(hey man, that suit is you)

i'm going to get the whiskey because i just found my van halen records. C____ gave me her turntable so that's what i'm working on. next to the computer, it feels pretty backdated but i'll bet everyone figures out eventually that the oldies are the best. look, it's not that i would ever actually defend van halen, but at the moment i'm in an unapologetic frame of mind. and besides, what kind of life is it if you're going live in shame for the crimes of youth? it's not like i'm listening to coldplay.

"you know, you're semi good looking". that was our favourite lyric. i had a black cj-7 with a cassette stereo... i think 5150 had just come out, and between me and my friends we could pool pretty much all their records. 5150 had some killer tracks, but it was also sappy (not as bad as ou812 though. that was pretty much the last record i owned of theirs). for a while, women and children first was high-rotation, but diver down, fair warning and even 1984 also got lots of play. there was never any tension over roth/hagar. sort of how it never bothered us about bon scott/brian johnson. i only became a music nazi when i left the suburbs. sometimes not knowing what you don't know is the only thing that keeps you young. anyway, these records are great. i wish i still had that cj. jeeps were great for cruising and picking up, or even just sitting in the school parking lot for smoking and making plans. for some reason, thursdays were the best night back then. i just throw that in as an incidental.

years later, in paris, i saw halen and bon jovi together. in paris. le grotesque.

when we used to drive to grand bend in the summer, 'dance the night away' was the song. VH is perfect for summers and cottages, that much of their legacy is secure. "van whalen" covered them at the hotel bar one year. that was the golden era of cover bands i think. altho, get any distance out of 416 and if you can play CCR, you can make a living.

michael anthony was famous at their live shows for pouring bottles of JD down his neck to punctuate his bizarre bass solos. now it seems like vaudeville, but back then, we dared each other to try it; to gross effect. grand bend is where i saw my first texas mickey. 'big as an execution', that's what they said. one gallon of whiskey. it's amazing i remember even that. about ten years after the last time i was there (the bend), i was working a van halen show at the amphitheatre in toronto. i think it was gary cherone by then. I was assigned to Anthony's bass tent. I discovered that the jack daniels bottles he would famously chug were no longer (if they ever were) filled with jack daniels and his sound tech was the only one bumping naughty salt. plus, eddie's marshalls were, save one, all hollow showpieces. (which at least made them easy to load) i wish i didn't know these things. (i also wish i'd never seen elton john naked but what's done is done.)

anyway, these songs really bring it all back (especially unchained). ha. i just remembered another thing: i found out about collateral damage that summer at Coco's when some guy hit me in the face with his elbow as he went to punch some other dude in the face. broke my glasses. Very emasculating to rummage around a beach bar dance floor in search of a lens. i'm pretty sure panama was playing. that might have been the same summer i lost my other pair of glasses in the lake. not to mention i think that was also the year i flunked out of university. no wonder.

(one break, coming up!)