The first song I heard from Women and Children First was And The Cradle Will Rock. I was working the packing table at Papermill Press, wrapping 500 sheet packs of Kobe Steak restaurant menus, when it came on 103 WKDF radio, our local F.M. rock station.
I stopped in mid-wrap and listened to it all the way through. I even shouted at Ricky to turn his press off for a minute so I could hear the solo better.
My boys were back! The D.J. informed us that the new album would be released next week, that he had listened to his advance copy all the way through, and it was another winner from the V.H. camp.
Hell yeah.
By the spring of 1980, I needed something good. I was experiencing my first real heartbreak from a breakup and was just beginning to feel normal again, or as normal as a seventeen-year-old can feel. It didn't help that Rick, one of my best friends and guitar buds, got with my girl afterward, or should I say, she got with him.
Goddamn, that was a brutal time. I let myself fall for the girl big time, told her I loved her and all that shit, and then she dumped me because I lied and told her I got tickets for Journey, and they sold out before I could buy them. As stupid as all of that sounds, it fucked me up, man. That was the first time I ever felt that kind of emotional pain; I can look back on it now and see how I started building a wall around my feelings then. I was never going to let myself fall for someone again, not like that.
I threw myself into my guitar like never before.
It was that classic tale of taking emotional pain and channeling it into your music. I won't say I became bitter, but I can look back and see where that whole situation gave me an edge that I didn't have before. I applied that to my playing as well. It was around this time, too, that I began developing more speed and aggression in my playing.
Nobody was gonna fuck with me, goddamnit.
If you ever wanna be worth a shit on guitar, you've gotta have that heart broken real good at least once.
Women and Children First was right on time, in more ways than one.
In addition to the excellent radio staples, Cradle and Take Your Whisky Home, there was the outright wicked gnarliness of Tora Tora / Loss of Control and maybe my number one Van Halen song of all time: Romeo Delight.
Dude, Romeo has everything!
Uptempo, opening song vibe, a very unique and badass verse part with stops and volume swells, then a crushing chorus groove with the best lyrics a man could sing...
"Baby pleeeeese! I can't take it, anymooooore!"
You know I was feeling that shit.
Then comes the solo. Pure Edward off the cuff with the lick from hell that nobody but he can play. I've seen many attempts over the years by well-intentioned guitar players, and they're all epic fails, myself included.
Then there is one of the best breakdowns in Metal, "Feel my heartbeat, feel my heartbeat...." followed by the chorus out and a classic Van Halen ending.
The first time I heard it, I probably played it over and over five or six times.
I immediately took up the task of learning Romeo Delight.
It immediately took up the task of kicking my ass.
I would come back to it time and again over the years and got to where I could do a pretty good shitty cover of it, like everyone else.
I began playing in a legit band that spring with a local guy named Billy Shipp. Billy was a dude around our neighborhood that had a reputation for being a rocker. He was a few years older than me and had a full band, a rare commodity in our area. He wrote his own songs too, another rarity.
He had a big afro like Lindsay Buckingham. He sang kind of like Lindsay too.
There was a chick singer named Janet, Grant the bass player, Mick the B3/keyboard player, and Don, the drummer.
I think their average age was twenty-five.
Don would donate blood for weed money; he was hardcore as fuck.
I saw them at a few parties around the area the previous summer. One great party was at a place called Cooks Cove on Percy Preist Lake; there was an outdoor stage built in a natural amphitheater-like hillside, like a mini redneck Woodstock. Beer and weed were present in abundance, and, amazingly, the cops never showed up. They played a good cross-section of covers, (heavy on the Skynyrd) and a few of Billy's original songs. It was a great gig.
Billy was the only guitar player, and he didn't play much lead. The keyboard dude did most of the soloing. They were in dire need of a lead guitar player. He heard about me from my friend Doug, and they asked me over to a rehearsal at their band house one Saturday afternoon.
We smoked a ton of weed, and then I plugged my Stratocaster into my new Roland Space Echo, then my Fender Super Six Reverb amp. I had been working on a riff where I played in time with the delay on the Space Echo. The rhythmic pattern made me sound way more impressive than I was, and everyone started freaking out. I got the gig on that thing alone before they ever heard me play one note of lead guitar. After I pulled out my best Ritchie Blackmore pull-offs, and then my Van Halen finger tap shit, they were about to throw a parade for my ass.
