Mark my words: in three years, Van Halen is going to be fat and self-indulgent and disgusting, and they'll follow Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin right into the toilet. In the meantime, they are likely to be a big deal. Their cover of the Kinks' "You Really Got Me" does everything right, and they have three or four other cuts capable of jumping out of the radio the same way "Feels like the First Time" and "More than a Feeling" did amid all the candyass singer/songwriters and Shaun Cassidy-ass twits.
Van Halen's secret is not doing anything that's original while having the hormones to do it better than all those bands who have become fat and self-indulgent and disgusting. Edward Van Halen
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has mastered the art of lead/rhythm guitar in the tradition of Jimmy Page and Joe Walsh; several riffs on this record beat anything Aerosmith has come up with in years. Vocalist Dave Lee Roth manages the rare hard-rock feat of infusing the largely forgettable lyrics with energy and not sounding like a castrato at the same time. Drummer Alex Van Halen and bassist Michael Anthony are competent and properly unobtrusive.
These guys also have the good sense not to cut their hair or sing about destroying a hopelessly corrupt society on their first album. That way, hopelessly corrupt radio programmers will play their music.
Root Boy Slim and the Sex Change Band with the Rootettes, on the other hand, are already fat and self-indulgent and disgusting. This is a good thing because, in bypassing artistic maturity for immediate decadence, they have the distinction of being the first rock band in history to complain that their trusses are slipping ("My Wig Fell Off"). Oddly enough, they are also a good rock band. You would expect they'd be just clowns with a repertoire like "Heartbreak of Psoriasis" and "Too Sick to Reggae," but this outfit can play blues-based rock with anybody. Gary Katz, of Steely Dan fame, has produced a clean and eminently listenable instrumental sound while retaining the uniqueness of the Root's voice, which resonates like an emphysema victim vomiting inside the Goodyear blimp (check out "Boogie 'til You Puke").
All in their thirties, Root Boy and the rest can hardly be defined as New Wave. They are, however, part of the general movement of lunacy and satire that is shaking up the music industry. A lot of people thought the Sex Pistols were going to blaze the trail into the Top Ten, but the real breakthrough was Randy Newman's "Short People." Parliament/Funkadelic is having a similar psychological effect in black music. Like these two acts and unlike the punks, Root Boy Slim and the Sex Change Band are both humorously and musically accessible. Their stance as over-the-hill wimps is just unthreatening enough that hopelessly corrupt radio programmers might play their music. I hope so. (RS 264)
CHARLES M. YOUNG
Van Halen delivered one helluva debut in 1978. The album not only put the band on the map, but it also raised the bar for rock groups in general. Most of the songs on
Van Halen are still staples of FM radio, including "Ain't Talking 'Bout Love," "Jamie's Crying," and "Runnin' With the Devil." A true rock classic.
Van Halen were veterans of the Pasadena, California, bar circuit, but on their 1978 debut their sound was already large enough to fill football stadiums. Singer David Lee Roth yowled like a Vegas performer in heat, Michael Anthony played the bass lines that let Eddie Van Halen go wild on guitar, and Eddie crammed a whole season of soap-opera plot twists into every solo, making liberal use of the whammy bar but never losing the melody. The only element of the formula missing was a spoken Roth rap (the pinnacle of that art would come two years later, with the "I like the little way the line runs up the back of the stockings" bit on "Everybody Wants Some!!").
Multiple tracks from Van Halen crashed into heavy rotation on rock radio: "Runnin' With the Devil," "Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love" and their version of the Kinks' "You Really Got Me." The best was "Jamie's Cryin'." Discarding crass lyrics such as "You know you're semi-good-lookin'," Roth wrote a surprisingly empathetic song about a girl regretting a one-night stand, while Eddie delivered a guitar lick that would later do wonders for Tone-Loc's "Wild Thing." During the making of the song, Roth was monitoring his diet and exercise to preserve his voice -- but found that he didn't sound right in the studio. So he sucked down a joint, a soda and a cheeseburger, and promptly nailed it. Rumor has it that Van Halen have continued in recent years with a new lead singer, but since their 1985 breakup, nobody involved has ever recaptured that spontaneous cheeseburger magic.
