Speaker 1: I'm Jeff Johnson with a film by podcast here with
the co creator of our show and my best friend
of thirty plus years, Brad Kozo.
Speaker 2: Wow thirty years now, you remember that spring break we
had in panamng Oh.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was the trip we hung out poolside with
that girl who had the drop dead legs.
Speaker 3: I tried to warn you she was a girl gone bad.
Speaker 2: We didn't agree about her, but we do agree on
the things that matter, Like, obviously, the greatest guitarist of
all time is Eddie.
Speaker 1: And Helen, which is why it goes without saying that
the greatest rock band of all time is Van Halen Halen.
Speaker 2: I don't want to jump to conclusions, but it's safe
to say we agree on the band's best front man
though too.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: Well, sure, David Lee Hagar, hold up, you think Diamond
Dave is better than the Red Rocker. Next, you're gonna
tell me that nineteen eighty four is a better album.
Speaker 3: Than fifty one to fifty. Well it is.
Speaker 4: I don't know how long you'll need to convince me
of that, but I'll wait.
Speaker 2: I think I'll let Jason Indeed do that for me,
because this week the surely you can't be serious podcast
is rocking out. Track by track van Halen's nineteen eighty four.
Speaker 4: Hey, everybody heard you missed us.
Speaker 3: We're back.
Speaker 4: Brought my pencil, Give me something to ride on. I
don't feel tardy.
Speaker 3: That's my favorite line. I wanted that line. How's it going, everybody?
We are back again for another van Halen episode. Now,
in twenty twenty, we did van Halen Versus van Hagar
as a kind of collective. We reviewed basically all of
the history of van Halen for our first two episodes,
and then for our final third episode, we kind of
talked about the transition into van Hagar. Jason was a
van Hagar fan. I was a van Halen fan. Not
that he's not, but right, there's definitely he sided with
van Hagar and I sided with van Halen. Now, since then,
it was six years ago. Yeah, since then a lot
of things have happened, most notably the passing of Vennie
van Halen.
Speaker 4: Sure, sure, and you know we've had six seasons to
get better that those first episodes. I actually listened to them. Yeah,
I don't think our mic was as good, and maybe
my voice wasn't as strong as I would have liked,
but the information I think is there. And if you
want to know about Van Halen, go back and listen
those episodes.
Speaker 3: There's some of my favorite episodes. We did a rerun
of them back in like I think twenty twenty two
or so. And here's my oath to you all. Today.
The information would give you is going to be copious,
and I'm going to say ninety percent of it stuff
that's not in those old episodes. So if you want
more of the history, you haven't heard those old episodes,
go check them out. I still love listening to them.
I listened to them before we did this podcast just
to kind of refresh my recollection. But today I'm giving
you all kinds of new information. So don't skip this
one just because you've heard those old ones and the
other on about me. I got new information too you.
I don't know what you This is part of what
we do. I don't know what he has. He doesn't
know what I have. We just come and we just go,
right and yeah, we come and go. And also what's
happened since then is we've covered one more Van Halen album.
Speaker 4: We did Long Cold Winter by Cinderella versus Ou eight
one two we did that two seasons ago.
Speaker 3: I think, yeah on.
Speaker 4: The wall right there, Yeah, and uh and I love
that album as well. So one of these days we'll
probably work our way through most of the van Halen catalog.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so here we are season seven. I mean that
one we did album to album, but we didn't include
a Van Halen a David Lee Roth album against the
Van Hagar album. This one. Once again, we're back with
Van Halen versus Van Hagar and two sequential albums. Right,
we have nineteen eighty four, which came out in nineteen
eighty four, and then just a year later we have
fifty one to fifty fifty eighty six. So they recorded
an eighty five released an eighty six. That's right.
Speaker 4: The reason why they named this album nineteen eighty four.
Speaker 3: Do you know this because it was nineteen eighty four.
Speaker 4: Well, one would think that George Orwell no, but I
will say that Van Halen I think did a lot
as far as wrestling the nineteen eighty four title back
from George Orwell, okay, to be a positive thing. We've
talked about how nineteen eighty four might be the greatest
year in pop culture.
Speaker 3: By the way, go check out our friend David Wright
def Dave's new podcast he's just come out with Just
come Out. It is all about the year nineteen eighty.
Speaker 4: Four chronologically through nineteen eighty four. It's called Deaf Dave's
nineteen eighty four.
Speaker 3: Go check it out. So he argues it is the
best year in eighties history, which would make it the
best year in our lifetimes. I suppose, very very possibly. Yeah.
Speaker 4: But the reason why the Van Halen Brothers decided to
call this nineteen eighty four was because the record company
was pushing them to get this thing out before it
was ready aka nineteen eighty three, right, and they're like,
we're gonna call this nineteen eighty four so as a
get off our back and let us do our thing right.
Speaker 3: So we've got tons of songs to talk about. I
just got a real quick I got to say this.
This was one of the first three cassettes that I
ever owned. Okay, it was Minute Work, it was Wham
Make It Big, and it was this. Those were the
three first tapes that I owned. And that's a that's
a variety of that.
Speaker 4: That's a good selection. Wham Make It Big We've already
covered yep, go check that out minute work we're covering in.
Speaker 3: Just a few weeks yep.
Speaker 4: And then this week, of course we're covering today. And
those are three great tapes. I can't fault you.
Speaker 3: Michael Jackson in there somewhere. Well, Michael Jackson was my
first LP. I had him before I had any of
the cassettes. I had Thriller on vinyl.
Speaker 4: Okay, So this album was released January ninth of nineteen
eighty four. Although I did play a trivial pursuit game.
The question was when was Van Helen's nineteen eighty four
album released, and it said December thirty first, nineteen eighty three.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And there was something about the release of a single.
Speaker 4: But the video for Jump was released at midnight nineteen
eighty four, right, so.
Speaker 3: It's midnight where on the East Coast where MTV was,
because it would probably still be in December thirty first
for the three other time zones in the US.
Speaker 4: For US, namely exactly good point, good point. So this
is the last album to feature David Lee Roth until twenty.
Speaker 3: Twelve Sixth Studio Album.
Speaker 4: Sixth studio album. This album only reached number.
Speaker 3: Two because of Thriller.
Speaker 4: Because of Thriller which was helped by.
Speaker 3: Eddie Van Halen solo on the beat It album.
Speaker 4: Right now, most people will say either you're nineteen eighty
four and before fans, or you're fifty one to fifty
and beyond. But to me, I think that the split
really happens pre nineteen eighty four. From that point on,
Eddie was in love with the synthesizer, and so to me,
that's the more logical split. But we'll talk about that.
Speaker 3: So I you know, I thought of that very thing.
I think that keyboards and synthesizers are that point of transition.
I think this. I disagreed with you back when we
have Van Halen versus Van Haanguard six years ago. I'm
going to go ahead and say, even though there have
been other synthesizers in their catalog before this, this is
a different transition and I will tell you why. But
I want to tell you after we cover our first
song on the album, which is nineteen eighty four. Okay,
so there's a lot of synthesizer over here. I mean
it's kind of making its announcement, right. I got no drums, nope,
and no bass, right, I got no guitar, right? This
is a van of Haleen song with no guitar. Yes,
what the heck is happening here?
Speaker 4: Last synth?
Speaker 3: Okay, so I've mentioned before this isn't the first time
that they've used a synthesizer or keyboards in their stuff,
right right, Okay, So do you you remember what album
came out right before this album? Now, it wasn't even
supposed to be an album.
Speaker 4: You know that they released the single pretty Woman, and
it did so well that the record company is like,
you guys got to have an album to go along
with a song, and so they rushed through. It's basically
a bunch.
Speaker 3: Of covers, right, and you remember that we I mean,
they couldn't come up with enough new material that fast.
So yeah, they've made a lot of covers. But Dave
had initially said I want to do Dancing in the streets.