They had this hanger-on/roadie dude, Brad, that was like a redneck Chuck Norris. He was one of those dudes you knew not to fuck with, kind of like Bubba. He actually picked my skinny ass up and bear-hugged me!
Billy yelled, "Watch his hands, Brad! Goddamn!"
I showed them the song I had to go with the echo thing, a song called Your Life, which actually stayed with me into the Simmonz days. It was one of the first good songs I ever wrote. It was Metal, they weren't, but now they were going to be, just a little.
Any band I've ever been in, even if we are playing country, is at least a little bit Metal. You get what you pay for.
The fee back then? Beer and weed...and maybe some speed.
I was in the Billy Shipp Band most of 1980. Our most memorable gig was at the Tennessee Women's Prison. I don't know-how in the hell we got that gig, but I was told later that it was the last music show they ever had there. Brad ended up making it with two or three of the inmates backstage, and of course, we brought weed into the facility, although they never could pin it on us.
I fucked up my foot, helping Mick unload his big ass Hammond B3 organ and Leslie out of the trailer. I played the whole gig limping.
We killed, but of course, it was a captive audience. (BADOOM-PISH!)
That band fell apart and came back together in various forms three times that year. This happens a lot when there is a chick singer in the group. That's not sexist or insensitive, just true.
I finally quit for good after an incident in Donelson one night.
Billy and I had been jamming with the new bass player and drummer at the bass player's house. He was a fucking douchebag, and we were sick of him and his loud mouth, red neck wife, Karen. (Yes, the stereotype fits.)
Karen kept telling us what songs we needed to cover and that our original shit was too heavy, that nobody could dance to it.
Bill, the bass player with no balls, would sit there and agree with her, even though he secretly loved the original songs.
Billy and I finally said, "Fuck this, we are outta here."
Karen comes running at Billy and starts wailing on him, I go and try to pull her off, then Bill says, "Don't you touch my wife!" and sucker punches me right in the face!
Then Karen starts yelling at her dumb ass husband, "Why did you hit him?" Poor bastard couldn't even defend his wife's honor without getting bitched out for it.
They called me a few weeks later to see if I wanted to start a band with them.
I politely informed them that they must have lost their goddamned minds, and hung up the phone.
Paulie and I had not become joined at the hip yet like we would be by the end of 1980. He also began playing in his first legit band that year.
The band was Speedlimit. It was a twin guitar attack with Jimmy and Carlos, Brian on bass, and Todd on lead vocals and keyboards. They did some cool gigs that year too, most notably a One For The Sun gig at the fabulous floating stage on Percy Priest Lake. I was there in the crowd that day, and I was super jealous.
They killed that day, literally. Some guy was lying on the beach after the show; everyone thought he passed out, but he died; we never found out why.
Paulie was a natural on the drums from day one, and in the three years and some change that we both had been playing, he was already a monster on the drums when he was fifteen. He took to the double bass so fast, and he was learning from the same records I was. Paulie would study Cozy Powell and Neil Peart, just like I did with Eddie and Ritchie. I gladly shared my record collection with him, as he did with me.
As fate would have it, I would be in Speedlimit in less than a year, but that's another story.
Something else happened that summer that you are probably wondering when is this son of a bitch ever gonna get around to it.
The Van Halen 1980 Invasion Tour swung through Nashville on the summer leg, and another cosmic shift was about to happen.
It was the dog days of summer, school was out forever, and my heart was on the mend from the pain of being dumped. Dad and mom had split up, dad moved out to California, and I was the man of the house now. I was still loosely affiliated with Billy Shipp and played some gigs here and there, but mostly I worked printing and practiced my ass off. I was getting good, and I was about to get a big-time professional guitar lesson on August 5th, 1980, at Nashville Municipal Auditorium.
I bought my ticket months earlier, the day they went on sale.
(Because I would have broken up with myself if I missed this show.)
We went down in a gang in the Darvon, probably a few other cars in convoy as well. The pre-show details are a little foggy, but I'm pretty sure we partied at Kevin's apartment all afternoon and then headed down. It was a Tuesday, so I either called in sick to work, or maybe Bobby gave me the day off. I mean, it should have been a state fucking holiday.
