Van Halen 40th anniversary

Happy birthday ” VAN HALEN ” !

Gilligan: Anybody have one of these?That’d be pretty cool.

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I would have thought that everyone had one of these by now…

http://uproxx.com/music/van-halen-40th-anniversary-album-debut/2/

40 Things To Love About Van Halen’s World-Shaking Debut Album
#Listen To This Eddie
Corbin Reiff
Senior Music Writer
02.08.18

http://uproxx.files.wordpress.com/2018/02/van-halen-grid-uproxx.jpg
Warner Bros.

Listen To This Eddie is a weekly column that examines the important people and events in the classic rock canon and how they continue to impact the world of popular music.

In 1977, after years and years toiling in obscurity in rough and tumble bars on the Sunset Strip, massive backyard parties around the San Fernando Valley, and a go-nowhere demo session with Kiss’s Gene Simmons, Van Halen finally secured a deal with a major label to release their first album. With three weeks of studio time and a $54,000 budget, guitar savant Eddie Van Halen, his bombastic drummer brother Alex, bassist Michael Anthony, and their over-the-top frontman David Lee Roth cooked up one of the most jaw-dropping debut albums in history.

Fueled by copious amounts of alcohol, the promise of carnal delight, a whole lot of angst, and some of the wildest guitar solos anyone had ever heard before, Van Halen captured the imaginations of pissed off teens from coast to coast when it dropped on February 10, 1978. At a time when rock was either taking itself too seriously with dense, intricately orchestrated prog-projects or not seriously enough, like so many flash-in-the-pan punk outfits, Van Halen showed up like saviors, ready and eager to get the party started. You can almost smell the quarter-filled cups of stale beer and cigarette butt-filled ashtrays as you pore through its 11 tracks.

On the occasion of Van Halen’s 40th anniversary, I thought I might run through the 40 different reasons why it remains one of the greatest albums ever made.

1. The logo. How many high school-aged kids defiled the covers of their notebooks or the insides of their textbooks with that iconic “VH?” Gotta be in the millions right?

2. The cover, which is vastly superior to their icy, initial choice. You can’t put the lead singer in the background with his eyes closed, c’mon!

http://uproxx.files.wordpress.com/2018/02/punk630.jpg
Warner Bros.

3. Eddie’s “Frankenstrat” guitar, which he built himself with his own bare hands, because Eddie Van Halen is unf*ckwitable.

4. The haunted wail of car horns that opens “Runnin’ With The Devil,” which was a mishmash of Alex’s Opel, Eddie’s Volvo, a Mercedes Benz and a Volkswagen.

5. When Roth says, “G*ddamnit baby, you know I ain’t lyin’ / I’m only gonna tell you one tiiiiiiiime.”

6. Every single one of Roth’s vocal ad-libs on this song. “A lot of that comes from old blues records,” he explained in his autobiography Crazy From The Heat. “You go, ‘Bopedy bop blah, baby, all night long.’”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IArxakPsPE0

7. The first 43-seconds of Eddie’s mind-melting instrumental showcase “Eruption.”

8. The three seconds of silence in the middle of “Eruption” when you think the song is over.

9. The last 54-seconds of “Eruption,” which introduced the blazing-fast finger-tapping technique to a wide audience for the first time, and defined the sound of metal guitar for the next decade.

10. Eddie’s casualness about how “Eruption” ended up on the album. “I just didn’t think it was something we’d put on a record,” he told journalist Steven Rosen. “I played it two or three times for the record, and we kept the one, which seemed to flow.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_lwocmL9dQ

11. The dedication it took to get that good. “I used to sit on the edge of my bed with a six-pack of Schlitz Malt tails,” he told Billy Corgan in an interview for Guitar World. “My brother would go out at 7 PM to party and get laid, and when he ‘d come back at 3 AM, I would still be sitting in the same place, playing guitar. I did that for years… I still do that.”

12. Michael Anthony’s high harmonies on their Kinks cover “You Really Got Me.”

13. Michael Anthony in general, who has been overlooked in recent years now that Eddie’s son Wolfgang has taken over on bass. As Roth told Rolling Stone, “What we have at our fingertips is arguably one of the greatest high tenor voices ever — that was in Michael Anthony. In our tiny little corner of the universe, that voice is as identifiable as the high voice in Earth, Wind & Fire, as identifiable as the high voice in the Beach Boys.” I totally concur Diamond Dave.

