Van Halen - Van Halen II

A year after "Eruption" changed everything, Van Halen dropped their follow-up, aptly titled Van Halen II. For me, this was my actual introduction to the band. The summer of '79, I turned 16 and I had been sent off to the Bowron Lakes to work with the Park Service's Youth Crew. It was an amazing summer, and while I didn't bring any music along with me, I did bring my guitar.

Others, though, did bring music, and that summer I was introduced to Styx and Van Halen II. I heard Rush for the first time when someone played "Bastille Day" and I loved it. We also argued about Journey's "Wheel in the Sky" just being a lame rip-off of "Layla" and we all agreed that disco sucked, but "Heart of Glass" by Blondie and "Driver's Seat" by Sniff 'n' the Tears got a free pass. We also agreed that we all loved "My Sharona" at one time but were thoroughly sick of it.

Van Halen was cool. It was the perfect blend of rock and pop with a ballsy swagger that seemed to be missing from most of the stuff we were listening to at the time. David Lee Roth gets the bum's rush now as a singer, but there was a time when his sly wink-and-nod double-entendre delivery combined with his falsetto scream was the shit. Dave was cool, man.

If Dave was cool, then Eddie was smokin' hot. Edward was the aural architect who, with brother Alex on drums and bassist Michael Anthony on the high counter vocals, crafted their own sound. When you heard a Van Halen track, there was no mistaking who you were listening to. The fret gymnastics were more than just technical wizardry; they were ear candy, and his rhythm work was the foundation that supported the songs.

The big songs to me at the time were "Dance the Night Away" and the rockin' "Somebody Get Me a Doctor." When I finally got the album for myself, which was a few years after the fact, I was finally able to get into the album's deeper cuts.

Everyone loves to single out "Spanish Fly," which was a minute of Edward showing off his tapping on an acoustic guitar, as the album's magical mic drop. It is pretty mind-blowing, but honestly, unlike "Eruption," which was face-melting, "Spanish Fly" was more of a curiosity. Kind of a look what I can do snippet, more showing off than showy. I always loved Linda Ronstadt and her cover of "You're No Good" with Andrew Gold's guitar outro. It is one of my favourite songs. The Van Halen cover, while pretty cool, feels like a missed opportunity. Don't get me wrong, I like the song, but I would have loved to hear how Eddie would have interpreted Andrew's arrangement and let loose.

Trying to jot down my thoughts on this one is like trying to put smoke in a box with a pair of chopsticks. I have so many memories that are intertwined that trying to unravel the threads is nearly impossible. I'm left with a bunch of rather contradictory memories and impressions that are frankly kind of disjointed. Much like what you're reading, if I'm being honest.

In many ways, Van Halen II was a sequel more than a follow-up. The band was still mining material that was written before their first album, and they were still in the enviable position of being able to choose from songs that they had to some degree polished and tested.

However, I don't think that's entirely correct. Whereas the first album was the one to announce the band, Van Halen II was like having a friend come over and hang, and they brought beer. This was a rock record that had no problem with having some fun. Heck, "Bottoms Up!" sounds like a party with Dave barely keeping it together. Two of my favourite songs close out the record: "Women in Love..." and "Beautiful Girls" are so good. Who doesn't love an album that ends with a smooch?

The one thing I did not remember was how short this was. The whole album barely crests a half hour, which feels weird as the songs don't feel short or truncated. A few of the songs are around four minutes, but I guess the rest are around three, so it makes sense. I hardly have a chance to get comfortable on the couch when I have to get up and flip the record over.

First world problems.

Styx - Paradise Theater

Styx was hands down one of my favourite bands as a kid. They were a strange band, even back then. They were a hard rock band, almost progressive at times, who had a penchant for sucky ballads. I know there's a tendency for people to zero in on "Babe" as the song that killed the band's credibility. The roots go way back to almost the beginning when Styx released "Lady" on their second album. It showed a side to the band that needed to be kept in check, and for the most part the band kept things on a pretty tight leash. The band had been setting a gruelling pace, releasing an album a year (two in 1972) and by the time they released Paradise Theater (if I end up writing theatre later it's because that's how we spell it here) in 1981 they'd dropped ten albums in less than a decade. I snapped this up as soon as I saw it, and it became a fixture on my turntable. Like the band had announced on "Borrowed Time" from 1979's Cornerstone , ...

David Baerwald - Bedtime Stories

The little sticker on the shrinkwrap says, "You may remember David Baerwald from David & David's Boomtown ..." You bet, I remembered David Baerwald. Back in 1986 Boomtown was an album with moments of sheer brilliance. The whole album may not have been as top shelf as the first few tracks, but that didn't matter - it is an excellent album. I waited for a follow-up ... and waited, and then in 1990 it was a solo David, David Baerwald, who dropped Bedtime Stories . I snapped it up. "All For You," the opening cut, is still my favourite song on the album. It was mesmerizing. I'm not sure if the song got any airplay, it may have, but that may have been wishful thinking on my part as it was on a lot of mix tapes at the time and I heard it a lot in the car. The CD had a great booklet with all of the musician credits and lyrics. Oddly, when I found a sealed copy of the record (a great score), it just had a plain paper insert - the picture of David walking wit...

Gary Numan - The Pleasure Principle

"Cars" was really the only song I knew by Gary Numan. I knew the name of the album the song came from. Over the years bits and pieces of trivia are accumulated, but in terms of his music it was still distilled down to one song ... It would be too easy to write Mr. Numan off as a one hit wonder, and I suppose in terms of actual chart hits this was his defining moment as a solo artist. Of course this really means nothing, as Gary Numan would drop an album a year pretty much through to the end of the '80s. He'd then slow down a little but continued to make music. While The Pleasure Principle was Gary Numan's debut solo release in '79, he actually cut his teeth on a couple of albums in a band called Tubeway Army, first with the band's self-titled release in 1978, and then on Replicas that came out in April of '79. By the end of Tubeway Army's run most of the band would follow Gary into his solo career. Paul Gardiner, who had been with Gary from the b...

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