A funny thing happened last Friday. So there I was in Chester doing a bit of Christmas shopping for my nearest and dearest, and I accidentally found myself right outside Grey & Pink Records* I popped in just to rest my weary legs for a second, or two.
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before.
Well, long story short I found a very reasonably priced copy of Van Halen Women & Children First, which I had thought about hearing again for a good decade now. Then I spotted two equally pristine copies of Diver Down and Fair Warning, all UK originals, all priced very reasonably. Having obviously contracted sunstroke** at some point earlier that morning and so I blacked out and bought them.
Now it’s an interesting one, despite Why Can’t This Be Love being my fourth ever single, I have never really gone a whole bunch on Van Halen. I owned Van Halen and 5150 but I always found their sound a bit treble-y and lacking a bass wallop, plus there was something about DLR’s Diamond Dave schtick that just pissed me off^. The only track I truly loved of theirs was ‘Jump’.
But suddenly, last Friday I got it somehow, I got them. Maybe it was the residual meds swimming around in my system from my shoulder problems, but if so, good. Each LP I played I liked better, but the one that really sold it for me is Fair Warning. There’s a darkness and a cussedness about that one which really does it for me, this is very much California after dark.
Even Diver Down, which I was wary of because of its running time and number of cover tunes was truly excellent, I love it all.
So I have now accidentally pulled the trigger online and bought Van Halen II and 1984. I used to own II when I was 15 and just never thought it was heavy enough, or good enough – I sold it after a year. What was I thinking?! I think I like it better than Van Halen.
I am really pleased that I have found some great ‘new’ LPs to listen to and also at the evidence that I am capable of revising some of the views I have held since 1987. Some of them. Maybe this is what maturity feels like? Bloody hell, if I’m not careful I’ll end up being broadminded.
So forgive me if you run into me and I start telling you all about ‘this great new band I’ve discovered … you won’t have heard of them, Van Halen’.
899 (Diver) Down (Still).
*after a brisk 15 minute stroll and a number of perilous road crossings.
**or was it frostbite, or malaria, or just a bit of a runny nose? whatever, I was totes delirious, is what I am saying.
^as opposed to his interviews which I usually liked.