Van Halen - Van Halen

Van Halen - Van Halen

Published in 1978

Wikipedia

Sometimes, one realizes that they have more awesome friends than they thought they did.  I mean, one knew that their friends were fucking awesome, and knew that was why they were their friends, but it takes a special kind of moment to realize just how awesome their friends are in context.  That is why there is the Guest Album Project, and that is why I am proud to call these people my friends.  

This one is about Van Halen, one of the best examples of late 70's to 80's rock on record, and one of my favorite bands to listen to when I am on the road.  The write up is performed by one Zach Gallegos, a man I have frequently mentioned on the project, who is in the three album suggestions club, and has another one on the way.  Awesome write up, just awesome.

Hello TAP readers! This is my first post on TAP as a guest contributor to my friend Matt’s excellent site here. My name’s Zach, I’ve known Matt for longer than I care to admit and hopefully these entries will stand up to the previous work. I’ll warn the readers now that unlike Matt I am a bit more biased in my music selection. This doesn’t preclude me from doing different genres. I actually enjoy pretty much everything, no lie. Country, Metal, Hip Hop and I even have some French club tracks on the old iTunes. All this means is I don’t give a fuck if you want me to listen to something, I’m gunna do my own thing and you’re gunna like it. GOT IT?! YOU’LL READ THIS AND THEN LISTEN TO THESE ALBUMS AND YOU’LL FUCKING LIKE IT!!! Sorry, I have outbursts from time to time. Which brings me to my next point; if the cursing offends you then fuck you. Enjoy. 

My first album project contribution will be that of Van Halen’s “Van Halen”.  You see ladies and gentlemen the band Van Halen has a special place in my heart not only for dear Edward’s face melting licks but also that I grew up listening to Van Halen. Yes that’s right I’m 25 and grew up listening to Van Halen. The reason for this lies with my father. Van Halen was the first band my dad saw live and one of his, if not the, all time favorite. So yes ladies and gentlemen the cradle did indeed ROCK. This album to me though is the quintessential Van Halen test piece. It has everything a true Van Halen fan would want. Screaming licks from Eddie on tracks like Eruption and Ain’t Talkin Bout Love, a classic cover in You Really Got Me and of course the cool lyrical stylings of one David Lee Roth. And lord knows if you’re anything like me you prefer, dare I say DEMAND, David Lee Roth over one Sammy Hagar. I, unlike apparently most of the people who actually grew up in the 80’s, have not developed an immunity to the terribleness of Sammy Hagar. When I hear Sammy Hagar’s voice I want to perforate my ear drums. No I can’t drive 55 but I certainly can’t listen to you without contemplating homicide sir. I digress.  

I played a lot of guitar as a kid and Eddie Van Halen is a god to all guitar wielding prepubescent boys so naturally I’ve taken a stab or two at some of his classic riffs but for me nothing screams early Van Halen like the phaser in Ain’t Talkin Bout Love. That riff is powerful and crushing all the while simplistic. When Ain’t Talkin Bout Love comes on some of the TERRIBLE radio stations down here in the bible belt it is a GOD SEND (no pun intended). When you hear this song you can’t help but crank it, roll down the windows, look at Weezy next to you at the stop light and give him the nod. Yea I hear your subwoofer but do you FEEL that fucking phaser bro?! Didn’t think so.  

Now sadly like ANY great album there’s a track or two you could do without. For me it’s the overly typical 80’s tracks. Things like I’m The One or Ice Cream Man. But at the end of the day will you take these mediocre tracks with the likes of Jamie’s Cryin and Runnin With the Devil? Fuck yes you will because you’re a god damned American. And if you’re not an American I’d wager you’ll still be down to rock out. When I hear Van Halen’s signature sound I can’t help but get super motivated and I think if you were to put this album on you’d understand right away within the first 30 seconds of Runnin With the Devil. Between the beat on the drums and the pace of the guitar your blood boils. There are also some easily overlooked details in these tracks. One of my favorites is the haunting hook on Little Dreamer. That harmony on the “oooooh”s has this epic hollow feel that makes those little hairs you try to get rid of on your ears stand up.  

All in all this is one of the greatest rock works of all time let alone that decade. If you disagree I’m all for it but I want to hear why haters. TELL ME WHY!!! That’s all I’ve got for this entry but I look forward to hearing your opinions (no really I do please don’t be fooled). Also while you’re at it take some time to visit the sites linked on this page and if you can spare it Give Phil Five guys. Thanks for taking the time to read my bullshit.

And that, my friends, is why we have friends.

I think he nailed this album, one of my favorites of the era.  I don't have anything really personal to say about it, other than this is a great, not optional album, and you really should hear it, merely so you can hear Eddie Van Halen play it.

"Okay, Clone Wars." "Zing."
Matt

The White Stripes - Elephant

The White Stripes - Elephant

Published in 2003

Wikipedia

I have some spectacular friends.  One of the few friends that I got out of high school, that wretched hive of scum and villainy, is a man named Brian.  If you have looked through the archives, you will see him threatening hungerstrikes for me not having done The Beatles yet, you will see him with some incredibly well written comments, and you will generally see him everywhere.  So, I present to you, the first guest album project, by Brian G.  Bow down before him, ye mighty, and despair.

Jack White is an unassuming man whose presence does not impose upon itself. It is not until the pick hits the steel that you feel the room flex and can feel the music in your chest in the reverse fashion of how the mute can talk with a microphone pressed to their throats. Meg White follows suit in the duo, being the milk to Jacks thrashing cheerios. No one enjoying cereal ever mentions the milk unless it is past its prime, and this milk may have a bit of a twang to it, but fuck it, it has 2 weeks left before it makes you pee out your backside. When you think White Stripes, I immediately think of a few things. The first is the unfortunate fact that they broke up in February; if that will stick or not we will see, but I don’t see them getting back together. Jack carries on with the Raconteurs and the Dead Weather - both of which rock in their own right.