Eddie was like, I don't know how to van Haal
and eize that there's no part for me. Yeah, so
Eddie said let's do pretty Woman instead. Pretty Woman, as
you said, becomes a hit and they are demanding a
new album and they're rushing to get moved more music.
So they do covers, including Dancing in the Streets. Yes,
but part of what they're doing with Pretty Woman is
they've got that video, which we discussed at link. It
is a crazy video which yes, does involve a woman
who appears to be chained up being attacked.
Speaker 4: By a little less by little people, yes, who was
not really a woman, which was news to me.
Speaker 3: So as it turns out like they spent a whole
lot of money on that video, Okay, and the video
the idea that they had for the video was significantly
longer than the song had to play, right, and so
they came up with an introduction to the part and
that is called Intruder. Yeah, right now, Intruder uses keyboards
in it, he does. Yeah, And you know what, it's
the fourth song that they've had that uses keyboards, the fourth. Okay,
So Intruder was written by David Lee Ross so that
they could fill this space in this music video that
they've done. All right, they spend all of this money
and the video ultimately gets banned. They don't even get
to show it.
Speaker 4: On it because because you have a transnational being molested
by little.
Speaker 3: People one of many reasons I share it. And so
you've got so this is Intruder is the fourth one.
The first one was and the credible rock. The second
one is so this is love okay, and also off
a fair warning? Is this song called Sunday in the
Park okay, now sending the park. I sent it to
you earlier today. It is. It's definitely keyboards, but it's
like the dark kind of rush, you know, like mystic
sounding keyboards. It sounds ominous. And eddievan Halen actually wrote
this about the Valerie Bertinelli as they were engaged and
he was frustrated and angry. It's like this dark and
foreboding thing. Playfleek titled Sunday in the Park, which sounds
much much nicer. Right. So there have been four solid
songs that they have done with keyboards in them. And
everybody is up in arms about this album being the
synth album and they've gone synth pop and is it
really different? And I'm gonna say the answer is yes,
it's different. It's different, okay. And it's different because of
the next song that we're about to play. Yes, obviously
before I get into jump, because we're not there yet, right,
let me tell you a story. In eighty one, they
in their Fair Warning tour. Then they have this hit
song they have to produce diver down. In April of
eighty two, Eddie Van Halen goes to see a guy
named Alan Holtzworth play. He is a guitarist guitarist and
is incredibly good and Eddie is not only watching him
but playing with him a little bit. And do you
know who is in the crowd there with him? A
young guitarist who's Frank Zappa's guitarist, a guy named Steve Vi.
Steve Vi. And so Steve I meets Eddie Van Halen.
They talk for a bit and Steve is like, Hey,
if you ever want to meet Frank, here's my number.
Give me a call. I'll get you guys hooked up.
So Eddie does want to meet Frank because he is
a guitar virtuo, soho he is, And so he calls
and Steve isn't there, but Steve's roommate gives Eddie the number.
Eddie calls gets Frank's wife, Gail, who has a kind
of weird accent, and she's like, Frank, You've got a
call from Eddie Edvard Edvard van Halen, And so Frank's
talking to him and he's like trying to figure out
is this really Eddie Van Halen that I'm talking to here,
and he's like Duezel, who's twelve at this point, He's like, Duezel,
you like Van Halen. He's like yeah. He's like, come here,
tell me if this is really him. Like they talking
a bit and he's like, yeah, I recognize in his
voice from like fair Warning or something like that, which
it wasn't even anyway, that's not a portant. He was wrong,
it wasn't even any but anyway, Yeah, he's like, yeah, Dad,
that's really Eddie van Halen. And then Eddie van Halen
shows up at their house and he's like playing with
him a little bit. He's like, I want to hear
more of your stuff. So he goes back to his
own house, which is a few blocks away, gets three
Van Halen albums, brings them back, and Frank Zappa is like,
I gotta tell you thank you for reinventing.
Speaker 4: The electric guitar, inventing the electric guitar.
Speaker 3: Because I thought you guys were just another ac DC
and I was wrong. And of course Dweezel a starstruck
because he loves Van Halen well.
Speaker 4: And remember Frank Zappa is notorious for being incredibly hard
on musicians.
Speaker 3: Oh, Steve Lucather got.
Speaker 4: Thrown out, like laughed out of the room for being
terrible on guitar.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Steve I is the virtuoso that he is because
he was whipped into submission by Frank Zappa. So Frank, Eddie,
and Steve Vai all are together jamming at Frank's house.
In Frank's studio. Dewezl is there. He's trying to help
and take part in things, and Eddie actually help helps
Dewesel write his first song. He's got a little twelve
year old band and a song is called My Mother's
a Space Cadet. Right, And on the credits it was
a pressed album. On the credits, the Vards are listed
as the Vards because he was Edward.
Speaker 4: Yes, before you go for the quick trivia question for you, Okay,
we'll see how you do on this. Yeah, we're getting
ready to cover a movie pretty soon that has deesel
Zappa in it. I don't know pretty in Pink has
disel Zappa. He was dating Molly Ringwold at the time
they filmed that movie.
Speaker 3: Wow. So there's that.
Speaker 4: And then Steve I of course leaves Frank Zappa and
goes on to play for Davily Roth and then of
course White Snake after that.
Speaker 3: Yep. So I tell you all this to say Eddie
was inspired by what Frank was able to do because
he was one of the guys who had fought against
Warner Brothers for a long time to be able to
do his own stuff. And the way he kind of
made that work was he built his own studio.
Speaker 4: I'll do it at my house where nobody is there
but me. Yes, And I do think that that's the
key shift here, because Eddie takes notes from this and says,
I'm tired of Dave and Ted Tembleman bean over my
shoulder all the freaking time. Yes, I'm building a studio
at my house.
Speaker 3: Yes, which I'm going to talk about in just a second,
but real quick. Just as a kind of cute side story, Yep.
Dweezle ultimately ends up doing Running with the Devil with
his band. At a talent show. He calls Eddie because
it's like my guitar keeps going out of tune, and
so Eddie goes to visit him, goes back to his
house and brings him a guitar that has these locking nuts.
This is Floyd Rose brand new gear. You put these
locking nuts on the guitar and it helps it from
going out of time tune when you use the whammi bar,
which you have to in Running with the Devil, and
he gives him the guitar, just gives it to him.
Here you go. Here's an Eddie Van Halen Floyd Rose
locking nut guitar. Oh, by the way, you're not playing
that right, let me show you how to really play it.
Teaches him how to actually play it for his talent show.
There's a lot of question about whether whether Eddie is
a good guy or an asshole, and I think it's
probably both. Probably both, And I mean Shirley substance abuse
had something to do with all of that. He did
a lot of this, He did a lot of a
lot of stuff. Yeah, but he definitely has a lot
of moments of being a genuinely nice guy. I think
that's true. This is one of those moments, right. Yeah.
So Eddie and Don Landy the light is shown, they're like,
we have to build our own studio. They don't go
for the top technology. They go for what sounds good
and what they can find at the part store.
Speaker 4: Imagine working at radio shack and Eddie walks in, Oh yeah,
I'm looking for some parts and build my.
Speaker 3: I mean in the one ads you know, probably the
equivalent of Craig Craig list in nineteen eighty two. Right,
they come across this Bill Pullman recording board, which I
mean was state of the art at the time. But
this thing was a piece of crap, and Eddie said,
we bought it, and it was a piece of crap,
like it was useless. But Don Landy tinkered around with
it for a few days and basically rewired the whole thing,
and then it became the soundboard that they used in
the new studio.
Speaker 4: Well, and that goes along with Eddie before. What we've
talked about before is he took a cast off guitar
body and made the Frankenstrat out of it. Yes, he's
kind of a tinkerer. He's got about four different patents
at the US Patent Office for his tinkering around with stuff, right,
that's right, including a little lever behind the guitar so
you can play with both hands.
