Tag Archives: Van Halen

Van Halen, The Flash and more for my 14-year-old readership

Comics, Music, ,

I’m still in a bit of a follow-up mode this week so bear with the retreads.

First, whatever. I can’t take all this back and forth. In fact, this line from the Reuters report says it all about the Van Halen reunion:

“The band’s luck ran out a decade later when Hagar and Van Halen acrimoniously parted ways, and a new album with a third singer tanked.”

Man, if REUTERS gets that, why doesn’t Eddie?

Meanwhile, back on planet Earth, Wizard World hits Chicago this weekend, which was a reminder to me to pick up this month’s comics, including All-Flash #1, a stop-gap between the end of the previous Flash series and the resumption of the Wally West-led series, which also resumes its previous numbering at #231. I mentioned last month the reasons why I felt DC bollixed up this most recent series, but after reading All-Flash, I realized something else that felt off to me several issues ago.

When Wally’s Aunt Iris arrived on the scene, she pulled a gun on Bart. While this made for a nice, tidy cliffhanger at the end of one issue, it felt wrong, even though it turned out to be a stun gun or some such nonsense. Instead of allowing Iris Allen to remain the heart of the Flash comics – as she’s been since she met Barry Allen, the Golden Age Flash – she was turned into an amoral Jack Bauer-type, willing to do Whatever It Takes. Sure, she was doing it for Bart’s own good, etc. etc. but it was yet another example of how the cores of the individual characters were missing, and this moment from the current issue made me think that maybe they were right to bring a full stop to the proceedings (click the image for a larger view):

If DC had Wally’s return as an end game all along, they’d have had more moments like this in the previous issues of the book to demonstrate that they weren’t making things up as they went along. Sometimes when you’re really lost, the best thing to do is to pick a new destination.

Nice to have you back, Mark Waid.

Decisions, decisions

Music, ,

First, a little housekeeping…

Blogging at Time Out Chicago (you are reading that Blog aren’t you?) has been both a blessing and a curse. It’s great to have the prestige of the magazine behind the posts I’m doing over there, but it’s often difficult to know where to draw the line between something that would make a good post for TOC and something that’s better left for this site. The rule of thumb I started using was “How long and rant-y is this?” If the answer to both questions is “kinda” then I e-mail the draft I’m working on to my home account, and save it for later.

Of course, “later” sometimes becomes “way later.” And sometimes what I end up wanting to write about changes too. The Ronny’s post was originally a straight-up review for TOC’s Blog with some anecdotal color thrown in, but that changed quite a bit (incidentally, The Ettes are very good, and you really ought to catch them next time they’re here). Ergo, a few back-dated posts just to keep continuity.

Also, you’ll notice that in the move to a new template, the categories in the ol’ blogroll got farked. It’ll get fixed one of these days, when I don’t have much to do. But those of you who are hooked on phonics can probably see where they divides are between News and Services, Music Blogs, Food Blogs, and People I Like.

Now that I’m caught up, I can get back to important matters, like what the hell is going on with Van Halen.

Seriously, boys. Ya’ll need to make up your minds on this Rock Hall gig. And Velvet Revolver performing in their place? Wow. That’s like asking for a bike for Christmas and getting tube socks. The kind you buy from a guy selling them on the side of the road.

I’d say more on this, but Anthony Caroto at Associated Content echoes the sentiments of pretty much every Van Halen fan out there. He also writes what’s probably the funniest and most profound statement on the matter (“Brothers Eddie and Alex Van Halen maintain seclusion in their Van Halen bubble. It’s about 4 billion miles away from reality”) and is responsible for the graphic at right, which I’m posting here until he asks me to take it down.

Finally, I think Arcade Fire tickets going for $1000 (2nd item) is going to be one of those moments that turns out to be the straw that broke the camel’s back for scalpers, much like what happened with radio payola a few years back.

The Ettes – Reputation (mp3)

God, I love that band

Music, ,

First, an update: Van Halen tour, possibly not off. The postponement is “not due to any internal strife among band members.” Sure.

Also, Billy Corgan’s manager on the reason why he’s not bringing James and D’Arcy back into the mix: “For the sake of a younger generation that he wants to turn on to the band’s music, he is doing it with a band that will more faithfully recreate the old songs than ever before.” Hear that? Corgan – by proxy – just said that James and D’Arcy has fallen off. Rock Beef 2007!

Anyway, I just finished the 2006 version of DaCapo’s Best Music Writing anthology. Year after year, DaCapo collects some of the most insightful, funny, and thought-provoking pieces written about music – sometimes only tangentially. Most of the pieces are more than just critical analyses of music, in that they try to say something about how music affects a particular worldview. Elizabeth Mendez Berry’s piece on domestic violence in rap and John Jeremiah Sullivan’s surprisingly thoughtful travelogue about the Christian Rock festival called Creation, in particular.

The selection that really hit me was J. Edward Keyes’ reporting on a Bloc Party show in 2005 (unfortunately, it’s not available online). The piece’s focal point is the hype that Bloc Party are set to be “the next Franz Ferdinand” (I always thought they were supposed to be the next Gang of Four, but no matter) before delving into the twin devils of mystique and hype, and the unrealistic notions of both. While Keyes might not come up with any earth-shattering conclusions, the impact comes from the way he presents his findings, letting his reporting speak for itself and avoiding any pop-psych journo speak.

At one point Keyes is speaking with a couple indie music snobs who have this to say on whether Bloc Party will indeed become the next FF:

“As long as they stay under the radar, I’ll keep listening to them,” he says. “But if they become mainstream, I’m probably going to stop.”

I’ve been a full-time music lover since, roughly, junior high, and a part-time music snob since probably college, but this is one of the most asinine statements ever made, right up there with “I’m only staying for one drink.”

