The coolest thing on the internet...
...at least this month. Check it out here. I'd love to sneak out and see this guy's band. I've heard him do some promo stuff on 96 Rock on the way into work a few times and he got major props in the paper today for an amazing performance this weekend at Eddie's Attic in Decatur.For those that want to do the side by side comparison, here's a link to the original masterpiece that changed my life forever. God, that lovely savage distortion...
posted by Tony Alva @ 3:38 PM
3 comments
3 Comments:
He was only 24 when that was recorded too... amazing. He had a style unlike anyone at the time... I wish I could have seen them on the Strip in 1977. I have read that he would play with his back to the crowd so people wouldn’t figure out the hammer-on trick...oh well. that method got driven into the dirt quickly... I don’t hear anyone doing it now (Thank God). I have not listened to Van Halen since Dave left... It is sad that such an aggressive tight band turned into pastey elevator music.
Cool link though....
It's funny, when 1984 came out we all said 'ugggh keyboards', but when I listen to VH now, I hear synth all way back on WSomen and Children First (The Cradle Will Rock). I guess synth is okay until it's all you get - like on Jump.
"No one wants to see your dead ass play keyboards" - DLR
I may have been the last of my crew to actually hear the first VH record by a day or two on account of me being on vacation with my family or something, but I remember all the guys that had heard it were stuttering and stammering to me how I had to hear it to believe it. I met the crew down at the Lee Area Spot and we smoked a few cigs, a few other things, and the Rogers Bros. played the tape for me for the first time. By the time the first two chords of "Runnin' With the Devil" were played, I was sitting there with my cigarette hanging from my gaping mouth like Andy Capp. My first thought was (I know you're gonna call BS on me, but it's the truth), was that it sounded exactly like the first self titled Montrose album that we'd been listening to for a few years already. Of course, there is a reason for this: both records were Ted Templeman productions.
When 'Eruption' came on it was without a doubt the most orgasmic thing I'd ever experienced in my life up to that point. For me and my gang, it was what was finally going to convince all the Frank Zappa/Deadhead crew who used to mock the music we listened to that they didn't know shit about what guitar playing was.
I remember the rift it created well. The musicians at the highschool predictably dismissed Eddie out of hand at first, but after hearing it a few times they became very reluctant to get into a guitar player debate with us hard rockers (everything was always a competition back then). With Eddie and his 'Eruption' in our camp the discussion ended quickly and the defeated would skulk away muttering to themselves, or they'd retort "...Oh yeah, Ted Nugent still sucks though!" To this, we'd simply say, "Oh yeah? Take this..." and blast the intro to 'I'm the One' off the first VH record (arguably the most badass opening riff ever). Even the classic rock snobs at Rollingstone Mag had to re-evaluate their entire line of thinking.
I will never stoop to sully the holy standing of the VH one record by listening to any of the post DLR records. There is nothing contained within them that comes even close to the DLR records, that includes the sub par 'Diver Down'.
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