Speaker 3: Yes, like a piano.
Speaker 4: Like a piano.
Speaker 3: So Eddie is on tour, so he's only kind of
partially taking part in this, so Don Landy, Bill Weiss
and Valerie's brothers, the Burton Earlier brothers are over there
working on the studio while Eddie's touring. And apparently the
requirement was that they have blazing saddles playing at all times,
and Valerie would continually bring out dacrease for everybody to
be drinking. Excuse me, well, I whipped this up. And
so oh and the other thing was zoning laws in
California at that that area. Yeah, yeah, no, studios not allowed.
So you know what eddievan Alan did what he built
a racketball court. That's good. He built a racketball court
which was allowed, and then it ended up having a
bunch of recording equipment inside of it.
Speaker 4: Oddly enough, I have a story about that same studio
in about three socks.
Speaker 3: Okay. Their first problem is there's an am antenna very
close to the house and they're concerned about it getting feedback,
so they literally wrap the thing in chicken wire and
then cement around the chicken wire so that it eliminates
all of the you know, the bleeding in of any
radio signals. So it's they keep it at sixty four
degrees the entire time it's so thick. They shoot a
forty four magnum at it, and it does and penetrate
it so that the studio is literally bulletproof.
Speaker 4: I mean, I'd like to be there the day that
somebody's like, well, let's test it out, let's see what happens.
Speaker 3: Well, so after they test the gun, then they have
to test the sound. The first tape that they put
in is My Mother is a Space Cadet by duezels App.
Oh that's cool, Yeah, I love it. Okay, So there
you go. There's the history of the studio, which is
how we get this album. Now you get you're gonna
tell me about nineteen eighty four. This wee.
Speaker 4: Well, before we go into these tidbits, the name of
the studio, Oh right, I mean we got to talk
about that, right, sure. Yeah, the name of the studio
is fifty one fifty.
Speaker 3: Fifty one was fifty, which on our previous episode we
talked about how that's the call sign for somebody being
involuntarily committed for being crazy, and.
Speaker 4: Of course we'll be talking about fifty one to fifty
next week.
Speaker 3: There you go.
Speaker 4: So I've got a couple of tidbits on the creation
of this intro. Okay, there is two stories about who
wrote it.
Speaker 3: Yes.
Speaker 4: One of them is that Eddie wrote it because he
was nooling around on the keyboard, which I find to
be the most likely to be true, okay. And then
the second is that Kevin Dugan, who was Michael Anthony's
bass tech, said no, Michael Anthony, I wrote that song
as an intro to Michael Anthony's bass solo in the concerts. Yeah,
seems like different origin stories to me, significantly different origin stories.
Speaker 3: And I listened to the like the live version of
the intro song that plays for Michael Anthony's bass solo,
and it is that that sound, but I didn't hear
any of the rest of it, So I think maybe
it's a nomination, maybe blending of the ideas. Yes, Yeah,
And apparently like Don Landy was supposed to have recorded
Eddie noodling around on the keyboards for forty five minutes
and just kind of plucked these things out as tight
as this is, I find that hard to believe as well.
So it's it's probably a mishmash, probably a combination. Yeah.
By the way, fifty Studios was so noisy that the
neighbor complained who the neighbor.
Speaker 4: Was, Lindsay Wagner. And you're still in my story bionic woman. Yes, yeah, yes,
she would call Valerie Bartonelli and tell her to shut
the doors because people are trying to sleep around here. Oh,
by the way, I have bionic hearing.
Speaker 3: So Eddie is a keyboardist at heart, right, like he's
a concert pianist right, trained classically, never learned to read music,
but could from his ear be able to play all
these classical pieces, which is why you get a whole
lot of classical in the solos that he does. But
he was really pushing to do more keyboard stuff and
was getting a lot of resistance from Ted Templeman and
from David Lee Roth. Right. He even composed something on
the Moog synth that Ted Templeman and David Lee Roth
stole and put in Dancing in the Streets, so you'll
hear you'll hear a synth in Dancing in the Streets
that Eddie wrote, but not for that song, like, so
he was pissed that they put it in that song.
So he has this, he has this song. Eddie says,
this is a blending of the rolling Stones. Get off
of my cloud and Your Kiss is on My List
by Holland Oates. I know Man. So he plays it
for David Lee Roth in nineteen eighty two, and davidly
Roth says, you're a guitar god. No one wants to
hear you play the keyboards. Yes. He plays it for
Ted Templeman in nineteen eighty three, and Ted Templeman is like,
you're a heavy metal band. If we're going to have keyboards,
it needs to sound like Sunday afternoon in the park
and needs to sound deep and dark. And what you're
playing for me right now sounds like what they would
play between the innings in a baseball game. I heard that. Yeah,
at some point, Eddie Van Halen just said, you're wrong,
and we're going to do this song. And now that
we're doing it in my own studio, I'm going to
make it sound the way I want it to sound.
And here's how he wanted it to sound. So this
was one of three songs that they had worked up
that Eddie Van Hanlon, Alex and Don Landy had worked up.
They had worked up all Wait, they'd worked up Dropped
Dead Legs. Those were more sketches, but Jump they had
really fleshed out as you know the bass track, and
so Ted Templeman is like, Okay, I can live with this,
and he says, Dave, go write some lyrics. And do
you know how Dave writes his lyrics.
Speaker 4: He has one of the roadies drive him around in
his car and he sits in the back and hey,
crank it up and I'll get my sunglasses on. We'll
drive around town and I'll think of something.
Speaker 3: His fifty one low writer Mercury.
Speaker 4: So he's driving around and he remembers the story where
there was a guy on top of the Arco towers
in LA who was going to commit suicide and they
were news reporters there, and you know, there's a bunch
of people like please, no.
Speaker 3: Don't do it, and he's only jump.
Speaker 4: There's always one person in the crowd who's like, go
ahead and jump, jump, jump. And he thought that is
a great line number one, some rebellious attitude, but it's
also this kind of take a leap, do something, you know,
go out and live life, you know, do it how
you want.
Speaker 3: To do it. Yeah, davidly Ross said that people kind
of gave it this motivational inspiration, but really it was
good to jump, jump and jump. He said, the guy
was going to check out early, going to take the
thirty three story drop. I love it. I love it.
Speaker 4: By the way, I've got a quote for you on
what Eddie van Halen said. His actual quote in regards
to the pushback he was getting on the synthesizer. He
said there were some people, namely Ted Templeman and davidly Roth,
who did not want him to play the synthesizer, and
his quote was, I'll play the freaking Bavarian cheese whistle
if I can do it well, right, I'm doing this right,
And I thought, man, the Bavarian cheese whistle.
Speaker 3: Let's go. Yeah, I can't play the Bavarian cheese whistle. Actually,
can you really? No, I have no idea.
Speaker 4: Yes, I don't even know.
Speaker 3: That the Bavarian whistle. Okay, so real quick. The song
number one was originally called go Ahead and Jump, Go
ahead and ju just jump right. It was also the
one they were going to put the car sounds in
The car sounds that we're gonna hear in our next
song originally were in this song, but they were like, nope,
doesn't fit right. Take it out.
Speaker 4: You know where it was where what was so in
the chorus where he's like, might as well jump, it
was in place of the echoing jump.
Speaker 3: Oh nice. OK, So there you go.
Speaker 4: Before you talk about the music video, which I'm dying
to talk about. This song hit number one February twenty fifth,
nineteen eighty four. It is their only number one song.
It knocked out Karma Chamelion stayed for five weeks, and
I think there's a case to be made that it
is the most iconic song of the nineteen eighties.
Speaker 3: This was on MTV at its inception so much and
after they had spent so much money on the Pretty
Woman video only to have it banned, They're like, let's
go with a minimalist approach to this one.
