Old Enough to Forget

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 r...

This is the album that changed it all. Funny, I'd not listened to this one in a long time. Back when I was a kid I played this nearly to death. Even back then it was an album that had a few clunkers - at least to me. I know there are legions of fans who will lose their shit over "Atomic Punk" and that's just fine. It's a technically amazing bit of fretwork, but I didn't like it as a song at the time. I'm starting off on the wrong foot. I'd take a mulligan but I've used so many I'll just keep plowing on. As a teenager in the small town where I grew up there was no such thing as rock radio. Oh sometimes you'd hear something resembling top 40, but it was an all things to all people station and didn't seem to make anyone happy. I think I heard "You Really Got Me" on the radio, but I'm almost sure I didn't. It was the other kids, the cool kids at school who had records, or older siblings who had records and I'm pretty s...