20 Comments

the sound of van halen dying is sammy hagar's voice

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It feels good to be back in the late ‘80s arguing VH again. Sammy’s a good dude. Van Hagar isn’t all bad (Cabo Wabo baby!)

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"isn't all bad" is damning with faint praise where normal damning should apply

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I'll carve out an exception for "Feels So Good," but that's about it.

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You eloquently describe the dilemma of how to feel about 1984 when it arrived, and I concur. It's a solid VH, though sorta not VH, album. Meanwhile, I'll Wait for a fraternity party... eek! I can almost see Panama working - almost.

Finally - props to Aztec Camera for Roddy's blistering 'acoustic' version of Jump.

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Whether or not Panama works is probably campus-dependent.

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"Panama" is a little tough to dance to. Not "I'll Wait" difficult, but not exactly "Groove is in the Heart" either.

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fair point. I was thinking more about the red-Solo-Cup-in-hand stage of the party, where everyone's just lit enough to sing/shout along.

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Oh, no question. As drinking music, it's unsurpassed.

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Yeah, the "I'll Wait" request was not my finest hour.

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I experienced the same thing you did although I was not the culprit. My friend was having a party and he was playing Lou Reed and the Allman Brothers. There were plenty of women there but the party hadn’t caught fire yet. I told my friend if you don’t get some Madonna on soon no one is getting any action tonight.

On another note, Hot For Teacher was directed by a friend of mine’s older brother, Pete Angelus. He was one half of the Picasso Brothers, the other half being David Lee Roth. It’s one of my top fave videos. Mitch is familiar with Pete Angelus.

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100% agree on needing a little Madonna to get any party started.

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The C.J. remarks about his teacher and his mom's phone conversation made me laugh out loud. 1984....hmm. Panama, yep, great song. Jump, was never a big fan of it back in college. If it comes on the local classic rock station in Phoenix these days, I have the dial turned in 4 seconds or less. I was more a fan of Diver Down album, the 1984. If anyone cares. I like the cover songs on Diver Down as well as the instrumentals.

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I wish I were making that conversation up, Kevin. But it really happened. And I gave you the short version. Other things were said...names were named. I'm a VH 1 & 2 and Fair Warning fan myself. But Diver Down has some great tunes as well.

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Van Halen II is peak DLR-era Van Halen. But I didn't know that yet when this came out. All I knew was that I liked "Jump," and a kid that had just moved to my school liked it too. So we became friends, and all these years later, still are.

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I thought Diamond Dave's schtick came straight from Jim Dandy and Black Oak Arkansas....

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Mitch doesn't know what any of those things are.

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That made me LOL.

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Jun 7, 2023
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The Pretenders was one of my favorite pitches:

https://eons.substack.com/p/the-pretenders-learning-to-crawl

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We did Learning To Crawl a year or two ago. It’s in the archives.

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