Speaker 4: Yeah, there's like black dropcloths and their instruments and nothing else. Right,
They're running around doing a whole lot of nothing. Although
I think you're getting ready to tell me. Yeah, but
they filmed a bunch of sort of stuff that they
did not use in this video.
Speaker 3: So the director is Robert Lombardi, Okay, and he's filming
this video. He's doing this minimalist approach. He's got Pete
Angelus also filming. But he says, we didn't use any
of that footage because Pete doesn't know how to use
a sixteen million million camera. Right now, we're going to
talk about Pete Angelis a few times. And I said
to you that the shirt I'm wearing is important. And
do you know.
Speaker 4: Why Crazy brothers the Black Crows?
Speaker 3: Okay, if you will go back and listen to our
Black Crows album to shake your money maker. Yes, Pete
Angelis was the guy who managed the Black Crows after
he got fired by David Lee Roth after he went
with David Lee Roth because he was the one who
had helped he helped up with the original nineteen eighty
four videos, and he was a big influence in all
of the David Lee Roth videos that immediately followed. I
forgot about that, yeah, And so he was the one
that actually taught Chris Robinson how to be a stage
presence and on the stage. What guy is better to
do that than the guy who spent years with David
Lee Roth? Right? Nobody, right? Okay, So davidly Roth Is
he is pressuring Robert Lombardi to do more stuff. Film
a bunch of more of him, more of David Lee Roth. Right,
lots of footage shot where David is just the center
of attention right driving around. He's getting arrested, and so
Robert Lombardi goes to Alex and Eddie and he's like, listen, guys,
I don't think this fits the video. It just doesn't
seem right. And they're like, we agree with you. We
don't want to use that footage. And so the footage
got cut. Bad part was you don't go behind Davide
Roth's back. And he reported to their management and the
management was like, you're fired. Yeah. So the director not just.
Speaker 4: You're fired, here's your check. You're fired. Never want to
see you again.
Speaker 3: Right you. And this is the guy who essentially directed,
if not the most, one of the most iconic videos
of course, yeah Crazy.
Speaker 4: It goes on to win the VMA Award for Best
Performance Video.
Speaker 3: Yeah, nominated for a couple of other spots as well.
Speaker 4: Yeah Yeah, and Robert Lombard's like, never got my award.
Speaker 3: No, it's terrible. Yeah.
Speaker 4: By the way, in this song, it has been confirmed
by both Eddie and Darryl Hall that he stole the
riff from Kisses on My.
Speaker 3: List Yeah for jump.
Speaker 4: We were talking about Hall of Oates here in just
a few weeks.
Speaker 3: Oh that's right. Yeah, So who are we comparing Hollow
Notes to.
Speaker 4: Man It Work, Jay Giles Band and hol of Oats
three big albums from nineteen eighty one?
Speaker 3: All right, another three way?
Speaker 4: Okay, so just a couple more things un jump real quick.
That summer, I remember the Chicago Cubs used it to
introduce all of their baseball games. Yeah, which that's back
when WGN was. Everybody had WGN and you just watch
Cup games all the time. But their retentions already going
on in the band. So Robert Lombard, who you talked
about in the video, he did all of the individual
stuff early in the day. So it's Alex playing the jumps,
it's Michael Anthony run around with the base and he
saved the group stuff until the end of the day
because they were not getting along, Like.
Speaker 3: This is the opening track.
Speaker 4: They're getting ready to do this twelvemonth own the world
thing and they already can't stand each other.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 4: Do you want to hear the top ten for February
twenty fifth, nineteen eighty four.
Speaker 3: The week that this hit number one?
Speaker 4: Oh my god, it brace yourself?
Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, here you go.
Speaker 4: Number ten an Innocent Man by Billy Joel.
Speaker 3: Great One covered it, Yeah.
Speaker 4: Number nine, Wrapped Around Your Finger by the Police, Great
One covered it.
Speaker 3: Yep.
Speaker 4: Number eight Let the Music Play by Shannon made our
best of nineteen eighty four must have been yours.
Speaker 3: That wasn't remember that one?
Speaker 4: Number seven Nobody Told Me by John Lennon.
Speaker 3: Oh oh yeah, yeah yeah yeah.
Speaker 4: Number six Joanna by Cool in the Gang.
Speaker 3: Yep.
Speaker 4: Number five Thriller of course covered it. Number four Girls
Just want to have Fun.
Speaker 3: We're going to cover that.
Speaker 4: I haven't got there yet, Okay, we will. Number three
ninety nine Left Balloons.
Speaker 3: Oh wow Yeah.
Speaker 4: Check us out on Patreon.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: The number two Karma Kamelion impressive.
Speaker 3: List defining the decade.
Speaker 4: One more thing in this song you have an incredible
guitar solo, but you also have an incredible keyboard solo
as well. I can't say enough good things about this song.
Speaker 3: I love it.
Speaker 4: It's iconic. It's one of my f favorite songs.
Speaker 3: From the eighties. It is what I would say is
the pinpoint transition of the old van Halen to the
new van Halen. You've made the case, and I say
I now agree with you because even though they have
used keyboards in the past. This is a different sound keyboard.
This is a keyboard up front and at the beginning
in the solo, prominently displayed in the video. This is
a new van Haleen.
Speaker 4: It's its own solo. You're right, it's a new Van
Haleen at this point.
Speaker 3: Yes, And just in case you were pissed off that
they've made that change, we'll go ahead and bring it
back home to the old style with the next song,
which is Panama.
Speaker 4: I'll freaking love this song.
Speaker 3: Man.
Speaker 4: It rocks my balls.
Speaker 3: Man, I think I said back in twenty twenty, this
is my favorite song on the whole album. It might
still be. It's it's between this and hot for teacher
any day of the week.
Speaker 4: Right, There's a case to be made for jump as well.
Speaker 3: So what do a stripper in Arizona and a dragster
racer from Vegas having gone?
Speaker 4: I guess something with the word Panama.
Speaker 3: They are both inspirations for this song.
Speaker 4: Not the country. Not the country has nothing to do
with the country Panama.
Speaker 3: I gotta say it. This will come up again. These
songs are inspired by other songs. These songs are homages
to other songs. I'm gonna have to play dogg Eat
dog By. Oh yeah, you hear it right there.
Speaker 4: Just gotta let it get started a little bit.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, there's no question with that drums and that guitar.
It's not an identical copy. No, it's better. Yes, it's
definitely borrowed. Yeah.
Speaker 4: I love the inspiration to the creation of this song.
So David Lee Roth is talking to a reporter and
the reporter asks him sort of accuses him of only
writing songs about fast women, partying and fast cars. And
he's like, wait a minute, I haven't written a song
about fast cars. And so he's like, I take that
as a challenge. I am writing a song about a
fast car.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the Panama Express from Las Vegas.
Speaker 4: You know, we talked about this in previous episodes, but
the revving sound in this song is Eddie's nineteen seventy
two Lamborghini that was given to him as a gift
from Valerie.
Speaker 3: Yes, wedding gift.
Speaker 4: A wedding gift.
Speaker 3: You know who owned it before, Rod Stewart.
Speaker 4: Rod Stewart, And this is the car that was in
the shop that Sammy had his Ferrari that the mechanics like, hey, Sammy, Hey, Eddie,
you guys need to get together.
Speaker 3: Peanut butter meat, chocolate, chocolate meat, peanut butter.
Speaker 4: So this nineteen seventy two Lamborghini is pretty important to
the future of Van Halen.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So the single and the video, both released on
the same day. Looks like mid June nineteen eighty four.
Sounds about right, hit number thirteen does okay? Yep. The
video starts off with a plane flying and then a
member of Van Halen flying. Yes, this is the first
time we see the Jack Daniels bass. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Michael Anthony was talking to Kevin Duban, who is his
bass technician, and they wanted their own signature guitar like
the Frankenstrat was to Eddie.