14. The fact that the band had to rush release “You Really Got Me” out to stores because Eddie played an advance copy for another LA band named Angel who tried to swipe their idea and put out their own version of the song.

15. Kinks founder Ray Davies’ review of “You Really Got Me,” “I… liked the Van Halen version of “You Really Got Me,” because it made me laugh… It was all done with good spirit and good humor, it made me smile.”

16. The music video for “Eruption/You Really Got Me” which is late-’70s/early ’80s cheese at its finest.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9X6e7uctAww

17. The fact that “Ain’t Talkin’ Bout Love” was meant to be a piss-take on punk rock. “[It] was originally supposed to be a punk rock parody,” Eddie told Guitar World. “It was a stupid thing to us, just two chords. It didn’t end up sounding punk, but that was the intention.”

18. The song’s melodramatic breakdown: “I been to the edge / And there I stood and looked down / You know I lost a lot of friends there baby / I got no time to mess around / Mmm, so if you want it, got to bleed for it baby.”

19. The “Hey, hey, hey!” ending.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y-IUB62zDlA

20. When the band sings “Bop badda, shibby doo wah,” over and over in “I’m The One.”

21. That David Lee Roth was too healthy to record “Jamie’s Cryin’” initially. “I had taken special good care of myself,” he wrote in his autobiography Crazy From The Heat. “I’d watched what I was eating, watched what I was exercising, didn’t smoke any cigarettes, nothing. Walked in, started singing and Ted Templeman the producer said, ‘Dave, it doesn’t sound the same, it sounds like it’s not you… did you do something different?’ I said ‘Yeah, well, you know I didn’t smoke any cigarettes and really made sure what I had for breakfast.’ He said, ‘Well, go outside and smoke a joint, somebody order a cheeseburger.’” Dave obeyed his producer’s instructions and then, “Walked in, knocked out ‘Jamie’s Cryin” in 40-minutes.”

22. That Jamie held out for more than a “one night stand,” because love should mean a little more.

23. Actual postage. “She wants to send him a letter, uh yeah yeah / Uh just to try to make herself feel better.”

24. The scratchy guitar intro to “Atomic Punk.”

25. The idea of a black lycra-clad David Lee Roth ruling any streets at night. Or the netherworlds for that matter.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1m-DYM7JvMA

26. Roth describing a makeout session as “getting funny,” in “Feel Your Love Tonight.”

27. The wah-wah riff to “Little Dreamer,” which is secretly Eddie’s best.

28. The stacked vocal “Oohs” in the background while Dave is singing.

29. Both of Eddie’s guitar solos in “Little Dreamer.”

30. Actually, I like everything about “Little Dreamer.” It might be my favorite Van Halen song.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kbixKDRxIz0

31. Okay, “Light Up The Sky,” is my favorite Van Halen song, but still!

32. That the band decided to chuck one acoustic song, “Ice Cream Man” into the mix.

33. That it takes them exactly one-minute and 11-seconds to ditch the acoustic guitars and crank the Marshall stacks again.

34. Dave’s hiccup/squeal between the line, “Puddin’ pie banana” and “Dixie cups.”

35. The way the windows in my house crack when Dave screams “I’m On Fire” over and over again through the last song.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2RKWJD5ops

36. The fact that it was ultimately certified diamond by the RIAA for sales exceeding 10 million copies.

37. That Van Halen blew Black Sabbath off the stage on a nightly basis during their subsequent tour behind this album. “From the very first minute I heard them I knew straight away that they were something special,” Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi told Guitar World.

38. How Dave’s father is thanked as “Dr. Roth” in the liner notes.

39. Charles M. Young’s, catty contemporary review in Rolling Stone: “Mark my words: in three years, Van Halen is going to be fat and self-indulgent and disgusting, and they’ll follow Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin right into the toilet. In the meantime, they are likely to be a big deal.”

40. Roth’s inhuman pose on the album’s back cover.

http://uproxx.files.wordpress.com/2018/02/van-halen-van-halen-1978-japan-back.jpg

http://loudwire.com/van-halens-debut-a-look-back-at-the-album-that-changed-l-a/

Van Halen’s Debut: A Look Back at the Album That Changed L.A.
Loudwire Staff
February 9, 2018
By Katherine Turman

West Los Angeles in the 1970s was a heady place to grow up. At 14, I’d take the bus – or hitchhike! – to the stables to ride horses in the hills. I’d hit the beach in Santa Monica, where my friends and I, slathered in baby oil, would broil on the sand – stoned, of course – cranking up KLOS or KMET, the great rock stations of the day. With allowance and babysitting money we’d buy albums at Licorice Pizza or the Odyssey (the upstairs arcade was where the stoners hung out, playing Asteroids).

