The Moose

The Case for Van Halen

Van Halen: The Good, the bad and the ugly

GOOD
The instrumentation is unusually tight. It’s seamless. It could hold water. A big reason for this phenomenon is having two brothers play lead guitar (Eddie) and drums (Alex), two parts of a rock band that very rarely are so dialed into each other as they are with Van Halen (I would by the way venture that the same could be said about Smashing Pumpkins).

Once Eddie got down with the synth keyboards in the early 80s, Van Halen took it to a whole new level that none of its contemporaries could approach. Here you had this guitar virtuoso in Eddie Van Halen who demonstrated that he also had an amazing pop sensibility and knack for songwriting. A worthy template came to be repeated time and again by Van Halen in many of its signature hits – a keyboard-based intro hooks you in, the song builds in force until a ridiculous guitar solo finally serves as the crescendo. Just think of the keyboard intro to “Jump” and the piano at the beginning of “Right Now.”

BAD
Changing lead singers so many times. Hey, anybody who DIDN’T get tired of being in a band with David Lee Roth should have their head checked. And Sammy Haggar, with one of the best rock voices of this or any generation, was the perfect replacement to someone like Diamond Dave who was more about style than substance. But kind of like how you can rationalize someone getting divorced once but then with every subsequent divorce that person’s credibility evaporates at an exponential rate, so too in 1997 everyone in the music world was like, “They didn’t just hire the guy from Extreme (acoustic one-hit wonders for “More Than Words”) to replace Sammy Haggar, did they? It’s a joke, right?”

Bringing Eddie’s son Wolfgang into the band in 2006 to replace longtime bassist Michael Anthony. How narcissistic is it to bring your own son into your band? I mean, if the son’s got any chops of his own, he’s probably better suited playing with people his own age rather than an-over-the-hill has-been. Having said that, I still don’t know what’s worse: said unconscionability of bringing your own son into your band, or naming your son Wolfgang Van Halen. What, was Amadeus already taken?

UGLY
Around the end of the last millennium, Eddie Van Halen told the world he had cancer. Only he didn’t want to tell people what kind of cancer he had, which not surprisingly sparked rumors that Eddie had fallen prey to a cancer of the testicular variety. Well, turns out it was tongue cancer. Despite getting a third of his tongue removed, to this day dude continues to smoke because he sees no causal connection between his two-packs-a-day habit and the malignant tumor he got on his tongue. Like those cartoon guys on the Guinness beer commercials are so fond of saying, “Brilliant!!”

Four words: 2000 MTV Music Awards. Shortly after (surprise!) canning Gary Cherone, rumors spread that Van Halen was getting back together with its orignal frontman David Lee Roth for some new tracks on an upcoming Greatest Hits disc. So the quartet makes its first public appearance together at the MTV Music Awards as presenters. Diamond Dave, who’d spent the previous 15 years trying to figure out how he’d gotten himself kicked out of the world’s biggest rock band, is so attention-starved and jittery when they hit the stage to present that he starts rambling, ungracefully attracting attention to himself and generally acting more excited than A.C. Green on his wedding night. I kid you not, the other three guys in the band are standing there on the stage staring at Roth with looks on their face that unmistakably say, “What the hell does this guy think he’s doing? And what the hell were we thinking to bring him back into the fold?” Shortly thereafter, the rumored reunion falls through and Van Halen goes the next four years without any lead singer whatsoever.

Van Halen vs. Bon Jovi, Part I

Back in the 80s when I was still a little Sheed, it struck me as quite odd that two of the biggest rock bands of the day both derived their names from the two-word surname of the bands’ most prominent members. I am speaking, of course, about Van Halen and Bon Jovi. Because of the similarity in their names, comparing these two bands to each other is something that’s been going on in my head for over 20 years now.

In formulating an in-depth comparison/analysis, the first thing that comes to mind is the issue of longevity. It’s been a decade and a half since Van Halen was anything more than an unintentionally hilarious sideshow (come back tomorrow for a few specifics). Conversely, even today Bon Jovi never seems too far removed from the public consciousness (they had an album hit record-store shelves less than two years ago that sold five million copies).