Speaker 3: Yep.
Speaker 4: And while they're thinking about what they're going to do,
they're passing back and forth a bottle of Jack Daniels.
What should we do? Ah, I can't think of anything gold,
And then they're like, I got it. Our guitar is
going to look like the bottle of Jack Daniels, right,
and it's super cool. Right, So they contact Jack Daniels,
and Jack Daniels says, Okay, that's fine as long as
you don't make any more than three at one time,
and so here they show up prominently in the Panama video. Yep,
you know what else shows up in the Panama video
where they're like dangling them and like dragging them across
like it's the bon Jovi living on a prayer stuff.
Several years before that, I read a story where Michael
Anthony's like, when I look at that video, all I
think about is how bad my nuts were getting crushed
by this thing that was swinging us back and forth.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So director on this video eat Angelus okay, who
got his revenge after Robert Lombard said this guy can't
do He used all of that footage that Robert Lombard
had shot for the Jump video that Robert Lombard said,
I don't want this in this video, so they put
it in the Panama video instead, including the arrest of
David Lee Roth in a towel which was staged, not
a real arrest.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but that added some rock credibility that were super cool.
Of course, the motorcycle, it was well done. I thought
it was cool. Yeah, I do agree with them. I
don't think it fits as well in the Jump video
if it's much better in this video.
Speaker 3: Sure.
Speaker 4: By the way, the number one song of the week
that Panama tops out at number thirteen.
Speaker 3: Yes, Ghostbusters, Wow, okay capteen eighty four?
Speaker 4: Man, I mean it's it's incredible.
Speaker 3: All right. You ready for the next song.
Speaker 4: Next song on the album?
Speaker 3: Okay? Wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait wait
before we announce it. If you listen to this song,
or if you're listening to this, we'll play this song right.
If you've got headphones, put your headphones on, and I
want you to tell me, is this one guitar or two?
Listen to how it goes into each year? Is this
is this one guitar or is this too? Okay? This
song is called top Jimmy.
Speaker 4: All right, tell me the story about the strings.
Speaker 3: Okay. So it sounds like you've got like you've got
some strings playing in your right ear and some strings
playing in your left ear. So it would seem to
be maybe this is two different guitars. It is not.
This is a guitar that was invented by a guitar
builder called Steve Ripley. Was prototype. The beauty of this
guitar was you could send pick up from one string
to one speaker and pick up from another spring string
to another speaker, and so Eddie is playing one guitar.
These notes, these strings are all being played at the
same time. But unlike Mutt Lang, who would probably record
each individual string and then layer them all together, you
were literally hearing it being played at the same time,
but through different speakers. Fantastic and it's beautiful. I love it.
Speaker 4: Jeff Johnson told me this is the worst song on
the album. I don't agree with.
Speaker 3: Him on that.
Speaker 4: Geez okay, But this song was written about a real person.
Speaker 3: Yeah, which is rare, okay, rare for David Lee Roth
right about somebody else of all things.
Speaker 4: So this is written about a guy named James Koenik, right,
And he got his name Top Jimmy because he worked
at a restaurant. It was called Top Taco.
Speaker 3: He was also the lead singer of a band. He
was Top Jimmy and the Rhythm Pigs Thank You You're Welcome,
real band.
Speaker 4: Dave was the anonymous financial backer for this club called
Zero Zero that Top Jimmy owned.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they had to pretend that they were an art
gallery because they didn't have a liquor license, and then
they just you know, do their stuff at night when
nobody was really patrol on the streets anyway. Among the
people who enjoyed Zero zero and Top Jimmy and the
Rhythm Pigs, Jim Belushim and get rid of this, you
know it, Lucille Ball, Lucy O Ball, I saw that. Man.
Speaker 4: She actually made that pronouncement on a TV show.
Speaker 3: Yeah, one of her like eighties TV shows that she did.
Speaker 4: Like I love Top Jimmy and the Rhythm Pigs. Yeah,
oh that's my kind of music.
Speaker 3: Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller.
Speaker 4: No, Top Jimmy and the Rhythm Pigs.
Speaker 3: It was. It was hilarious, even though nobody who knew
who Top Jimmy and the Rhythm Pigs was, because it's
just an absurd name for a band, especially one that
an old at that point, Lady Mom would be listening.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I love the story. David Lee Roth would come
to this club zero zero and it's kind of a
sleazy club. It wasn't a great club, but he would
bring girls in a limo to this club, a couple
of girls on his arm. They would go inside. They're like,
this place stinks, this is gross. Yeah, we're gonna go
wait in the limo and He's like, ah, whatever, go
sit in a limo, and pretty soon he'd be sending
other girls out to the limo until the limo.
Speaker 3: Was stuffed full of girls. Great.
Speaker 4: Yeah, very Dave fashion.
Speaker 3: So mention that the guy who invented this guitar that
Eddie is playing was Steve Ripley. The name of this
song was actually Ripley. Initially, Okay, ultimately they would, you know,
obviously call it top Jimmy. But they took the Ripley
title and they put that to a song that came
out on the Wildlife soundtrack. Remember the movie Wildlife I
Do with.
Speaker 4: Had the guy had Lea Thompson and Eric Stoltz, had
the guy from had chris Pin Weird Science, and it
had Iam Ian.
Speaker 3: Whatever his name is, Wyatt Wyatt. Yes, yeah, So that
title went to that song on the Wildlife soundtrack. But
that music then becomes the basis for Blood and Fire,
which is on the album A Different Kind of Truth,
which is like the reunion.
Speaker 4: Album that they bring Dave back into the fold in
twenty twelve. Yeah, by the way, I thought this quote
was great about the zero zero Club. Yes, it was
a great place to have sex on the hood of
cars with a joint and a fifth of Jack Daniels
in one hand and a line of dope on the
back of the other hand.
Speaker 3: Don't do drug skits well too awesome. By the way,
Top Jimmy is an undiscovered gem. Jeff Johnson couldn't be
more wrong this. I love Top Jimmy. We love Jeff
all right.
Speaker 4: Next song the album is called drop Dead Legs.
Speaker 3: Okay, I gotta say this. Okay, this sound, this guitar
sound number one. He's not using the frankenstrap. He's using
a Gibson Flying V fifty eight.
Speaker 4: The V thing.
Speaker 3: Yeah V. Yes, that's the sound that would become the
Van Hagar sound. You listen to the way the guitar
sounds on that song right there, and that's what we
That is the foreshadowing of what we get when we
get fifty one to fifty.
Speaker 4: I mean it makes sense. I love this song.
Speaker 3: I knew you would.
Speaker 4: It's like a melted snicker bar. It's wonderful.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't know why being melted makes it wonderful,
but yet it goes so well, you know, it just
melts in your mouth. Yeah, yeah, it's okay. So again
this one, I'm not gonna play the song for you,
because if you don't know it, I'm like, Okay, go
back and listen to our episode on this album. This
one he is an homage to ac DC's Back in Black.
Speaker 4: You can hear it. I didn't even recognize it until
I read Eddie talk about that.
Speaker 3: Yeah it's then yep ye. Now the solo that he
does with the Flying v later on this one, that
one is inspired by Alan Holdsworth, a guy that he
went and was watching and playing with when he met
Steve Y. All those other stories, now he this. He
and Ted Templeman worked to get Alan Holtsworth a record deal.
And the story is so long and complicated I can't
tell it right, but it goes badly. It goes very badly.
Speaker 4: Alan Holdsworth is Eddie's hero, and he uses his power
to get Ted Templeman to produce this album, and in
the end, nobody got.
Speaker 3: What they wanted exactly right, exactly Yes.
Speaker 4: By the way, this song. I sent you a text today,
I said, we haven't talked about a stripper song and forever.