I had no siblings to turn me on to music, no Almost Famous guidance, ala “Listen to Tommy with a candle burning, and you’ll see your entire future!” From my mom I got Pete Seeger and the Mason Williams Orchestra (“Classical Gas”). From my dad, his Cream and Rolling Stones vinyl. Ultimately, it was radio – and older friends – who tuned me in and turned me on. In 1977, at 13, I went to the Forum to see Queen – with my French class friend Anne’s mother Mrs. Blankenbaker driving and chaperoning (oh, the teenage humiliation!).

I was seriously into music, but was too young to drive and shy. And the storied rock clubs, six miles East of our safe West L.A. apartment, were a scary destination. Of course, cooler kids were hanging out in Hollywood by the age of 13. But I’d seen those cautionary After-School Specials and Sarah T. – Portrait of a Teenage Alcoholic. I was a good girl with bad girl fantasies.

Enter Van Halen’s first album. If East Coast radio stations were heavy on the Billy Joel and Springsteen, L.A. airwaves were laden with the Doors and Eagles. That is, until early 1978, when the L.A. band came along and wiped the Laurel Canyon sound clean with wailing guitar solos, fast-fingered guitar machinations and a tone that revolutionized rock ‘n’ roll. It was paired with an athletically animalistic frontman and a beefy rhythm section, and drums that at times sounded like a fast-idling Harley.

Hard to imagine, and with apologies to Sgt. Peppers: It was 40 years ago today that Eddie Van Halen showed the world what he could play… and how fast he could play. That first record blew everyone’s minds. I still own my original copy. I still know every word and nuance on the album. From the first seconds: The omnious, increasing volume of car horns, booming chug of Michael Anthony’s bass, the quick tinkle of piano then David Lee Roth’s screamed “Ah yaaaahhh” that kick off “Running with the Devil” – it’s perfection. “Running with the Devil” sounds as stellar in 2018 as it did in 1978.

Sure, my friends and I would air guitar to Eddie’s solos, but as a failed acoustic guitarist (my rendition of “Octopus Garden” was a show-stopper, according to my mom) I didn’t yet understand the two-handed tapping and innovative genius that was Eddie Van Halen. That came later. (Twenty years hence I’d have a column in Guitar One magazine. And I’d also listen, as Rick Derringer told me that Eddie stole the tapping from him! And I also became email buddies with Van Halen producer Ted Templeman!) But as a kid, an devourer of books, it was Van Halen’s lyrics, the energy and the instantly memorable sing-along songs that floated my teenage boat. Plus – and it’s embarrassing to admit it now – David Lee Roth’s long hair, spandex and swaggering charisma initially drew me in more than Eddie’s scorching playing.

Van Halen, from the front to back – because that’s how we listened to it – was flawless, with not an ounce of fat. There wasn’t a single song you lifted the needle to skip. As a young teenage girl, “Jamie’s Cryin’” – side two, song one! – was my song. When my friends and I would meet boys at the beach or the UCLA Mardi Gras, we’d give fake names. I, of course, was “Jamie,” after the tearful hard-luck heroine of the song, whose one-night-stand with a rock star was heartbreaking. I barely knew what a one-night stand was, but I also knew that I would be the hapless type of girl who “wants to send him a letter / Just to try to make herself feel better.” Paired with the amazing achievement that is “Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Love,” they were the perfect paeans to young lust. “I been to the edge,” quoth Dave. “And there I stood and looked down / You know I lost a lot of friends there baby / I got no time to mess around!” You felt Roth had some gravitas under his grandstanding.

The songs on Van Halen are dangerous fun, full of sexy, devil-may-care bombast in the best way possible. In the pre-AIDS culture of sex without consequences, they speak of freedom-”I live my life like there’s no tomorrow, all I got I had to steal.” The album put my bad-girl fantasies into song. I wanted to have “nobody waiting at home,” instead of a mom who I’d see silhouetted in the window when I snuck home at 3 a.m., full of lies about running out of gas. Van Halen were my “Freedom Rock,” my daydreams of sex and partying and rock ‘n’ roll, purveyed in 11 songs and 35 minutes. (I’m listening to “Eruption” as I write this: there’s still no solo more iconic.) In retrospect, of course, songs like “Feel Your Love Tonight” would not fly in today’s #metoo world: “We’re gettin’ funny in the back of my car / I’m sorry honey if I took it just a little too far, yes” and “Better use it up before it gets old.” But in 1978, nobody gave it a second thought.