Seven nation army comes on with the bass line that could have been written by a 6th grader. This song is always found in a lot of authors 'top 50 rock songs of all time' list; and I agree with that. If nothing else, this song got the Stripes a ton of play and expanded their base more than any other single. I was glad to hear the band known for their garage rock sound getting play on the radio - I sensed this as a small step in the improvement of a steadily declining radio scene. 

Black math is exactly how it sounds. If the kings of yesterday would have relied on composite boxes of wood topped with metal strings rather than the black magic of royal lore - this is the jam you would flex to slay the fucking dragon. This is another simple hard hitting song that I am sure was first played in a basement or garage somewhere.

Just when you are verging on the side of face melting status, they slow it down without being dreary. 'I just don’t know what to do with myself', 'in the cold cold night', 'I want to be the boy to warm your mothers heart' and 'You’ve got her in your pocket' show a departure from the beginning of the album by telling a bit more of a story and also giving Meg a chance to step up to the mic. It works to keep this album very sessionable in that you can listen to it start to finish over and over and not grow tired of it. With that being said, you wouldn’t find any of those 4 songs on my Stripes mix tape.

Please note that this may look like a separate paragraph, but that is only because I couldn’t find a button on my computer to make this block of text a completely different level of being. This artifact of text is not on the same three dimensions as the rest of this piece. This is where the album gets fucking gritty; it drinks tiger blood and pisses grungy bluesy excellence. If you were to play 'Ball and Biscuit' through a 50s tube amp you are hearing the air vibrate in the method in which God intended and that only Jack White could be the epi-center of. As good as the album cut is, I cannot urge you more to find a video of the live performance. The improvise riffs and the dirty grit of it come through in a way that the polished studio cut couldn’t show. Seven Nation Army is very similar in this regard - I urge you to find a set where they mashed together 'Death Letter' with 'Seven Nation Army' on youtube. The transition between the two is one of those moments where you see what a live show should be.

Winding down the album, we have some solid songs which are led by the popular single 'Hardest Button to Button'. Multiple singles off Elephant made for some serious air time on the better rock stations. IF you didn’t know the Stripes before Elephant, you knew them now. The only song that I can’t explain on this entire album is the final track. The skit with Holly Golightly makes no sense but it shows the range that the Stripes Have. Although this is never the end of the Stripes for me - whenever the hiss comes on that indicated the end of the record it always leads to one of two foregone conclusions - dropping that fat needle back on 'Ball and Biscuit' or cuing up White Blood Cells or Icky Thump.

"Right now you could care less about me, but soon enough you will care by the time I'm done"

Fucking sick, am I right?  I have the coolest friends.

As for my opinions on things, I am pretty sure that Brian completely nailed this album.  It's driving, well crafted, and just a beautiful album.  It's one of those albums that every person needs to experience, because it just is that cool.  The drums are pounding, and the guitar is solid as fuck.

Of course, as they have just broken up, we must expect that this is going to be one of those albums that just lives on as a ghost.  One of those band that everyone will say they saw in their prime, and one of those bands that those of us who didn't will wish we had.  They play some spectacular rock, and they are just great.

It's personal story time.  My dad was in a punk band in Detroit, Michigan (the setting for Robocop) in the late 70's.  They were called the Denizens, and I have to say, they actually rock.  If they had come out twenty years later, they would have been hailed as a great classic punk act, but because they were ahead of classic punk, they never quite got that far.  They were seriously good, and I remember singing their songs as a kid.

In the early 2000's my dad's band got back together.  In Detroit.  They were going to play one show, and so we took a vacation up to the brown/tannest place on Earth, and went to a place called the Bohemian house.  To say that this concert took place in a bad part of town was an understatement, and since it is in Detroit, that understatement is an understatement.  The house was really cool though, with a bunch of really nice people.

My dad was the closing band.  A group called the Fondas came out and rocked out a bit, played some quality music. The whole event was for this guy Jim (I think)'s birthday, and so he got dressed up in his rock star best.  He had on khakis and a pink button up shirt, no tie.  He got warmed up with the band a tiny bit, and then they started playing.

They killed.  It was a room full of the most incredibly diverse group of people I have ever seen,  My dad's generation on down to my sister, who is three years younger than me, and the place was fucking into it in a way that I have rarely seen at a concert.  The whole place was into the concert, they were doing some really cool stuff, and a huge group of Detroit musicians were in the room.

I couldn't take my eyes off this one person, who was standing next to a central pillar in the room with a large, dreaded black guy.  I knew that I knew her from somewhere, but I couldn't remember where, until I really thought about it, and I had seen her on TV.

Meg White was at my dad's concert.  That is some fucking insane shit that I couldn't make up.  Seriously.  It was just one of those things that I still to this day, kick myself for not going up to her and just saying something small, about how she was influential and how cool it was for her to be at my dad's concert.  Writing it out now, I'm glad that I just treated her like a person, and didn't bother her.  I really enjoyed the concert, I enjoyed the hell out of my dad going up and blowing people away, and I thought that he was a pretty cool dad for doing it.

So, that was my brush with an incredibly famous, interesting, and seemingly very nice person.  If I was wrong, and she wasn't there, I feel like an idiot, but I'm not wrong.

Anyway, thanks to Brian, I hope that you will write more projects, and whoever out there has an album that they want to knock out of the park like Brian did, I will always provide space for you to vent your feelings, heart and soul.

"Danger in Disneyland"
Matt

PS.  Five Phil Give!

PPS.  Want to read a little more about my dad's band?  Go here.