I said, it's good to get back to boobies. I
mean basics. This song was inspired by Marilyn Monroe.
Speaker 3: Speaking of boobies. Yeah. Yeah, So there's this scene in
some Like It Hot where she's walking along with little
violin case and steam shoots out of an engine and
David Lee Roth was like, I would do anything to
have been that violin case at that moment.
Speaker 4: Yes, I love this song. It is a gem for me.
I could listen to this one all day. Yeah, hit
stuff on your table, layer, kick it out, flip it
over for side too, and we start off with a
banger double bass shuffle.
Speaker 3: Here we go.
Speaker 4: This song is called Hopper Teacher.
Speaker 3: Okay, So I'm not gonna play these songs again. Mentioned
them when we did our original Van Haleen versus Van
Hagar matchup. But go listen to the band Cactus and
their song Parchment Farm. It's dead on, dead on, ye
go look at Billy Cobbum's quadrant yep. Drums are obviously
very similar to that there. But when you're listening to
the very first drums snippet that doesn't sound quite rhythmic.
But as if you ever had an old car that
you had to start on a cold morning you're gonna go,
it kind of kind of sounds similar to the way
the car just kind of So the rumor is it's
not actually drums, but it's the Lamborghini again and it's
idling as it's just been started. Now. The rest of
the rumor is is that no, it's it's Alex, and
it's the drums are so fast and the way that
it's going. But it's because they were electronic drums, and
so you could program the sound, and so he was
programming the sound of drums that he was hitting with
his hands as the same sound as drums that he
was hitting with his feet, So you get a same
drums sound, but all four appendages are able to be
to be going at the same time.
Speaker 4: I called James Buckley other day, yes, and I said, James,
as our resident drummer expert, is Alex playing this all
at one time in the studio? Can a person do this?
He's like yes, he said, very hard.
Speaker 3: All right, but you can do it right. It doesn't
sound the same when he plays it on the drums.
I've seen it live. So you think it's the manufacturer.
I think that it. I think that it's probably not
the Lambo sound, but I think that it's Alex imitating
the idol Lambeau with reprogramming his drums. I think it's
a combination of the tip.
Speaker 4: Whatever you want to do in the studio is fine
with me.
Speaker 3: Again, we've got Eddie playing his fifty eight flying V
and this is the beauty is he can He's moving
between the clean sound and that heavy raunchy Again, this
is classic Van Halen raw.
Speaker 4: How did this only get to number fifty six?
Speaker 3: It doesn't even make any freaking sense. The video is genius.
The song is arguably the best one on the album
other than the PRMC actually had some sort of impact,
which would find hard to believe, but maybe not because
parents were buying albums for kids, and it was this
song that Tipper gore her Her eight year old child said, Mommy,
why is the teacher taking off her clothes? And she
said at that point and started paying attention. Now, when
they play this video at the Senate hearing, they stop
it in the middle of the like a middle of
his guitar solo, and people laugh and collapse and they're like,
now you're we let you people in here. It's over capacity.
There will be no outbursts.
Speaker 4: They played Hotford Teacher in a Senate hearing and people cheered,
but I think though, the real story on this song
is it's really the music video. Oh it's amazing, right,
And so you have these child actors who are Little Dave,
Little Eddie, Little Alex, Little Michael, and they go back
to school and they're causing trouble and they're in class
and then all of a sudden, Miss fez Ed comes
out in a bikini and they're like whoa. They're like
up and cheering.
Speaker 3: So the guy who played Little Eddie, his name was
Brian Hitchcock. Eddie actually gave him the little like the
guitar that he had in the video. He gave that
to him in twenty twenty. He sold it for fifty
thousand dollars. In twenty twenty two, it got offered on
eBay for two hundred and twenty thousand dollars. In twenty
twenty three, the real guitar that Eddie played in the
video sold for three point nine million dollars. Yeah, I
feel like it's people taking advantage of the death of
a rock star in this particular scenario.
Speaker 4: But anyway, Young Michael Anthony is played by an actor
named Yano Anaya. He played Groverdill in.
Speaker 3: A Christmas Story I want to go tell my dad.
Speaker 4: The little tody. Uh by the way, wait did.
Speaker 3: Did did you? Are you gonna tell them about what
Alex did for this kid? He made him shotgun a beer.
Yeah yeah, twelve years old, Yeah yeah, twelve years old
here shotgun this beer kid. Yeah.
Speaker 4: But the director of the video, so he didn't make
it the whole time. Basically, Pete Angelos and davidly Roth
became too much and he had to split. But was
said that the child actors started to take on the
personalities of the real life guys because they're hanging with them, right, Yeah,
And so the kid who played davidly Roth, he's, you know,
boisterous and kind of a turd and rude, and the
kid who's playing Eddie was kind of shy, and they
just took on those personalities.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's what you do as an actor, right, I guess.
Speaker 4: Hard to tell. In the music video as they're dancing,
they are the worst dancers. And Alex, especially the guy
who keeps the beat for the band like it's his
one job has to be on beat. He's always a
half step behind in the dancing. And Michael Anthony talked
about how right before they were filming, and Alex's like, man,
you gotta help me. I need some help. And he's like, dude,
you're kind of hopeless. I don't know what to tell you.
Speaker 3: Can I sit down for this?
Speaker 4: The choreographer for the video was the white guy from
the beat It video.
Speaker 3: The cameraman was the cameraman from the Texas Chainsaw Masacre movie.
There you go? Wow?
Speaker 4: Wait a second, man, what do you think of?
Speaker 3: Teacher's gonna look like this year? Right? And the school
that they shot at John Marshall High School, which was
attended by Leonardo DiCaprio. There you go. Yeah.
Speaker 4: They also shot the movie Fast Times at Ridgemont High,
Nightmare and Elm Street and Pretty in Pink at this.
Speaker 3: School back again? How about that? Wow?
Speaker 4: It also starred Diane Rupert, who was Miss Chemistry. She
was the nineteen eighty one Miss Canada runner up. She
made twenty five hundred dollars for the shoot.
Speaker 3: I bless her.
Speaker 4: Yep, she looks fantastic. Waldo is the kid, you know,
he's the kids getting bullied or whatever by Phil Hartman,
by Phil Hartmon. He gets on the bus, the school
bus with Davie Roth driving, and you have this great
scene where the kids are throwing stuff and all of
a sudden they're staring at this weird kid. But at
the end of the video, David Lee Roth pulls up
in his hot rod and Michael Anthony said Dave could
not drive this car, like it was dangerous for him
to drive this car. And at the end of the
video they all climb on board and Dave peels out
and like takes off, and the whole crew was like,
oh my god, Dave's gonna kill these kids. Right, nothing happened,
but yeah, Dave was not a good driver of that car. Okay,
I've got one other thing for you on this So
this is packed full of fun stuff. I mean, you
got women and teachers and bikinis and kids and hot
rods and Dave in prison for some reason. But on
the chalkboard behind them you have numbers yep eight, fifteen, twelve,
twenty five, nineteen eight nine twenty. And if you just
take the letters of the alphabet and you match up
that letter with that number, you got h O L
Y sh I twenty.
Speaker 3: But in reverse. But in reverse, that's in reverse, so's
it's backwards. Holy s word yeap backwards. Yes, this one
was released September twenty third, nineteen eighty four.
Speaker 4: They spent two hundred thousand dollars on this music video,
as opposed to twenty bucks in pizza for the jump video.
All right, yes, next song, This song is called I'll Wait.
All right, So this is a really interesting story. This
started out as a instrumental. Eddie would hand it to
Dave and say, Dave come up with lyrics, and Dave
was tapped out. Dave had nothing. Dave couldn't make anything work,
and he and Ted Timbleman worked on it. They couldn't
get anything going, and Ted Templeman said, I've got a
friend who might be able to help us. His name
is Michael McDonald of the Doobie Brothers.
