Tag: Van Halen

Van Halen – ‘Destruction in Dallas: Reunion Arena, Dallas, Tx – November 18, 1982’ (Bootleg) – Album Review

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There is no better feeling than out vinyl digging and find something unexpected like a bootleg. Make that bootleg Van Halen and make there be two different ones there by Van Halen and that is why I love collecting. Those little surprises and the first one I already reviewed.. It is a soundboard recording from April 3, 1978 and recorded at the Pogo’s Night Club and Discotheque in Wichita, Kansas. The other bootleg I found was Van Halen’s Destruction in Dallas. Recorded on November 18, 1982 at Reunion Arena in Dallas, TX in front of a sold out show of over 19,000 screaming fans. This recording is a soundboard recording, although not a great one. The sound is really low, you can hear everything, but you really have to turn it up and it never gets loud enough for me which does detract from the show a little.

But Michael Anthony, Alex Van Halen, David Lee Roth and Eddie Van Halen due to all out and I am sure the fans had a great time at the show. This was the Diver Down/Hide Your Sheep 1982 Tour. Now, the copy I have of this bootleg is on 2 LPs and both colored. We get a beautiful red one for Sides A/B and a white on for Sides C/D. The track list appears to be accurate from what I’ve seen and the last three songs on Side D are actually demos of songs that have not seen the light of day on any release.

The album opens up with an enthusiastic introduction from the announcer and the band goes in to “Romeo’s Delight” with Eddie’s guitar throwing riffs out like they were candy. Dave “woahing” and screaming as he forgot the fucking words (as he tells the crowd). Someone might be a little hammered already and we are only at the first song. Not a good sign of things to come. Sound quality wise, the sound is a little hollow for the instruments. And I have it cranked and still hard to hear the instruments. Dave is clear, Eddie’s guitar is clear, but the rest not so much. Oh, and the backing vocals are pretty loud too.

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June 2023 Purchases – Vinyl, CDs & More…

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Welcome to another monthly round-up of what we obtained here at 2 Loud 2 Old Music. It was another big month, but not quite like last month. The month started off with another Buy 5 Get 5 deal and ended with a trip to Los Angeles so it was a fun month here at the site.

First up was the 2nd & Charles Buy 5 Get 5 Free on Used CDs, so of course, I took advantage of that deal. Not a bad haul I must say…

And of course, we did get some new releases this month including Extreme, Neal Schon and my personal favorite, The Defiants!! I went the cheaper route of CDs for these mainly because Neal’s isn’t on vinyl and The Defiants isn’t available until September (pre-ordered).

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Van Halen – ‘Catch a Rising Star -Live at Pogos Night Club: Wichita, KS April 3, 1978’ – Album Review (Bootleg)

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There is no better feeling than out vinyl digging and find something unexpected like a bootleg. Make that bootleg Van Halen and make there be two different ones there by Van Halen and that is why I love collecting. Those little surprises and this is the first one we will talk about. It is a soundboard recording from April 3, 1978 and recorded at the Pogo’s Night Club and Discotheque in Wichita, Kansas. The show was Pogo’s Catch a Rising Star which was a showcase for up and coming bands in the the 70’s. Van Halen had just released their debut album so you can’t get much more up and coming than that.

This show is David Lee Roth, Michael Anthony, Alex Van Halen and the late, great Eddie Van Halen and man were they young and hungry and this show definitely showcases that hunger. They play almost everything from the debut (minus two songs) and even a cover to end the show. David Lee Roth is in fine form as his banter with the crowd is worth the price of admission alone, but since you get Eddie’s guitar mastery it is icing on the top of the cake. I’m getting excited just talking about. Let’s crank this mutha and get in to the music. The label on the vinyl is pretty cool Some Steampunk guy standing there like he is introducing you to new the rising stars of Van Halen.