People who really love music (and this guy isn’t one of them but more on that in a bit) sometimes say things like this. Not exactly this, but like this. It’s because they worry that success will spoil Rock Hunter, and the things they love about a band will change. Maybe chasing mainstream success will cause an artist to change his or her sound so much that they’ll no longer be the band you love (we’ll call this The Liz Phair Rule). Or they’ll record new material that makes it harder and harder to convince people that they were once relevant (we’ll call this The Rod Stewart Rule).

But nowadays – and I realize what an old man that phrase makes me sound like – there’s an increasingly large segment of the music-consuming population that’s reduced music to a trend, to fashion, which is why it’s more common now to see a band become wildly hyped, then torn down, often before they’ve even released a full-length (Tapes ‘n’ Tapes, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah and Arctic Monkeys to name a few). Other symptoms of this phenomenon include indie rock songs in commercials, girls who wear baby tees emblazoned with the names of bands whose albums they don’t own, and dudes who claim to be huge fans of a band, five minutes before they hit the exits and ten minutes before said band hits the stage.

And that brings us back to the Bloc Party fan.

I don’t worry about my favorite bands becoming mainstream or overly popular. I worry about jagoffs like this guy taking up residence in my favorite rock clubs. For this cat, being a “Bloc Party fan” is about knowing something other people don’t, not about enjoying the music. And that’s why he’s not saying he’s worried that if the band becomes mainstream, they might fall victim to The Liz Phair Rule or The Rod Stewart Rule. It’s not a qualitative decision. He’s saying he only likes the band because of what it says about him.

People who make comments like this always try to make it sound as if they’re very high-minded, as if their criticism stems from the band abandoning its initial ethos. So it’s important to remember that in these instances, it’s more about the person making the comment, than the band about whom they’re commenting.

Because what does it matter if you’re the first to know about something that’s wonderful, if you can’t appreciate the wonderfulness of it?

Reunionize Yourself

Music, ,

Sorry for the lack of posts. Lots of life change, what with the new job and the new place. Won’t happen again. Promise.

In the interim, reunion tours for both The Police* and Van Halen were announced, and it’s not possible to find two bands that are more indicative of the Goofus and Gallant school of thought when it comes to rock reunion tours.

On the one hand, you have The Police, who – with the exception of the occasional one-off gigs here and there – haven’t worked together artistically in the past 20 years. They’ve been offered scads of money before, but never saw the need. But at this stage in their respective individual careers, a reunion tour is a challenge, a gauntlet thrown down. With Sting having recorded an album of music on the lute (!!!), it’s a chance for him to prove that old Onion editorial was correct. For Andy Summers and Stewart Copeland, it’s to remind those who’ve forgotten that the band’s artistic success was built on the creative tension that existed between the three of them, and that no matter how things looked on the outside, the entity known as The Police required the efforts of all three. This house, often divided against itself, did stand. Take away any part of the whole … and you have an album of music played on the lute.

And speaking of removing part of the whole, there’s Van Halen.

The day after my Senior Prom, I – along with my date and some friends – went to Great America. In conversation with the acknowledged Guitar God of our high school, I derisively referred to the band as “Van Hagar,” a slight for which Guitar God took me to task. “C’mon, it’s not like they were ‘Van Roth’ before.” I had no retort.

I thought of this moment when I heard that VH bassist Michael Anthony had been unceremoniously (and if there’s a more apropos adverb for it, I don’t know what it is) booted from the band. Michael Anthony’s crime seems to be having toured with Hagar recently, which is ironic, since Roth famously did the same on the “Sans Halen” tour a few years back.

I thought of that moment again when it was announced that the brothers Van Halen were reuniting with David Lee Roth, with Eddie’s son Wolfgang on bass.

Talk about being careful what you wish for. Even the most strident Sammy Hagar defenders would admit that a tour with Diamond Dave fronting the band would be worth seeing. Since the Roth years of VH, in particular, depended on the thump-thump-thump and “Oooh baby baby” that Anthony brought to the party, this tour’s going to end up like the end of “The Monkey’s Paw,” where the departed relative you wished back to life turns out to be some weird zombie knocking at the door in the middle of the night.

When I see Van Halen, I want some dude (I’m not picky about who so long as he was not at any point affiliated with Nuno Bettencourt) in brightly-colored pants singing about ladies in some fashion. I want two goofy-looking Dutch cats hammering away on the skins and blowing my damn mind on guitar, respectively. And lastly, I want a dude in a mullet, crooning background vocals, and playing something that resembles a bottle of Jack Daniels with strings.

It’s hard to fault Eddie for wanting to spend more time with his kid, but I was pretty sure the rock cognoscenti agreed that making family members a part of the band was a bad idea ever since Paul wanted Linda to join Wings. Recent public appearances by the man seem to confirm that the dude is back on the sauce. He’s acknowledged that when he was heavily hitting the bottle back in the day, Roth would talk him into things he might not have ordinarily thought were a good idea. It’s also pretty clear from Ed’s foray into the world of adult film soundtracks that he’s got a base need to be making music in some fashion, whether or not such ventures have any artistic merit. The last time all three of these elements combined, the band produced “Big Bad Bill Is Sweet William Now” off Diver Down. So I can’t see how this is anything but a bad idea.

There are plenty of people who argue that nostalgia is the enemy of rock and roll. When something like this Van Halen reunion tour happens, it’s hard to come up with an effective argument. I’m hoping The Police are able to provide one.

Otherwise, we’re going to end up with another album of music on the lute.

* Check that quote from the guy at Pollstar at the end of the AP story. Is that the most depressing thing you’ve ever read in your life?