Tag: Van Halen

Van Halen – “When It’s Love” – 45 Single

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When I was on vacation during this past 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 a few so far as seen below…

And now we are on final Van Halen single and we are still in to the Hagar Era. This was the second single off their second album with Sammy called ‘OU812’. The song is “When It’s Love” and it was the most popular song off the album. The song was released in June 1988 and went to #1 on the Mainstream Rock Chart as well as #5 on the Billboard Hot 100.

My copy of the single is the standard U.S. version with the B-Side being “Cabo Wabo” which you wouldn’t know that from the back cover as it doesn’t say anywhere what the B-Side is. When I first saw it, I was hoping it was a promo with the same song on each side and one in mono and one in stereo, but I don’t if they actually had those still in 1988. Regardless, my copy is in pretty good shape and plays perfectly which is all that matters.

Now both tracks on the single are the LP versions and no single edits. As I’ve mentioned in the past reviews, Donn Landee’s name is on the Single write under the writers which is something Ted Templeman started back in the David Lee Roth era. Nice to see that trend continued here.

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Van Halen – “Love Walks In’ – 45 Single

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When I was on vacation during this past 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 a few so far as seen below…

And now we are on to our sixth of the 7 and we are still in to the Hagar Era and this was the third single off their first album together for ‘5150’ from 1986. The song is “Love Walks In” which was released on July 23, 1986 and went to #22 on the Billboard Hot 100. The song was credited to the whole band as usual, but I believe lyrically it came from Sammy as the song is about Alien Abduction and Sammy has stated he has been. Ok! I am not sure where to really go with that information.

My copy is in a little rough shape with a slight tear at the bottom crease plus someone wrote 15 on the front. But otherwise, it plays well and that is all that matters. This version is the standard single version with “Love Walks In” on the A-Side and the B-Side is “Summer Nights”. Not a bad combo of songs.

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Van Halen – “Why Can’t This Be Love” – 45 Single

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When I was on vacation during this past 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 a few so far as seen below…

And now we are on to our fifth of the 7 and this time we are in to the Hagar Era and this was the first single off their first album together for ‘5150’ from 1986. The song is “Why Can’t This Be Love” and was released on February 26, 1986. The song was the first released with new lead singer Sammy Hagar and went all the way to #3 on the Billboard Hot 100 and #1 on the Mainstream Rock Tracks. Not a bad start to this new era of Van Halen.

The version I have is the standard US Version of the single. Nothing special about, but it was in really great shape which is tough to find the picture sleeves in good shape. I like the big explosion on the back cover but not sure what the significance of it is to either song on this release unless they were going for the fact this was a new explosive release by the band…which it really isn’t.

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Van Halen – “I’ll Wait” (1984) – 45 Single

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When I was on vacation during this past 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 a few so far as seen below…

And now we are on to our fourth of the 7 and this is the final Roth Era track and was the second single from the album ‘1984’. The song “I’ll Wait” went to #13 on the Billboard Charts and despite its success, the band never filmed a video which totally surprises me as this the heyday of MTV. But it still worked for them without a video so they probably saved a ton of money. As most songs with Van Halen, the writing is always credited to Eddie Van Halen, David Lee Roth, Alex Van Halen and Michael Anthony. But this time, Dave was having trouble with some of the lyrics and melody so Ted Templeman brought in his buddy Michael McDonald from the Doobie Brothers for which Ted produced their albums as well. Ted had a knack for using people he worked with on many projects.

The song was inspired by a media ad for Calvin Klein. I guess Dave really was taken by the hot model in the ad that he taped the picture next to his TV and all the lyrics are addressed to the model in the picture. Hey, whatever works right!

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Van Halen – “Jump” (1983) – 45 Single

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When I was on vacation during this past 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 a couple so far as seen below…

And now we are on to our third of the 7 and this is another Roth Era track and one of their biggest singles ever…”Jump”. The song was released on December 21, 1983 and was the first single for the album ‘1984’ from the same year. The single went all the way to #1 and sold well over 1,000,000 copies.

The copy I have is the actual single that was released and not a promotional copy this time around. It has an A-Side with “Jump” and a B-Side with “House of Pain”. And if you notice on the label again, the engineer Donn Landee is credited again as Ted is a man of his word and wants Donn to get as much credit has him. Hell, Ted even gave up a point on each album and gave 1 point to Donn. That is appreciation folks.

According to Dave, the song was inspired by a new report he heard on the TV about a person threatening to jump from building. Dave pictured the people below says “Go ahead and jump”. Kind of sick sense of humor, but that’s Dave. Now the song isn’t really about suicide though. It is about going after what you want. Take that leap of faith and go after it.

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Van Halen – “Pretty Woman” – 45 Single

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When I was on vacation during this past 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. First up last week was “Dance the Night Away” from 1979. And second we have the song “Pretty Woman” off the band’s album ‘Diver Down’ from 1982.