SIDE A:

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May 2023 Purchases – Vinyl, CDs & More

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If you had a 2 Loud 2 Old Music Mug, I’d tell you to sit back, fill it up with whatever you like and prepare yourself for what is to come. This was an interesting month and some incredible finds…for cheap!! And I mean cheap!! But before we get to the cheap stuff, let’s discuss what first showed up on our doorstep for May…well, it was actually April but it was the day I posted the April Purchases wrap-up so it missed that post. That is the boxset for the Whitesnake album ‘Good To Be Bad”…titled “Still…Good To Be Bad”. Another impressive boxset…or is it?…review to come.

And there was an album that came out months ago on CD and digital, but the album just showed up in May. It is for the lead singer of one of my favorite bands Needtobreathe. It is Bear Rinehart’s second solo album under the name Wilder Woods. It is different then NTB which it should be since he is the voice of NTB. If it sounded like NTB, it would be a NTB album…

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April 2023 Purchases – Vinyl & CDs & DVDs

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Okay, grab a cup of coffee, sit back and relax as we are going to be here awhile as April turned in to a stellar month. And let’s just jump right in to this shall we. Before March even closed and after I wrote the March post on the purchases, this arrived in the mail…Needtobreathe’s Fan Club Exclusive vinyl autographed by the band. It is the 1st Edition from 2022 and took awhile to get here. And two weeks or so later. the 2nd Edition for 2023 arrived, autographed by the band. These are two of my favorite pieces now in my collection. As they are one of my favorite bands (after Kiss & Def Leppard of course).

And if that wasn’t enough with autographs, Jason Bieler released his latest album and I was able to grab on CD with his signature. I could’ve done vinyl, but I don’t have of his albums on vinyl so why start now. And this another great one. His stuff is so interesting and eclectic, Love it!!

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Van Halen – “Finish What Ya Started” – 7″ Single

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When I was on vacation last Summer, I found a ton of 45 Singles with the Picture Sleeves at a place called House of Vinyl and I ended buying 7 Van Halen 45’s. And we’ve been through all of those so far as seen below…

Now it is time to add a new one to the list from one I found at Mad Jack’s in Matthews, NC. This is another from ‘OU812’ and it is “Finish What Ya Started”. The song was released as a single in September 1988 and it did well going all the way to #13 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #2 on the Rock Charts. The song was credited to be written by Eddie Van Halen, Alex Van Halen, Sammy Hagar and Michael Anthony, but we all know it was really just Eddie and Sammy. They were doing the “band” thing and crediting everybody and that never seems to end well.

The album was basically finished, but due to lack of sleep one night, Eddie came up with the riff and ran over to his neighbor’s house at 2 in the morning and was begrudgingly let in by Sammy. The two spent the rest of the night finishing the music and after Eddie left, Sammy finished the lyrics which seem to be about someone being unsatisfied because the other person wouldn’t finish the deed…you know what I’m talking about. Someone has a case of blue balls!!

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June 2022 Purchases – Vinyl, CDs, Cassettes & More

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Summer has been heating up and so did the purchases for this month. This month had some serious quality for me and at the same time some quantity as well. And the month came in with a bang as all my Def Leppard albums I ordered finally made it in. When I say “all”, I mean the new one and all the formats I ordered. I’m starting to like it too!

And it kept on going with a huge sale at 2nd & Charles having a buy 5 CDs get 5 CDs free and I took advantage of that discount. My daughter joined me and picked up some DVDs and CDs as the sale applied to those as well. First batch is all Kiss!!

And then a selection of great artists…

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December 2021 Purchases – Vinyl & CDs

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Welcome to the final Monthly Purchase review of 2021. Sit back because we are going out with a bang!! Not only did I score some major vinyl and CDs in my hunts, but my Christmas/Birthday presents were a lot as well. I am not going to waste anymore time and we will just jump right in.