Speaker 3: We've talked about Michael McDonald multiple times.
Speaker 4: Got him last week on our Best of eighty six. Yep,
he's the lead singer and the unmistakable voice of the
Doobie Brothers.
Speaker 3: Right, But before we get to the Michael McDonald's story. Yes,
as it was still an instrumental and Eddie was pushing
to get something done on it, Ted Templeman didn't like it,
Like this is this is the the end of the
end for davidly Roth and Ted Templeman on one side
and Eddie Yeah yeah, and the rest of them. So
every time Eddie would play this song, Ted Templeman to
taunt him would hum hold your head up by Argent. Okay, so,
can't get any words. Sounds like an Ardent song. Yeah.
Speaker 4: So, so Ted Tumbleman calls his buddy Michael McDonald. They
go and they meet at Ted Templeman's office and it's
Ted Tubberman, David Lee Roth, and Michael McDonald. Michael McDonald
goes back, works on the song, comes up with a
good portion of the lyrics, including the chorus the ah wait.
Partner gives it back to Ted tumble doesn't give it.
Speaker 3: To him because the story I heard is that Ted
Templeman had a hidden cassette recorder at his desk and
Michael McDonald just came in and sang it and he
recorded it without letting him know that he was doing that.
Speaker 4: Interesting. I hadn't heard that part. Yeah, well, I do
know that. When the album came out, Michael McDonald's name
is not listed as one of the writers on this song.
And he's like, do these guys think I'm Santa Claus?
Speaker 3: Like I showed up.
Speaker 4: I give him this song, which by the way, was
the second single. It reached number thirteen on the Hot
one hundred with no video. Right, not bad, it's a
great song. I love this song.
Speaker 3: I love it too.
Speaker 4: And so he actually he calls up Ted Tumbleman. He's like,
you screwed me. I was your friend and you brought
me in and I helped you and I gave you
the song and you cut me out. So he actually
had to chase the money a little bit, sued him
suit them and to them and one yeah, and he said,
it's the most lucrative thing he's ever done in his career.
Speaker 3: Which is impressive because he's got a very lucrative career.
He said.
Speaker 4: The Doobie Brothers made platinum albums, he goes, but Van
Halen made mega platinum albums.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So here's the weird twist on this story. Okay,
this wasn't a number one. Eddie didn't know that Ted
had recorded the lyrics to this song, and that it
wasn't it wasn't David Lee Roth who had come up
with the lyrics. He didn't know any of this, right, Okay,
And with this story about the tape, recorder. It kind
of falls into place on that right. But back in
nineteen seventy seven, Eddie and Michael McDonald had cross paths before.
Oh I don't know this, okay. So there's a lady
called Nicolette Larsen and there's a song called Can't Get
Away from You.
Speaker 4: That guitar is unmistakably Eddie van Hale.
Speaker 3: It's obviously him, even back in nineteen seventy seven, which
is before their debut albums. That's before their debut album,
but unquestionably it's him. Michael McDonald got credit on that album. Yes,
Eddie Van Halen did not at all. Console Circle Crazy.
Speaker 4: By the way, So this song hits number thirteen on
June second, nineteen eighty four. I really remember Vanahlen kind
of owning the summer of eighty four, them and Ghostbusters
really and Prince Yeah. Okay, here's your top thirteen real quick.
Speaker 3: I'll wait.
Speaker 4: Number twelve Borderline by Madonna, Self Control by Laura Branigan,
to all the Girls I've loved before.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, Leoiglecias and Willie Nelson, Break Dance, Irene Kiara Nice.
Speaker 4: The Heart of Rock and Roll by Huey Lewis Against
All Odds by Phil Collins, Sister Christian Night Ranger, The
Reflex by Deran Duran, Yeah, Oh Sherry by Steve Perry,
Hello by Lionel Ritchie, Yeah, Time after Time by Cyndi
Lauper and Let's hear it for the Boy from the
Philous soundtrack.
Speaker 3: Wow, what a summer man. There wasn't a skipper in
that whole list. All right, next song on the album
this is Girl Gone Bad.
Speaker 4: Okay, So here's the story of the creation of this song.
Speaker 3: Yep.
Speaker 4: Eddie and Valerie were on tour. They were in South America,
and he bolts up one night in bed, lights out,
she's asleep, and this song kind of comes crashing into
his brain, and he's like, I really could just roll
over and go back to sleep. He goes, but I've
learned that when something hits, like inspiration hits, you get
out of bed and you write it down and you
go for it. And so he goes into the closet
so that he doesn't wake up his wife, and he
gets his little tape recorder. He kind of sings into
the tape recorder. This song was played in nineteen eighty
two during the US festival.
Speaker 3: Yes, so we'll talk about that a little bit too. Okay.
Speaker 4: It was actually intended for the diver Down album.
Speaker 3: So this one got heavy influenced by Robert Planning. The
guitar got heavy, influenced by Neil part on the drums.
Speaker 4: There are people that love these last two songs.
Speaker 3: On the album. I'm not one of them, Okay.
Speaker 4: I'm not in love with this song or the next one.
Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, I think I specifically said I want to
hear what your thoughts are on the last two songs,
because they are the less known songs on the album, right,
I will tell you listening to them, I didn't. They
weren't prominent in my memory. But the beauty of that
is I was listening to them with fresh ears. I
think they're really good. I think they are. I think
had you not just been tsunamid with this incredible album
worth of music, that they would be fantastic. They could
be singles. They're so good. But there's only nine songs
on the album. I mean, just some of them are
just gonna be the last finisher. It's hard to have
last finishers, right, But I still think these are incredibly
good songs. I think this is one of those albums
that is good from beginning to end. Okay, well, let's
listen to the last song. The last song, Let's do it.
Speaker 4: The song's called House of Pain.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 4: Kind of a stronger rocker right.
Speaker 3: Here, definitely, And like I said just a minute ago,
I think a strong song in any other album, but
there have to be less finishers. I think that the
impressive part. Well, there's all kinds of impressive parts about
this album. Of course. This album is where Templeman and
David Lee Roth are truly splitting off. It's going like this,
it's going like that and going that way fast. And
as a matter of fact, you know, I talked about
the studio fifty one to fifty studio being built, and
the beauty of that for Eddie was that he had
so much control over what he was doing. Well, Ted
Timpleman would keep showing up at the fifty one fifty
fifty studio so that he could produce and mix these
tracks that they had laid down, and Eddie'd be like,
don's got them. I don't know where he is, not
sure where he He's right there, he's behind him.
Speaker 4: It's just Ted's coming go hide.
Speaker 3: Yeah, hide the pullhouse. So Ted Templeman has the backups.
They had the backup originals. Right, he's basically second copy, right,
or first copy if you will. But that's not as
good as the original. Right. But in a panic because
he keeps running into brick walls with Eddie and Don,
he goes and mixes these secondhand pieces. Yes, as he's finishing,
Don shows up and he goes, here you go, here's
the mixed here's the mixed masters. Yes. And the question
is how much of what Don did versus how much
of what Ted did ended up On the end of
the album.
Speaker 4: I saw a quote from David ly Roth who said
Ted really didn't do very much on this album.
Speaker 3: He not only said Ted didn't do much on this album,
he said Ted didn't do much on any of the albums.
He was like, we kind of realized early on Ted
has these things that he can do for us, and
we are loyal to him, but we're the ones who
have produced almost all of these albums. And it's in
his mind no question that Don Landy and Eddie van
Halen were the ones that made the mixes that we
hear on this album.
Speaker 4: To me, this is one of the interesting stories that
I had not heard before that basically, Eddie and Don
had kidnapped these Master tapes and we're holding them ransom.
It wasn't just that guys, leave us alone, we're working
on this. It was Don threatening to burn the Masters
if Ted and Dave did not leave them alone.
