Running with the Devil: A Backstage Pass to the Wild Times, Loud Rock, and the..

ron: Copies should be arriving in peoples hands soon.Looking forward to this book.I’ve got multiple copies on the way, first set to arrive tomorrow!

Looking forward to receiving my copy from you soon !

I’m on it right now and I am devouring it rawwww!!!

ron: 9 Discs!Yowza

Yes, since it was unabridged I decided to get it, I know it’d take me 9 years to get through a book, but I can listen whilst I do other things. So far I’m up to the part where Noel is there for the meeting that VH is late for because of the broken down car…Hopefully I’ll get further tonight

Audio CD Sample: http://samples.audible.com/bk/harp/005843/bk_harp_005843_sample.mp3

http://www.laweekly.com/music/former-van-halen-manager-noel-e-monks-new-book-describes-life-with-the-band-8316250

What Was It Like to Spend Months on the Road With Van Halen?
Wednesday, June 14, 2017 at 6:14 a.m.
By Matt Wake

In less than a year, Van Halen went from making $750 a show while touring as support for bands like Journey and Black Sabbath to a $75,000 payday co-headlining the California World Music Festival at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.

Former Van Halen manager Noel E. Monk writes about this steep ascension in his new book, Runnin’ With the Devil. Although Monk hadn’t heard a note of Van Halen’s music when he agreed to come on board in 1978, initially as a tour manager, it soon became apparent to him that the band was special. And Monk had been around special before. He’d helped stage-manage Woodstock, was San Francisco concert impresario Bill Graham’s right-hand man, befriended artists including Janis Joplin and The Grateful Dead, worked with The Rolling Stones, and had most recently been tour manager for The Sex Pistols. He chronicled his time with the latter punk legends in his 1990 book, 12 Days on the Road: The Sex Pistols and America.

In Runnin’ With the Devil — co-written with Joe Layden and published June 13 by Dey St. — Monk tells with a raconteur’s tone the kind of juicy stories (ketchup-fetish groupies, booze- and coke-fueled hotel-trashing, ridiculous rock-star requests) that fans want to read. He also has plenty of more soulful memories about a young, hungry Van Halen seeing the world for the first time — and of singer/sexpot David Lee Roth, guitar genius Eddie Van Halen, bassist/nice guy Michael Anthony and drummer/hell-raiser Alex Van Halen beginning to realize their collective musical powers.

[click the link to read more]

http://www.houstonpress.com/music/vans-man-spills-the-beans-9517200

The Van Halen Book You’ve Been Waiting For
Thursday, June 15, 2017 at 5 a.m.
By Bob Ruggiero

Early in his career as an employee for a new band called Van Halen, Noel Monk walked into a dressing room to see members of the group in various states of undress pouring bottles of condiments on two writhing and very into-it ladies known in groupie circles as “The Ketchup Queens.”

During his seven years with the Southern California rockers, initially as road manager and then manager, from 1978 through ’85, this incident is telling in that it’s only one of many, many such bizarre scenes Monk would witness with the band. His memoir — brutally honest and at sometimes shocking — is finally out, now that whatever statute of limitations after the band fired him has expired. Van Halen fans will be discussing and debating it with the same attention to detail as Eddie’s finger-tapping work on “Eruption.”

Monk’s assessments of each member of Van Halen, steady throughout the book and from their earliest gigs before their debut came out to the world-domination of the 1984 album, run thusly:

[click the link to read more]

http://people.com/music/eddie-van-halen-valerie-bertinelli-early-days-brown-mms-new-book/

Music
When Eddie Van Halen Met Valerie Bertinelli: Book Explores Their Early Days–and Explains the Band’s Famous M&Ms Legend
By Jordan Runtagh-@jordanruntagh
Posted on June 16, 2017 at 3:00pm EDT

Fans were surprised when Eddie Van Halen, the hard-partying guitar virtuoso of the rock titans Van Halen, began dating the demure Valerie Bertinelli, who had become America’s sweetheart with her starring role on the TV sitcom One Day at a Time. But perhaps none were more taken aback than Noel Monk, the band’s manager and friend. In his wild new memoir, Runnin’ with the Devil, Monk recalls how the famous couple first met–and some of the problems that arose on the way to the altar.

According to Monk, Bertinelli, then just a teenager, first developed a crush on the guitarist while gazing at a copy of her brother’s Van Halen album, Women and Children First. “While her brother might have been a fan of the band’s music, Valerie was drawn more to the angular cheekbones and long hair of one of the young men depicted on the album’s back cover…it was Eddie Van Halen who caught the young starlet’s attention.”

They first met in person during the band’s performance in her hometown of Shreveport, Louisiana, in August, 1980. Bertinelli told the show’s promoter that she wanted to get backstage and say a quick hello to the band (“I guess she’s got a little crush on Edward,” the promoter explained to Monk.) Following the set, Monk told Eddie that he had a special fan waiting.

[click the link to read more]

JasonA: I just finished reading this yesterday. I have mixed feelings about it. I’d be curious to know other fans’ opinions of the book.

How does it compare with Van Halen Rising?