“I’m The One” was almost punk-like; its fluid, boogie mania with Roth’s bonkers jazz/scat breakdown, Alex Van Halen’s double-kick mania, Michael Anthony’s frantic bass and backing vocals and, of course, Eddie’s six-string excellence wiped away the Joni Mitchells and the James Taylors from our hearts. The beginning of “Atomic Punk” was mind-blowing: I couldn’t even be sure it was a guitar making those frenetic “wiki-wiki” noises. Roth’s cocky, always-on-10 vocals made you believe that, indeed, nobody ruled those streets at night like Roth did.

Before VH was ever on my radar, circa 1976 and ’77, Van Halen played the Starwood, a legendary club that also saw future members of Motley Crue grace its stage. But by 1981, while at University High in West L.A. (alumni include Kim Fowley and Tone Loc!), I got my license, and in my mom’s Buick Special station wagon, I headed east. Mostly to West Hollywood’s all-ages Troubadour, every week seeing both new wave and burgeoning metal bands: Berlin, W.A.S.P. Quiet Riot (post Randy Rhodes, sadly) and hundreds of others who saw less fame.

With my fake ID, Sonny, the bartender at the Troub’s front bar, served teenage me gin & tonics (I thought that seemed “adult”). It was one of those nights where David Lee Roth touched me. Me, the former “Jamie.” Of course, Roth didn’t notice, but wow, I did. He brushed by me at the bar, and I touched his elbow. On purpose. It was a big deal in my good-girl world. I skipped my high school prom in favor of nights and experiences like this.

I still didn’t know that rock ‘n’ roll would become both my obsession and my vocation. As my life and Van Halen’s career carried on, both VH and I enjoyed our successes. For me, though, nothing of VH’s ever captured the flawlessness and flow of the first album. Back then, I viewed “Ice Cream Man” as a bit of a throwaway; was that the reason it was the closing cut? The moodier, mid-tempo “Little Dreamer” was, likewise, not tops with me, but as it, and I, have gotten older, I appreciate its slightly more subtle approach.

Roth’s elbow was not my last Van Halen encounter. Interviewing David Lee Roth for his 1988 solo album Skyscraper – I may still have been in journalism school! – I was warned by the publicist not to bring up Van Halen. Within two minutes, he’d brought it up. Any journalist will tell you, Roth’s the easiest interview ever: turn on your tape recorder, and off he goes, bon mots spewing from his mouth.

Then, in the Van Hagar era came the thrill of seeing the band in a small club – the opening of Cabo Wabo in Mexico, no less. (Ah, the days of free journalist junkets. I recorded the show on my hand held cassette recorder. I still have the tape.) Thanks to my career as an editor at RIP magazine, I saw the Sammy Hagar-led version many times, and while they were great (I’d been a fan of Hagar’s from back when he was the lead singer of Montrose), Roth’s swaggering rock star presence was simply superior to Hagar’s every-man appeal.

My Van Halen story came full-circle on January 5, 2012. Van Halen played Café Wha?, a small, legendary club on New York City’s MacDougal Street, founded by Manny Roth, David’s uncle. As David said from stage that evening: “There is no hiding up here. There are no fake vocals. There is no fake anything.” There wasn’t, and even when it wasn’t perfect, it was perfection. The first four songs were “You Really Got Me,” “Runnin’ With the Devil,” “Somebody Get Me a Doctor” and “Everybody Wants Some!!” and seeing the interaction – admittedly not a lot, but still – between Roth and Eddie… it was nothing short of a dream come true.

There is no Van Halen other than the lineup with David Lee Roth, and, it must be said, Michael Anthony on bass. Just like is no other Black Sabbath than the version with Ozzy and Bill Ward. Much as I like – and I do – both Sammy Hagar (and Ronnie James Dio, by the way) Roth wins the VH crown. And Van Halen is the biggest jewel in it.

