. Continued from Part 1, Part 2 & Part 3 Los Angeles also provides Roth’s canvas for "Top Jimmy", but this time the picture he painted was more grounded in his day-to-day life. Easily the oddest cut on the album, it features Eddie sounding as if he is playing a guitar strung with elastic bands—partly the result of the fact that he is often slapping the strings. It is one … [Read more...]
Archives for 2012
David Lee Roth’s Super Terrific New Year’s Eve Dance Party Spectacular! (The Roth Show #7)
It's David Lee Roth's Super Terrific New Year's Eve Dance Party Spectacular! Your host, David Lee Roth, dances his way through this special edition of The Roth Show. Featuring music from The DLR Vegas Band and some of Dave's "word jazz." … [Read more...]
Santa Eddie
Kody Van Halen asks, "Sittin on Santa Daddy's lap. Do you think I have been naughty or nice? hehehehe!" … [Read more...]
Caption This Photo, #10
Van Halen photo from 1979. Write your own caption/punchline in our Comments section. (Captions only). … [Read more...]
Full Blast & Top Down: The Making of 1984 (Part 3)
Continued from Part 1 & Part 2 Opening with the unexpected sound of a warm electronic swell, MCMLXXXIV/1984, seemed to herald the arrival of some new mutant, synth-driven, Van Halen. But the truth was that the synths had taken outings on the previous two Van Halen albums, as well, and would likely have featured more had Eddie gotten his way earlier. The short instrumental … [Read more...]
Full Blast & Top Down: The Making of 1984 (Part 2)
Story by John Scanlan (Author of Van Halen: Exuberant California, Zen Rock’n’Roll) Continued from Part 1. Roth’s return from the Amazon was just in time to prepare for a giant outdoor show Van Halen were co-headlining in San Bernardino County, California. The US festival, styling itself as a latter-day Woodstock, had been named “us” as in ‘we’—not US, or “United … [Read more...]
Wolfgang Van Halen To Tour With Tremonti in February
Mark Tremonti is setting up some 2013 tour dates for his solo album All I Was, and the good news is Wolf Van Halen will be joining him once again. In the video above, Wolf tells Artisan News he's a huge fan of their album. Mark Tremonti Tour Dates (17 total) Click here to visit the official Tremonti tour page … [Read more...]
Full Blast & Top Down: The Making of 1984 (Part 1)
Story by John Scanlan (Author of Van Halen: Exuberant California, Zen Rock’n’Roll) The singer, on one of his many exotic adventures, is lost in the Amazon rainforest weeks before the biggest gig the band will ever play. The guitarist is threatening to burn the master tapes of the new album, which is taking considerably longer than the usual five days to record. Drunken insults … [Read more...]
The Roth Show, Episode 6: Tales & Video From New Guinea
If you're like most readers of the Van Halen News Desk, you grew up listening to Van Halen most of your life, and when you were a kid you wished you were David Lee Roth. (Or was it Eddie? Or Alex? Or Michael? All four? Thought so!). And when scouring through the rock magazines at your local record store, or perhaps when reading Dave's autobiography, you read that, in between … [Read more...]
Van Halen Tops Guitar World’s ‘Top 50 Albums of 2012’!
Guitar World's STAFF has chosen VAN HALEN"S 'A Different Kind Of Truth' as the #1 album of the year! From Guitar World: From an impending apocalypse to the promise of a new Van Halen album with David Lee Roth, the bar was set high for 2012. Everyone from the Mayans to Nostradamus allegedly prophesied the end of the world in 2012, but who could have predicted Green Day's … [Read more...]
Best Songs of 2012: Van Halen’s “Stay Frosty”
Van Halen just made Rolling Stone's '50 BEST SONGS OF 2012' list with "Stay Frosty" at number 16! From Rolling Stone: This single-handedly proved the reunion was worth the wait. Diamond Dave rides the Van Halen brothers’ flashiest riffs in decades, shooting o one-liners with the wisdom of a strip-club Zen master – from “You want to be a monk, you got to cook a lot of rice” to … [Read more...]
RARE 1980 “You Really Got Me” & “Cradle” TV Lip-Sync
Here is a rare treat. Two little-known clips of Van Halen lip-syncing for TV in Europe in 1980. We featured the "And The Cradle Will Rock..." video years ago, but never the "You Really Got Me" one. Keep in mind that seeing Van Halen on TV was something that almost never happened back in 1980. And when you did actually get to see a great rock band on TV, it was often a … [Read more...]