly gone. He was near death.. he was Darth Vader when his helmet came off. He was… in the clouds next to Chubbs Peterson, Obi Wan, Abe Lincoln and that fucking alligator that got Chubbs hand.

I want to skip over these years because its nothing but negativity… but the 2004 tour was it for me. That show was so bad I felt that not only did I no longer even like Van Halen.. I questioned why I even liked them in the first place. If you read Sammy’s book you’ll know why.. and it was a great albeit short read. In fact I think this blog post is longer.

Fast forward to 2007. Coming up on my 10 year wedding anniversary I was pretty excited about a reunion with Dave. So was my wife who is the next biggest Van Halen fan I know besides me and maybe the biggest DLR fan I’ve ever met.

We saw them in Orlando at the Amway Arena. hmmm.. I’m debating how much I want to get into this concert experience. It was so bad we went outside to smoke during Eddie’s solo. We went outside because It sounded like African Geese had crawled up inside his guitar and were fighting each other to get out so they could murder death kill Jimmy Page who had apparently broken both hands, done some blow and was now falling down a really big flight of stairs while trying to play Eruption. THAT.. and the fat kid playing bass did it for me. I was done.

To this day I still get into arguments with other less informed (and apparently deaf) VH fans about how bad this tour really was. I actually went on YouTube and have since watched most of this Orlando show to confirm what I already knew… this band was D.O.A. No pun intended.

To say I had little to no expectations for the new record is an understatement. I was ripping this band apart from the moment I left Amway Arena on the reunion tour. Still pissed off about Mike being ousted.. Seriously, Its cool if Eddie.. or even Eddie and Uncle Al wanna do a record with the kid.. fine. Do it. …. but don’t you dare do it and then call it “Van Halen”. Thats what bugged me the most. That wasn’t MY Van Halen. When I heard the single “Tattoo” a month ago I really thought this was gonna be 2007 all over again..only instead of butchering old Van Halen classics they would butcher some new songs that nobody likes too. Failure = Complete

Well I was wrong. Way wrong. I never gave Tattoo a chance. For one thing it was a bad version of a really cool old song they did called “Down in Flames”. Eddie had removed the cool part of the riff and Dave came up with some really goofy lyrics about sexy dragon magic.. To me Tattoo sounds like it was recorded separate from the rest of the album. Almost as if someone said .. “hey guys all these songs are too heavy, fast etc.. we need a single” Ok fine. All is forgiven. I’m still not digging Tattoo as of this writing.. but I hate it less than I did a month ago. Luckily for me there are 12 other killer tracks to ease the pain.

Friday night I stole “A Different Kind of Truth” from some torrent website that Congress and some dude named Sopa are trying to keep me from using.. Whatever. I’m still gonna buy it. I got the whole album and have been listening to it nonstop since.. as of right now about 15 times now total. Now for the hard part.. someone who doesn’t write much trying to convey just how good this record is without overusing generic terms like Kick Ass and Awesome over and over again… So heres my complete review of “A Different Kind of Truth” by my favorite band -  Van Halen  -

Its Awesome and it Totally Kicks Ass.

Love,

Craig

2.7.12

PS – If more than 20 people “like” this I’ll do a song-by-song review for my peeps. If not just buy it. It rules.

PSS –  Van Halen is my favorite band again.