But then there’s the issue of relative greatness. At its peak, Van Halen was much more influential and meaningful than anything Bon Jovi ever approached. For statistical proof, just look at the aggregate album sales that put Van Halen at 56.5 million, compared to “only” 33 million for Bon Jovi (data from the Recording Industry Association of America). However, if you (like me) prefer to frame debates in terms of anecdotal evidence, then look no further than the 1982 movie Fast Times at Ridgemont High in which Sean Penn unforgettably portrayed surfer/slacker extraordinaire Jeff Spicoli. At the end of the movie, a paragraph about what became of each of the main characters following high school is shown on the screen. Spicoli, we’re told, got a five-figure sum of money for saving Brooke Shields from drowning. What’d he do with the money? Hire Van Halen to play his birthday party, of course.

For the musically-challenged, let’s frame this in terms of sports. Van Halen and Bon Jovi are like baseball stars Eddie Murray and Dale Murphy, respectively (and no, it’s not by accident that I chose players with such similar last names as “Murray” and “Murphy”). In a 21-year career, Murray hit .287 to go with 504 HR and 1907 RBI. Murphy, meanwhile, hit .265 with 398 HR and 1266 RBI over 18 seasons. Murray wins by a landslide, right? Not so fast. Although Eddie is the only one of the two enshrined in the Baseball Hall of Fame, Dale is the only one with an MVP award on his mantle – and dude’s got two of them. What’s better in the eyes of history, a player who was consistently great for a longer period of time or one who was great for over a decade AND the best player in baseball for a two-year span? In my not-so-humble opinion, it’s a debate that’s far from cut-and-dry.

So it’s on: Van Halen versus Bon Jovi for the distinction of “Best 80s Rock Band Named After a Two-Word Surname.” Let the debate begin…tomorrow.

President Boyd K. Packer?

RE: Why swim upstream?

Well looks like you single deviation is really going to cost you. And what reasoning did you have for that prognistication of picking the 3rd best team in the Big 12 to do better than the 2 best teams from that conference? Should have stuck with the "experts" in the committee. I guess I'm just going to have to win this thing. Your chances a now quite slim. Meanwhile, Kansas is looking like a shoe-in for the final 4 (my pick).

Why Swim Upstream?!

A few observations...
THE RESULT of Jordan's decision not to fill out a bracket? Probably that his time as lunch club president is nearing an end (re: impeachment).
BECAUSE they have the same finsl four (inter-firm consultations?), the race between Morgan and Chris is going to come down to whether Georgetown (Morgan) or Texas A&M (Chris) makes the finals--I like Morgan's chances on that a lot better than Chris's, but if neither of those two teams makes it to the finals then Morgan had better hope Tennessee upsets Ohio State and Wisconsin makes an early exit, otherwise H8BYU will be impossible for Fife to catch. BTW Morgan, what were ye smoking when ye picked Notre Dame to go to the Elite Eight? That was bold, but so out-of-nowhere and irrational that that's normally the kind of improbable risk you see Sheed take. Speaking of which...
AFTER THE FIRST ROUND, Sheed is in the penthouse--and don't expect that to change much, mates. With the exception of prognosticating Durant and Co. to go to the finals, Sheed picked the lower seed to win every single game in his bracket. Why go to all the trouble of trying to brilliantly forecast upsets when men (almost) as smart as us spent entire days locked in a conference room determining how to seed the shin-dig?

Re: Bill Simmons

At first I was wary to believe Simmons' characterization of All-Star weekend which was based mostly on 3rd hand accounts which sounded exagerated. Then the police figures seeemd to show that it wasn't any worse than any other big weekend. But I still didn't like Scoop's article at all, and now I am on board with Simmons. With 400 arrests, it seems pretty clear that the Po-po had their hands full and probably made all the arrests they could. Thus, 400 could really be close to the most arrests they could have made given the number of officers.

But what really changed my mind was the account of what I consider a much more reliable voice, even though I heard it second hand. A certain former professional basketball player who I am related to spoke with Big T - Thurl Bailey - On Thursday night (conincidentally the occasion of the conversation was in Logan at the outstanding USU-Nevada basketball game on Thursday). Thurl agreed with Simmons assessment of the atmosphere in Vegas that weekend and said that it seemed like one long rap video (that is a paraphrase). I don't know how many rap videos the Mormon gospel singer watches, but I think he meant pretty much what Simmons described.

Just thought I'd drop a couple names, I'm out.