The copy I found was interesting to me. First was the fact the song was called “Pretty Woman” and not “(Oh) Pretty Woman”. When the single was first released, it went without the (Oh) part of the title and later issues corrected that and put the (Oh) back in. So that tells me I have an original issue copy. The second thing I found interesting is that the back cover of the picture sleeve has the flip side being “Happy Trials” which was actually the B-Side on the album. However, this copy is a promotional copy and it only has “Pretty Woman” on Side A and Side B. One Mono version and one Stereo version like the last one. That got me thinking was this in the wrong cover and what I can find is that it is not. It looks like they slipped the Promo copies in the same sleeve as the actual single to the public at least according to what I found on Discogs.

Another thing I thought was cool about the label on the Single was how the Engineer, Donn Landee, was actually listed. That does not happen very often. According to Ted Templeman’s book, he feels that he couldn’t be as a good as a producer he was without the help of an amazing engineer and Donn was that to him. He wanted Donn to get as much credit for these albums and songs as he did so he had his name added. Pretty freaking cool if you ask me.

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Van Halen – “Dance the Night Away” – 45 Single

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When I was on vacation during this past 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. For the next 7 weeks, we will go through those singles in release order. And first up is “Dance the Night Away” from 1979.

For the band’s second album, “Dance the Night Away” was the first single released for the album. The copy I have is actually a promotional copy so the song “Dance the Night Away” is on both sides. Why is that you may ask. That is because as a promotional copy this was sent to radio stations. The first side has the song in Mono and B-Side is the same song but in Stereo. That way the radio station could use the side that fit their format if they were either an AM Radio station or an FM, I presume. The song is I believe the album track and not a edited version so nothing special about it other than it is cool.

The song was originally titled “Dance, Lolita, Dance” according to David Lee Roth, but Edward Van Halen thankfully talked him out of it. The song was one of the few off Van Halen II that were actually conceived in the studio and done so when the band was standing in a circle humming to each other. And according to Wiki, the song was inspired by Fleetwood Mac’s song “Go Your Own Way” which I can see. The song is a little more upbeat and less hard rock and maybe even more pop rock.

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June 2021 Purchases – Vinyl & CDs

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We are now half way through the year, man, that is so hard to believe. Before we know it, the year will be over 2022 will be upon us, but for that, let us see what June had in store for 2 Loud 2 Old Music. The month started off with my youngest daughter and I doing some thrift store shopping. I didn’t expect to be buying any music there, but lo and behold, they actually had some CDs for $1 a piece so I grabbed a few (or more). I got Seal, Jonny Lang, Eric Clapton and David Lanz…

I also picked up a couple of Cheap Trick albums. I had a gift card to Amazon from MyPoints.com and so I picked up Special One on CD and then their latest album finally arrived a month after it was released…it must have been lost In Another World for a little while…

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David Lee Roth – The Albums Ranked Worst to First

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It is time for another album ranking and this time around we are exploring Diamond Dave himself, David Lee Roth. We will not be doing any Van Halen albums that will come later, we are focusing strictly on the David Lee Roth solo catalog. I am not even going to cover his debut E.P. ‘Crazy From the Heat’ as that is only 4 songs and only covers…boo hiss!

David had a very successful career after leaving Van Halen and then that career faded away. But he came out of the gate a little limp with ‘Crazy From the Heat’ although the album sold well and the video was played a lot for ‘California Girls’, but it was so campy and awful. Then his debut came out and thanks to Steve Vai, David Lee Roth did a better Van Halen album than Van Halen did with Sammy on 5150. That didn’t last forever and Dave kind of fell to the wayside, but so did Van Halen when Sammy left. But that is a story for another time.

Nowadays, He is still as crazy as ever and his mouth still runs amok which is just classic Dave. He has recently toured with Kiss on their Farewell Tour so he has never really fallen far from the spotlight. He’s always there on the cusp waiting for another 15 minutes. So I will give him that as we celebrate the man, the myth, the mouth..David Lee Roth

As usual, we will start with the worst and work are way to the best and save the best for last. I hope you enjoy.

THE WORST – ‘DIAMOND DAVE’ (2003):

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‘Masters of Metal’ – Various Artists – Album Review

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I was digging for records while on vacation down in St. Augustine, Florida and at one of the stores, I came across a vinyl that brought back so many memories.  I had this on cassette and I remember loving it and listening to it constantly.  I had to get it and at only $5, it was a no brainer.

The album is not something I normally buy and that is because it is a compilation album mixed with numerous artists.  The album was K-Tel’s “Master of Metal”!  Now, don’t let the name confuse you because it isn’t really that heavy or metal, but it was full of songs that I loved from bands that sometimes do much heavier stuff.  The album is from 1984 and had hit songs from some of the biggest bands at that time.

There were so many bands on here that had connections with each other.  Such as Black Sabbath is on it with Ian Gillan on vocals, Dio is on here and Ronnie James Dio used to sing with Black Sabbath, Rainbow is on here with Joe Lynn Turner and Dio sang with them as well.  Kiss is on here and so is Rush who opened for Kiss.  All pretty cool, but back in 1984, I had no idea about these connections.

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