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 '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 p...

The Doobie Brothers, yeah I know what you're thinking. Actually, I have no idea. More than likely you're likely asking, "What were you thinking?" Fair. As a kid it was "China Grove" that really got under my skin. That riff. Bam! My aunt and uncle had an 8 track copy of The Captain and Me along with a few others that to this day are indelibly stamped into my DNA. It's weird though that I don't remember more about that tape, aside from the weird fades and clicks as it moved from track to track and the cover. Something about that overpass just felt, sad . There were a few songs by the band I always really liked, but by the time I really got into music, the band was old and tired. Well, old at any rate they'd been around for years, how old were those guys? I mean my goodness I was listening to them when I was ten. Then when Michael McDonald joined the band things changed. There was a four year period between 1976 and 1980 then this new brand of Doob...

I'll admit that this kind of music wasn't my cup of tea back when I was a teenager. It was generally balls to the wall rock or nothing ... unless it was a power ballad. Of course even back in '78 you'd have had to be living under a rock, with a rock on top of it not to have heard Nicolette's version of "Lotta Love" when it came out. It was a slick syrupy masterclass in soft rock ... the song was a big deal and it pulled the album along with it, peaking at #15 in the States, and #1 here in Canada. The album would go gold in both markets. It was a strong debut. This was all I knew about Nicolette Larson. I was okay with that. Then a couple of years ago right around the time Eddie Van Halen passed away there was a rash of Edward stories. There were more than a few about Ed's turn as soloist on Michael Jackson's "Beat It" and people were talking about it like it was the only time Eddie had played outside of Van Halen. I knew he had been on ot...