Whether at home or the office, I listen to music through YouTube. Typical of my current preferences are acoustic guitar work by Josh Snodgrass and Oner Yavuz, duduk (a double-reed woodwind instrument originating in Armenia) music, Erik Satie, lute music by Naoichika Sogabe, soulful tunes from the cello of a Korean lady surnamed Jin, and—of course—Bach; I hold Johnny B. in very high regard. All instrumental, and all pleasing to the ear and the heart. As you may surmise, I make no effort to keep up with what’s going on in the contemporary music scene. Surrounded by K-pop, I ignore it completely. Hey, with my 73rd birthday just around the corner, I know what I like and dislike.
There was a time, and it went on for several decades, when I fancied myself a somewhat hip guy. One of the hard-rock bands whose music I enjoyed was Van Halen, made up primarily of brothers Alex (drums) and Eddie (guitar, and keyboard once in a while) Van Halen, Michael Anthony (bass) and David Lee Roth (lead vocals). The band sold a lot of records and CDs, toured relentlessly and made enough money to last several lifetimes. (They peaked as headliners of a 1983 outdoor rock festival in San Bernardino that drew 350,000 fans. Van Halen, which garnered $1.5 million for two hours of work, helicoptered in.) What I really savored about Van Halen was their front man, Roth. Some of the guys with whom he has been compared are Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones, Freddie Mercury of Queen, Robert Bell of Kool and the Gang, Steven Tyler of Aerosmith, Jim Dandy of Black Oak Arkansas, Roger Daltrey of the Who and Robert Plant of Led Zep. Perhaps not the best pure singer, “Diamond Dave” was nevertheless number one when it came to acrobatic stage antics and a wild persona. Son of a Jewish ophthalmologist, he was born in Indiana and raised in southern California; he met the Van Halen brothers while attending Pasadena City College and working as a hospital orderly.
The band played a gig in 1978 at Armadillo World Headquarters and performed at the Erwin Center in Austin on the following dates: October 2, 1981, November 20, 1982, June 10, 1984, October 4, 1986, November 13, 1988 and January 29, 1992. I attended the ’84 show with my then-GF Mary Lou Price, and we sat in the cheap seats, far from the stage. Aided by binoculars, we were able to see them clearly enough. Although people whose musical knowledge goes much deeper than mine seem to agree that what made this group special was the “axe” work of Eddie Van Halen, I felt otherwise. DLR was one heck of a showman—when it came to holding an audience’s attention, no one was better. He had a great physique, stage presence and all the confidence in the world. Part of his repertoire was his ability to emit high-pitched, intense screams during songs and enthusiastic, off-the-cuff banter between them. I later learned that Roth’s band mates resented the attention he got; there were numerous breakups and reunions.
Here is that night’s set list: “Unchained,” “Hot for Teacher,” “On Fire,” “Runnin’ with the Devil,” “Little Guitars,” “Cathedral,” “House of Pain,” “Jamie’s Cryin’,” “I’ll Wait,” “Everybody Wants Some!!,” “Girl Gone Bad,” “Jump” (certainly one of my VH favorites), a cover of Roy Orbison’s “Oh, Pretty Woman,” “Panama,” a cover of the Kinks’ “You Really Got Me” and “Ain’t Talkin’ ’bout Love.”
My favorite part of the concert was when, in the lead-up to a song, Roth enacted a scene in which he was a private eye. A harried young woman entered his office, said she was having trouble with the law and asked if he could get her off. Lascivious to his very core, Roth paused before replying, “I don’t know anything about the law, but I can definitely get you off.” Crude but funny, and all 16,000 of us at the since-razed Erwin Center roared.
I have compiled a few other things Roth said or is alleged to have said during concerts or in interviews. If well over half of them are nothing but goofy jibes, the others attest to some degree of wisdom.
• “Money can’t buy you happiness, but it can buy you a yacht big enough to pull up right alongside it.”
• “Want to know why so many journalists like Elvis Costello? It’s because he looks like them.”
• “There are three rings in marriage: the engagement ring, the wedding ring and the suffering.”
• [To a front-row heckler at a Van Halen concert] “I may not go down in history, but I will go down on your sister.”
• “I’d rather have a free bottle in front of me than a prefrontal lobotomy.”
• “I’m a family man. I’ve started four or five this year alone.”
• “We got into town last night and this pretty little thing was banging on my door until three in the morning. Finally, I had to get up and let her out.”
• [In an airplane] “Please return your stewardess to her full upright position, and don’t extinguish those smoking materials.”
• She’s blue-eyed murder in a size 5 dress.”
• “Have you seen junior’s grades?”
• [To an obnoxious reporter] “Here’s our gift to you: A beginner’s guide to The Joy of Sex!”
• “Success is never final, and failure is never fatal. It’s not about whether you win or lose but about how good you looked.”
• [As a schoolboy] “Am I tardy? I don’t feel tardy.”
• “I’m always looking to the future, not living in the pasture.”
• “It’s not rocket surgery!”
• “It doesn’t matter the kind of music, it doesn’t matter whether it’s a cowboy hat or a yarmulke. I don’t care if it’s outer space or pop, the spirit is the same.”
• “Hey, you remember when that girl was prom queen? Oh wow….”
• [On writing song lyrics] “I write everything down. We were in the South and the waitress said, ‘Keep your fork, honey. After dinner, we got pie.’ Now, that’s a great lyric.”
• “I’ll try anything twice.”
• [Asked by radio man Howard Stern whether his 1993 arrest for trying to buy some Jamaican reefer in Washington Square Park was a publicity stunt] “Howard, in New York City this small of a bust is a $35 citation. Your dog poops on the sidewalk, it’s $50. If I was looking for publicity, I would have pooped on the sidewalk.”
Poster for Van Halen’s show at Armadillo World Headquarters, 1978…
VH, with DLR front and center—as always…
Roth with his friend and nemesis Eddie Van Halen…
Diamond Dave…
2 Comments
Well, I worry about someone who at 73 remembers a 1984 Van Halen concert, the name of his then girlfriend, and the set that was played.
His DLR quotes were hilarious. Great research.
Now, so you can poke fun at me, my first concert was in 1968. My Dad had to take us because my license had been suspended. Wait, I wasn’t old enough to drive.
Anyway, it was The Monkees at Memorial Auditorium in Dallas. I took me 40 years to attend my second one, which was the Trans Siberian Orchestra. Much better than the Monkees. But the Monkees makes for a great story over cocktails and even better with buddies over for beer.
I attended with Cindy Bryant. I was in love. Best bullet I ever dodged. Or maybe that was what she said.
Now, Boyd… surely you know I did not memorize that. Google, baby!! And your Monkees story is pretty good. That is where I saw my first rock concert–Tower of Power, somebody else and then the big fellas: Creedence Clearwater Revival.
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