I do remember it was a perfect summer night. There was a care-free party vibe in the air, and everyone was stoked that the world's biggest rock band was riding into town on the heels of a mega-huge album.
Women and Children First had been the soundtrack for summer. You could hear Everybody Wants Some and Take Your Whiskey, echoing through the parking lot at the state capitol where we parked. There was weed in the air, and beer on the breath, chicks in Daisy Duke's with hair a mile high and sweaty cheap perfume blowing in the breeze.
I had six killer joints in my sock and breezed through the lax security easily.
When we got out on the floor, they had chairs set up, but it was general admission. That was weird, somebody fucked up big time. There was mass confusion about this initially, and while everybody else was being a little bitch about it, wondering what to do, me and Joey pomahoused right up to the front about three rows back on Eddie's side and staked our claim.
"Fuck yes, dude! We are golden!" I yelled.
Later, as people began crowding in, we held our ground. It was easy during G-Force, the opener (who were horrible), but after that, it became more of an elbow fest. We let any motherfucker know they were not getting in our space. The chairs actually helped, we ended up standing on them, and most of the people followed suit. Security couldn't do shit, this was Van Halen goddamnit, and there were thousands of happy high motherfuckers packed in, ready to rock. They shouldn't have put those damn chairs there, but I'm glad they did, it made for a perfect view.
The energy of the crowd was intoxicating as the suspense built. I had a good buzz going, and I was fucking stoked that I was front row center for my hero.
There was fabric draped over much of the gear in between sets, but the stage was massive. This wasn't 1978 anymore, our boys had climbed the ladder for sure, I had never seen a more bad as fuck stage. Alex's drum kit was a huge double bass affair with fire extinguishers, warning signs, and a massive gong. There were radioactive warning signs all around the stage, and it looked like a bomb was peeking out of somewhere.
The whole military invasion vibe was working.
I was talking to a girl about why she was not about to share my chair with me when...
The lights go down.
Ten thousand adoring fans roar as the spotlights start panning the crowd in a crazy array of movement while the sound of helicopters booms through the gigantic sound system.
The announcer yells, "Heeere we go, everybody! Vaaaaaaannn Haaaaaalen!"
While the arena is still dark, Edward's guitar starts screaming through the P.A. at maximum decibels. Whammy bar madness, finger taps, wild harmonics; Dave is yelling like a crazed jungle animal, and then the whole band kicks in on an obliterating E chord.
A lone spotlight burns on Eddie as he starts the harmonic tapping intro to...
"ROMEO!" I yell. "FUCK YES!"
The whole band kicks in on the opening salvo in the white-hot stage light. The shit is locked in and moving at a heart-pounding rate, just like the record.
The stage is a sight to behold! There are hundreds of speakers everywhere, ramps going in different directions, and a huge VAN HALEN backdrop flapping in an unseen breeze. Dave flies ten feet in the air off the riser, legs out, and lands on a dime.
This was one of the first shows where Eddie played the Frankenstein guitar, I gazed upon it in all it's red, white, and black glory for the first time.
Now, when I say the guitar was loud, I mean the guitar was fucking loud.
At first, all you could hear was the guitar! I mean, I was good with it, but holy shit. Ed knew right away...he was making his wicked stage moves to start the show and looks over at Dave, laughing, and then looks out at the sound guy on the first stop in the verse and mouths, "TURN ME DOWN!" followed by a quick hand motion pointing to the ground. (I understand, sound dude, I get it. I would have been happy if it was only Eddie in the P.A.)
The energy from the stage was nuclear. This was a band that had hit their stride, running wide open on all cylinders.
Goddamn, they were kicking ass.
These guys were not the same dudes that opened for Black Sabbath a couple of years back, and those dudes ruled then! No, these were seasoned pros that had been doing shows and making records non stop since we last saw them. They were full-fledged rock stars now fully confident in themselves rolling it out on us like a division of Panzer tanks taking a city. Nobody could touch them.
I was taking mental notes from the get-go. I immediately sobered up and became a diligent student attending the advanced seminar on How to Fucking Rock by professors Van Halen, Roth, Anthony, and Van Halen.
It was a crash course.
I was so close I could see it all. I copped the harmonic tap on the intro to Romeo, saw how he played the main riff and saw the incredible seven fret spread he did on the gnarly lead.
As the show progressed, I watched and learned an assload of stuff. I still use much of it to this day.