Loudwire contributor Katherine Turman is the co-author of Louder Than Hell: The Definitive Oral History of Metal, and the producer of “Nights with Alice Cooper” and is the former Editor-In-Chief of legendary metal magazine RIP. She has written for The Village Voice, The Los Angeles Times, Esquire.com, Rolling Stone, Noisey, Marie Claire, Billboard, Spin, New York Observer, Mother Jones, LiveNation TV, San Francisco Weekly, L.A Alternative Press, Guitar World, Amazon.com, ‘TEEN, Black Book, SOMA and many other outlets.

http://fansided.com/2018/02/10/celebrating-40th-anniversary-van-halen-debut-album/

Celebrating the 40th anniversary of Van Halen’s debut album
by Brad Berreman
2018-02-10 8:07 am

Saturday is the 40th anniversary of the release of Van Halen’s debut album, so it’s a time to acknowledge and celebrate.

Whether you’re more a fan of the David Lee Roth or Sammy Hagar era of Van Halen, and there are people who say you can’t like both equally, there’s no doubt when the band hit the public eye. On Feb. 10, 1978, the band’s debut album, simply and obviously titled Van Halen, was released. So that means the 40th anniversary is upon us, and a look back is worthy.

Track 1, regardless of the full album format, is the Van Halen classic “Runnin’ with the Devil.” Track 2 served as the announcement of the guitar virtuoso that would become Eddie Van Halen with the instrumental “Eruption.”

Track 3 was Van Halen’s first hit single, a cover of The Kinks’ “You Really Got Me.” Following that is “Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Love”, before favorites like “Jamie’s Cryin’,” “Feel Your Love Tonight” and the innuendo-laden “Ice Cream Man” that come later.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlU5MsI1ixs

In retrospect, Van Halen has gotten plenty of love as a game-changing classic rock album. Rolling Stone ranked it No. 415 on a 2012 re-issue of its 500 Greatest Albums of All-Time, and in 2013, the magazine ranked Van Halen No. 27 on its list of the greatest debut albums of all time. In 2006, Guitar World put it No. 7 on its list of the greatest guitar albums of all time.

For those of you that like rock music but are too young to know anything about Van Halen, their debut album is a good start to quickly get familiar. It’s even pretty short, with a run time of just over 35 minutes (as evidenced by the video above), if your attention span happens to be short as well.

For those of you who are Van Halen fans and die-hards, wherever you may fall on the Roth-Hagar spectrum, where do you rank Van Halen in the band’s catalog? What’s your favorite track on the album? Give me “Running with the Devil,” by a nose.

http://www.wjbdradio.com/music-news/2018/02/10/its-been-40-years-since-van-halens-self-titled-debut-album-erupted-into-stores

It’s been 40 years since Van Halen’s self-titled debut album erupted into stores
Posted on 2/10/2018 5:00 AM

Today, February 10, marks the 40th anniversary of the release of Van Halen’s self-titled debut album.

The 11-track collection helped introduce the world to the hard-rock legends: shrieking, high-kicking and irreverently funny singer David Lee Roth, fast-fingered and inventive guitarist Eddie Van Halen, hard-pounding drummer Alex Van Halen and fluid bassist Michael Anthony, who also provided soaring backing vocals.

While the album peaked at a modest #19 on the Billboard 200, and featured only one top 40 hit — an inspired cover of The Kinks’ “You Really Got Me” — it’s packed with songs that have become staples on classic-rock radio. They include “Runnin’ with the Devil,” “Ain’t Talkin’ ’bout Love,” “Jamie’s Cryin’,” “Ice Cream Man” and “Eruption.”

The latter track is an instrumental that features what many consider to be one of the greatest rock guitar solos ever, with Eddie Van Halen showcasing his trademark “finger-tapping” technique, which has influenced countless other guitar players.

In 1989, rapper Tone Loc scored a #2 hit with “Wild Thing,” which featured an uncredited sample of “Jamie’s Cryin’.” The band sued and settled out of court for $180,000.

The Van Halen album has gone on to earn a Diamond certification for selling more than 10 million copies in the U.S., making one of the 10 best-selling albums ever by a rock band.

Here’s the full track list of Van Halen:

“Runnin’ with the Devil”
“Eruption” (instrumental)
“You Really Got Me”
“Ain’t Talkin’ ’bout Love”
“I’m the One”
“Jamie’s Cryin’”
“Atomic Punk”
“Feel Your Love Tonight”
“Little Dreamer”
“Ice Cream Man”
“On Fire”

From Mike.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BfBTOOHnb4D/

40 years ago today, four guys set out to rock the world!! I want to thank all of you for rocking and supporting us all these years!