First up this month is an RSD release that I didn’t get until after the Black Friday RSD. It is the latest Aerosmith release and will be final review in The Aerosmith Collection Series. It is the very first live recording of the band…

Then my daughter and I found out that one our digging holes was going out of business. Manifest Disc closed its doors and before they did, we hit them up for some of their deep discount deals. My daughter did some damage in the DVD section and I did some in the CDs and one vinyl. The CDs are hodge podge of stuff some of it I was hoping to find vinyl, but I have given up hope so I just bought the CDs since they were dirt cheap.

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‘Red: My Uncensored Life in Rock’ by Sammy Hagar with Joel Selvin – Book Review

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I know, I know. I am a little late to this book as it came out way back in 2011. But I’m finally here, I’ve finally drenched myself in to the pages and I am ready to tell you all about it. Thanks for being so patient with me. Sammy Hagar! What is there to say about Sammy. I remember seeing “I Can’t Drive 55” on MTV and really starting to discover who he was. I found out he was the lead singer of the band Montrose from the 70’s and then around 1985, I remember he was named the new lead singer of Van Halen. That was when I really started to find out who he really was. I picked up some Sammy albums and definitely bought the Van Halen albums and I really liked him. Then in the 90’s after leaving Van Halen, he started up his solo stuff again. Eventually he turned in to what I felt was the Jimmy Buffet of Rock & Roll. He had this laid back, surfer dude, all sunshine, relaxation and Tequila. He has always seemed like such a cool dude! And this book proved that to be the case, but I discovered so much more.

The book has Sammy really focusing on his rock & roll life with nuggets of his early childhood, but thankfully he stuck to the music mostly. Well, almost thankfully, as I would’ve loved to hear more about his business side as he only touched on it (except for Cabo Wabo and the Tequila) a little and that seems to be the area where he made most of his money and let me tell you, the man looks like he made more money on the business side of his life then the music side and I find that fascinating. Hell, he sold his Tequila brand for around $100 million…DAMN!!! He had a fire safety sprinkler company before there as really such a thing. He’s had his bar Cabo Wabo which is now bar’s’ with an ‘s’. He seems to invest in the right things at the right time and I have never been that lucky.

But the main reason to read the book for any Sammy fan is the Va Halen stories and they don’t disappoint. I’ve heard that he was really harsh on Eddie Van Halen and he regrets that a little, but I don’t think it was that harsh. I don’t think it is anything we didn’t expect or know. Eddie was an addict and his behavior over the years has shown that. I think Sammy was being honest with how he interpreted the stories and that is what I want in a book. I can read other people’s books to get their side and then draw my own conclusion, but Sammy’s seemed authentic to me. The sunshine and roses of how he got with the band seems to coincide with what Ted Templeman said in his book which is all good. But the downfall is where it got interesting. The little things they did to each other, the backstabbing, the drugs and alcohol and just the shitty way things went down was outright riveting to me. Sammy laid it all out there for you to read. So go do it.

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Ted Templeman: A Platinum Producer’s Life in Music by Ted Templeman and Greg Renoff – Book Review

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I have been reading so many Rock Books lately, some great, some not so great. When I heard Ted Templeman was putting out a book. I got real excited. I knew he produced all those David Lee Roth era Van Halen albums and thought, this will be great to learn all the behind the scenes stuff on Van Halen. But what I got was so much more.

Ted goes back to the beginning and explains his family life and what type of music he was raised around and he was definitely immersed in to music his whole life. I learned a lot as I didn’t know about his band Harper’s Bizarre from the late 60’s and they had minor hits. It was those albums where he started to learn the craft of producing and would eventually would lead to an A&R job with Warner Bros. Records where he would spend the next 25-30 years of his life climbing the ranks of the business, but always producing.

Being in California he met everyone from around that 70’s scene. Really cool all the people he met and a couple massive icons he saw recording in the studio. When we was learning the ropes, some of his contacts let him come in to the studio to watch and learn and one occasion he was able to witness Frank Sinatra record and was awed at his professionalism and his indelible knack to hit the right note every time. Another icon was Elvis Presley and to the same effect. I can only imagine how cool that had to be to experience.

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