Now I Know Where Sammy Hagar Gets the Inspiration for His Song Lyrics
(“How Do I Know It’s Love” -- 1957 marriage pamphlet for teens.)
Tag: Sammy Hagar
Album cover of the week: Warner Brothers Presents… Montrose!
The pantheon of rock greats who have left us has had another join its ranks, as guitarist and bandleader Ronnie Montrose passed away on Saturday after a long battle with cancer. So in his memory, let's look at one of the great album covers in rock. It's from Montrose's 1975 LP, Warner Brothers Presents... Montrose!. It was the band's third full-length release and first without lead singer Sammy Hagar.
Artwork on this lovely tribute to 1950s monster movies is credited to Harry Rossit.
Related articles
Remembering Ronnie Montrose (joebeans2002.wordpress.com)
Legendary Guitarist RONNIE MONTROSE Passes (bravewords.com)
Graphicity: What Makes Van Halen Great?
I've been listening to A Different Kind of Truth regularly since it came out. Despite being an excellent album, I still read a lot of griping from Van Halen fans about how it's not really Van Halen because Michael Anthony's not there. I can see where they're coming from, but I think that's stretching things a bit.
But really, people have been arguing about Van Halen for years. If it's not Michael Anthony, it's the vocalists. So I decided to go through the Van Halen catalog and perform a scientific analysis of their sound. I wanted to know -- what really makes Van Halen tick? What, more than anything else, really makes a Van Halen record sound like Van Halen?
Is it Mikey's signature background vocals? Eddie's guitar pyrotechnics? Alex Van Halen's thunderous drumming? David Lee Roth's ...
Track By Track: Van Halen — A Different Kind of Truth
Because I dread the thought of writing yet another album review where I spend hundreds of words trying to frame an album in the proper context, or where I try to find yet another way to write about chord progressions, I’m just going to take it one song at a time and share my first impressions. So here we go with the long-awaited Van Halen album, A Different Kind of Truth.
Let's do some level setting here before I get into this album.
I have developed a belated appreciation for the Sammy Hagar era of Van Halen, but I am first and foremost a fan of the original lineup. Those first six albums are immortal.
I've been a David Lee Roth fan for years, and like all of his solo albums. I make no apologies for this.
I was inclined to like A Different Kind of Truth, and not assume it would
Listening Booth – Van Halen, “Crossing Over”
This track won a coveted spot on one of my mixtapes back in 2007, and I'm bringing it back again. It's a gem of a song from the Sammy Hagar era of Van Halen, although you wouldn't know it from how it was marketed (it wasn't). It's the brooding and emotional "Crossing Over", a b-side from the Balance album.
The whole song is very atypical of the era, which makes sense since it was written by Eddie while David Lee Roth was still in the band. But to his credit, Sammy does a fine job here. The payoff is the extended outro/fade.
Here's "Crossing Over", via YouTube.