A lot of the flash stuff looks easy, but in reality, it's hard because it's all about application and technique. Take the pick slide, for instance: It sounds like you are digging in on the strings really hard, but actually, you are just barely touching the string with the pick as you scrape it to get that super gnarly slide sound.
The two-handed neck swipe was a new one. It looked like he was wiping his neck down with both hands over the top, one after the other in time with the song. It was the coolest sound you ever heard and looked fucking badass!
I did that one a lot in the eighties to great effect, but it would look pretty ridiculous these days.
The same thing with the wang bar, Eddie used it so much for mild effect as well as super-duper whammy stuff. Little vibrato stuff here and there with the bar is really tasteful; I picked up on that too that night.
On Somebody Get Me A Doctor, I was able to see how he did the rolling harmonic thing after the lead, a real head turner anytime I used it for years afterward. You would not believe how many guitar players asked me how to do that trick.
David Lee Roth was the master of ceremonies for the entire evening, and he did a splendid job. He managed to catch my attention quite a few times with his killer screams, extreme confidence on stage, and fantastic gymnastic moves. He was very impressive and made us all feel like we were a part of the party.
They pulled out a keyboard rig for Michael Anthony to play the Fender Rhodes part for Cradle Will Rock, he must have played bass with his feet. Eddie played his Goldtop Les Paul on that one, killer.
Edward's solo was spectacular!
He would run the length of the stage and do baseball slides as he played burning leads and dive-bombing mayhem.
He played Eruption, and an electric version of Spanish Fly interspersed with crazy off the cuff shit that blew my mind. There were even hints of what would become Cathedrals.
The girl that dumped me came pushing through at one point during the show, she was short and couldn't see. She kept looking up at me with puppy dog eyes and asking if she could get on my chair with me.
I laughed and shook my head. That's gonna be a no from me dawg. (I like that phrase.)
I also gained immense respect for Alex Van Halen at this show. That motherfucker was a machine!
When they played Tora Tora into Loss of Control, I just about lost my mind. The drums were thundering, and his whole body was a blur as he laid down the intricate groove. He and Edward were locked in so tight, it was like they were one entity. Loss of Control is one of the baddest ass, most fun listening experiences there is. Seeing it up close live added the visual aspect that left us in awe when the last note died out.
Here's the setlist:
"Romeo Delight"
"Bottoms Up!"
Alex Van Halen drum solo
"Runnin' with the Devil"
"Tora! Tora! + Loss of Control"
"Take Your Whiskey Home"
"Dance the Night Away"
"Women in Love..."
"Jamie's Cryin'"
"Bright Lights, Big City" ("Jimmy Reed" cover)
"Everybody Wants Some!!"
"And the Cradle Will Rock..."
"On Fire"
Eddie Van Halen guitar solo, "Eruption," "Spanish Fly" and "Cathedral"
"Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love"
Encore
"Ice Cream Man"
"Growth" and "You Really Got Me"
Here's a couple of things before I go and contemplate writing about Fair Warning, maybe my favorite Van Halen Record.
My memory is a little fuzzy, but I'm pretty sure Eddie played the Moog synth thing that would later become Sunday Afternoon in the Park from Fair Warning. I seem to remember the whole building shaking from the low end and thinking the place was going to cave in.
Dave came out for the encore with an acoustic guitar made to look like a popsicle. It was hilarious! They did a ferocious version of Ice Cream Man after and then played Growth, which is that weird last groove on Women and Children First that fades out side two, and ended the show with You Really Got Me.
I've said it many times to anyone who has ever asked me; this is my number one concert of all time.
Everything was perfect. The band was at its peak of raw energy, still hungry, now on top of the world, and driving home the fact that Van Halen was the best band in the world.
The sound was terrific, the crowd's energy was infectious, and the songs were perfect for the moment.
This show drove the nail in the coffin of any other possible future for me.
This was what I was gonna do, there was no turning back now.
And, my heart did not hurt anymore. Van Halen healed me from the self-pity that would still linger about the breakup. I didn't give a fuck anymore after that.
One last thing, I did see Valerie Bertinelli behind the P.A. on Eddie's side that night. She had a little tray, and Ed would visit her from time to time, give a little kiss, and take a little snort.
I didn't know it at the time, but that was probably an ominous sign of things to come.