Speaker 3: And when we're saying this is the split, Ted Templeman
and Eddie van Halen got in a fist fight over there,
a physical fist fight over this. I don't know how
that's not the end of a relationship. You're either best
friends after that or you never talked to each other again.
And in this situation, I think it was we're done. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Don Landy actually kidnaps the Masters for fifty one to
fifty and holds them from Mick Jones in a couple
of years, which we'll talk.
Speaker 3: About yeah, next episode.
Speaker 4: By the way, Valerie Bertinelli was kind of in the middle.
Speaker 3: Uh huh.
Speaker 4: She actually went to Ted and said, you got to
talk to Eddie.
Speaker 3: They're in there doing blow and drink day back, all
day long, for days.
Speaker 4: Anyway, Don walks in at the last minute and can
you just imagine sitting there steaming, going.
Speaker 3: I've just spent all of these hours mixing this, and
you're bringing me this after hiding it from me. No
wonder fist flew Yeah, no question. Okay, a couple of
things before we leave. Number one, Eddie says there were
thirteen songs that he had for this album, which is
four so what I know or what the rumors are.
One of the songs was called any Time Anyplace. One
of the songs was called Eat Thy Neighbor, one of
the songs was called Baritone Slide, and one of the
songs was called Lie to You Now. If there were thirteen,
or maybe it was fourteen or fifteen, just depends. The
one that is most likely was a cover of in
the Midnight Hour that no one is ever outside of
that small little circle in the catalog, no one has
ever heard.
Speaker 4: That is rumored to have been the very first song
recorded at fifty one to fifty studios.
Speaker 3: So there you go.
Speaker 4: Hey, you know you mentioned in the Midnight Hour. Eddie
wanted it on the album, Dave reportedly vetoed it. Dave
wanted just to Jigglow on the nineteen eighty four album Yeah,
and Eddie's like nope, So guess what it shows up
on Eat him and a smile.
Speaker 3: There you go. Okay, So a prequel to all of this,
they've ended the diver down tour, and you can go
back and listen to our original Van Halen Versus Van
Hagar episode to hear about Dave and the jungle squad
that he had that stayed down in Argentina on safaris
on the river. Yeah. But in the midst of all
of that, and all the other guys go home, in
the midst of all of that, Dave gets a phone
call somehow you have to come back. We have a show.
I don't want to do a show.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 3: They're going to pay us one million dollars for a
ninety minute set one point five Ah, this is where
I blow your mind. Okay. The original offer was one
million dollars, which would have made them the highest paid
band at that point. And we know from our last
episode that they had a world record as the highest
paid band, right right, Okay, So when they signed the contract.
The contract Steve Wosniak is the guy putting this together.
This is the US Festival Part two, nine months after
the US Festival Part one. He really wants Van Haleen.
He offers them a million dollars. They say, okay, we'll
do it, but we want It's called a favored nation
clause in there where if any other band that you
have that you come in after us gets paid more,
we get matched. We're not going to be paid less
than somebody else. Right, Well, this is Steve Wosniak, co
founder of Apple Computers. Yeah, a few bucks, he's got
a little bit of money, yes, And he calls up
his producer and says, I would really like to have
David Bowie play. And his producer's like, we all already
have a full gig, but I love David Bowie. He's like,
there's no room. He goes, it's my money, make room buster.
So John Cougar mellencap when he finds out what everybody
else is getting paid, he's like, I'm out. I'm not
doing this. So a space opens up. They move Joe
Walsh around. You know, they've got the heavy metal day
and they've got the hard rock day or the rock day,
and so they move some around and so David Bowie
gets to come play. Now David Bowie's in the middle
of a tour. He's going to charge them seven hundred
and fifty thousand dollars to appear. But it's going to
be another additional seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars to
fly him and all of his band and all of
the equipment and stuff into cause he's in Europe over
to California for all of this, which means that effectively
they are paying David Bowie one point five million dollars. Well,
Van Halen hears about this and says, hey, favorite nation
clause to change and chain we get one point five
million is where you get this price increase. Right Now,
here's a quick side story on that David Bowie only
played his musicians about three hundred bucks show Oh my gosh, right, okay,
anducks three hundred bucks. And this is his Let's Dance tour.
This is his big like his big commercial success of
the eighties. Right. And one of the guys that says
I don't really want to fly to California for three
hundred bucks is his new guitarist that he's just picked up.
Found him at a Montrose jazz festival in nineteen eighty two.
But that guy is like, you know what, let somebody
else play my solo. Okay, yeah, you're wondering who it is. Yes, Yeah,
as I said, he discovered him. We've talked about him before.
I can tell you that when he performed where on
most of these songs in the album, and when he
would perform it live, he probably played a guitar that
had been owned by Christopher Cross just before he got it.
Stevie Rayvaughn, Yeah, I had no idea. Stee Ravaughn discovered
by David Bowie in nineteen eighty two, has him play
guitar on like three quarters of the songs on Let's
Dance and is his touring guitarist before anybody knows who's
Stevie Rayvon. Wow, how about that? That's fantastic. Yeah. Now
the thing is is we're like, okay, well both of
them got paid one point five million. How did how
did van Halen get the world record for highest paid ban? Well?
Number one? It's because van Halen's pr guy was like, hey,
world record the highest paid ban. He's calling him Guinness
right that they divt it up. One was highest paid ban,
one was highest paid individual performer. It's just that van
Halen got a lot more notoriety at that time than
David Bowie was getting.
Speaker 4: Well, and the clash got super mad.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they were back and forth with each other and
they were constantly I mean, and David Lee Roth, you
talk about Jack Daniels, He gets a bottle of jack
drinks it on stage and he goes, I gotta let
you guys know this is real Jack Daniels. I the
only guys who put iced tea in their Jack Daniels bottler.
That the Clash because they kept on and on about
the commercialization of rock music. They're trying to keep it pure,
and they're out there like, you're selling yourselves. This is
the American way. And so what did the concert promoters do.
They put a picture of the check that the Clash
is getting for half a million dollars and it's like, yeah,
these guys are talking out both sides of the mouth
right now because they just got paid a lot of that.
That's right. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, there were some interesting things back and forth between
Dave and the Clash that was a lot of fun.
Before we go, you mentioned that we lost Eddie van
Halen a few years ago. The cover of this album
is very iconic. Yes, it has the angel smoking a cigarette.
It's a little cherub. So they needed a cover for
the album and they were looking at a bunch of
portfolios from different artists, and they came across Margo Najas
and they said, oh, we love your work. We want
you to do something for us. We want a bunch
of chrome women scantily clad. And she's like, no, I'm
not doing that, no, right, and so they said, okay, well,
let's look at your portfolio. And so they came across
this picture of a cherub who is smoking a cigarette,
and they thought, that's it. That's our image. That's the one.
She did not sell them that image. She rented it
to them. Oh so they never obtained like possession of that,
which is interesting. When Eddie died, she posted a picture.
It's that picture, but rather than smoking a cigarette, the
cherub is crying, which I thought was kind of a sweet,
a neat thing on the day of his death.
Speaker 3: That, by the way, is the only painting that she
did not do as a hired work that was in
her portfolio. This was something that she did. It was
a painting of her friend's kid smoking candy cigarettes. His
name was carter Helm.
Speaker 4: Carter Helm somewhere carter Helm is out there, like you know.
The nineteen eighty four album that's me.
Speaker 3: So do you know who her husband is? He's a
director right, Well, he's also an artist. His name is
Jay Vegan Vigo Ink. He that same year designed the
lettering for Purple Rain Boom. That's awesome. Where else you
going to get this kind of information, folks, fantastic guys.
Come back and see us next week. Don't forget to subscribe,
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will be covering next album after this with a brand
spankin new lead singer named Sammy Agar. That album is
called fifty one fifteen.
Speaker 4: Come back next week, guys, You guys,