This is great! I can't imagine hearing Mean Street as the first VH song you ever heard................must've been completely mind blowing!!Originally Posted by punkatomic
Me and my friends had just left "rec night" at our local Jr high, On the way back we hit the public libery on the way home. We would go to the album section and see what the public library had to offer. I found out about Richard Pryer this way. Sure enough I stumbled across Van Halen’s Fair Warning. Up to that point I was into AC/DC, Black Sabbath and Aerosmith. Back in Black was in full rage at the time. Black Sabbath with Ronnie was all I knew of. Aerosmith wasn’t even together. I had heard of Van Halen, but only in passing. I liked what I had heard, but I didn’t hear enough. Anyway, I asked a buddy with me that night, “What about this?” He looked at me funny and said, “GET IT!”
I checked it out and walked home with the Fair Warning album in my sweaty little hands.
I remember getting home and slapping the record on to my parent’s 500lb Panasonic AM/FM/turntable,/8-track stereo wood cabinet system. That damn thing took about a 1/3 of our living room. Anyway, plugged in with my head phones and was fucking blown away. Nothing has sounded the same since.
I must have listened to Mean Street 5 or 6 times before I moved on. It was the same with most of the songs on the album. Sinner Swing was stunning to me at the time. Only because Dave, screams “She looks so FUCKING good....” Up to that point, no singer moved me like that. “He said FUCKING,” I thought to myself. How fucking cool was that! The way he states it. Such passion. The hairs stood up on the back of my neck when I heard the first riff to Unchained. By the end of the album, I was sold. It was and has been Van Halen ever since that evening.
By the end of the next week. I had all their albums. AC/DC? Black Sabbath? Aerosmith? Didn’t care anymore. I was all about Van Halen. I read every Hit Parade, Creem and Circus magazine article about VH. I clipped pictures, went ape shit when either UNCHAINED/SO THIS IS LOVE/ HEAR BOUT IT LATER videos came on MTV.
I found my Rolling Stones. My Led Zep if you will! I loved the music, but that appriecation didn’t come until later in life. Back then, it was about the attiitude, the look, the humor, etc. It’s was Rock N Roll meant for me and millions of others. Dave talked to me. They provided the soundtrack to my high school years.
BTW, It was the last thing I ever checked out at that library. I still have that album.
Fair Warning and Diver Down were the last 2 classic VH tapes I bought and if memory serves I bought them at the same time or within a few days of each other. So the songs always run together for me on those two, and I often forget which songs are on which. Especially now that I have it all on ipod, so I rarely look at the album that's playing. I remember getting crucified on here when I first joined for stating that Unchained was the best song on Diver Down....Oh well.
"I won't go down in history, but I will go down on your sister."
-David Lee Roth-
It's not you being out of the loop, it's just the truth.
The ferocity and rawness is gone. The showmanship is dead. It's just not the same, and I couldn't even fathom seeing a real rock band in their prime.
Now this I can relate to greatly!
I remember getting home and slapping the record on to my parent’s 500lb Panasonic AM/FM/turntable,/8-track stereo wood cabinet system. That damn thing took about a 1/3 of our living room. Anyway, plugged in with my head phones and was fucking blown away. Nothing has sounded the same since.
I must have listened to Mean Street 5 or 6 times before I moved on. It was the same with most of the songs on the album. Sinner Swing was stunning to me at the time. Only because Dave, screams “She looks so FUCKING good....” Up to that point, no singer moved me like that. “He said FUCKING,” I thought to myself. How fucking cool was that! The way he states it. Such passion. The hairs stood up on the back of my neck when I heard the first riff to Unchained. By the end of the album, I was sold. It was and has been Van Halen ever since that evening.
By the end of the next week. I had all their albums. AC/DC? Black Sabbath? Aerosmith? Didn’t care anymore. I was all about Van Halen. I read every Hit Parade, Creem and Circus magazine article about VH. I clipped pictures, went ape shit when either UNCHAINED/SO THIS IS LOVE/ HEAR BOUT IT LATER videos came on MTV.
I found my Rolling Stones. My Led Zep if you will! I loved the music, but that appriecation didn’t come until later in life. Back then, it was about the attiitude, the look, the humor, etc. It’s was Rock N Roll meant for me and millions of others. Dave talked to me. They provided the soundtrack to my high school years.
BTW, It was the last thing I ever checked out at that library. I still have that album.
Once Van Halen ensnared me, everything else was obsolete. No one else could touch them and I didn't listen to much else, and that drove my Dad nuts. He was a fan for sure, but enough was enough.
I wish I could go back and re-live the magic of it all being new again.
Yeah, nothing else even comes close. They grab you by the short & curlies and never let go.
I was a sophomore in highschool when VH1 came out.. after school one day we all jumped into wades datsun B210 for a road trip and he puts in VH1 on the 8track and i was hooked from then on
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