OB1
Well-Known Member
No - although I just posted one but the clue maybe a bit obtuse.
The Album Review Club - Week #147 - (page 1942) - Blonde On Blonde - Bob Dylan
- Thread starter RobMCFC
- Start date
OB1
Well-Known Member
OB1
Well-Known Member
Is the correct answer.
OB1
Well-Known Member
Van Halen – Women and Children First
I could have picked any of the first four Van Halen albums but, in the end, I keep coming back to this one. I may have listened to Women and Children First as often as Physical Graffiti, my first review for this thread. VH have better selling and more iconic albums, not least their hugely influential debut. However, my first listen to WACF was so memorable. I can still recall bringing home the twelve incher and placing it on the deck in my room, putting on the headphones, dropping the needle to the groove and lying back to be truly astonished by what I heard. I played the record three times in quick succession (it’s not long), wondering how to describe the new songs to my friends later that evening, when we were off to see Pat Travers Band and Girl at the Apollo.
Talking of gigs, the 1980 Invasion Tour that supported the album arrived in the UK three months later. My best friends and I were fortunate enough to be able to attend four of the shows: Manchester Apollo, Leicester De Montfort Hall and both nights at the London Rainbow, which for me were the culmination of nine gigs in ten nights.
The lighting rig was so humungous that it could light up the sky. Easily the largest I had seen at that point: they didn’t have the option of using (the about to be invented) Vari-lites. The rig was so big that at De Monfort, where the stage is quite shallow, much of it was hanging over the audience. No wonder they chose to cover Jimmy Reed’s Bright Lights, Big City. The setlist also featured six of the nine tracks on WACF.
The album itself represented a progression for the band, after their debut’s heavy metal onslaught and it’s slightly lighter, more commercial sounding follow-up. The brilliant Ted Templeman and his able engineer Don Landee remained at the production helm. They chose to give the band a more sophisticated sound, but this was no Doobie Brothers’ record: the Van Halen brothers provided heavy duty riffs and beats, whilst Michael Anthony’s bass gained more prominence in the mix. Meanwhile David Lee Roth sang like a cross between Robert Plant and Al Jolson and truly brought his master of ceremonies schtick to the recording studio.
The disc opens not with the sound of a guitar being tortured by EVH but of a Wurlitzer electric piano being played through an MXR Flanger and 100-watt Marshall. And the Cradle Will Rock… was the first track to feature Eddie playing keyboards, a form of instrument that he was somewhat of a child prodigy on. His guitar work on this sorry tale of a wayward youth with poor grades provides colour rather driving the song; his guitar solo is short but spectacular, apparently inspired by Allan Holdsworth’s work.
On Everybody Wants Some!!, Alex Van Halen pounds the jungle drums and Diamond Dave talks dirty while Eddie and Mike explode around them.
Fools is the album’s longest track. On an extended intro, Eddie noodles, shreds and generally shows off before morphing the music into a juddering riff. DLR described the tune as a heavy-duty Broadway shuffle that sounds like the city streets at night.
Side one ends with show opener Romeo Delight - a pulsing hard rocker where Michael Anthony’s bass throbs like an idling dodge charger.
Tora Tora is basically a Sabbathesque intro to Loss of Control, which is VH’s version of speed metal.
Take Your Whiskey Home starts with some acoustic blues before turning into a midtempo rocker on which Alex stomps like Bonham and swings like Charlie Watts and Dave sips from a bottle of JD filled with iced tea.
Could This Be Magic? is essentially the album’s title track. It’s an acoustic folk foot-tapper laid down in one take that brings sunshine to a rainy day, with David on rhythm guitar and Edward using a bottleneck given to him by Ted Templeman just a few days earlier. Eddie had never previously played slide but still conjures up something to give Ry Cooder a run for his money.
In A Simple Rhyme closes the album in fine style. The track is not quite a simple as it might first appear. It’s one of the few songs on the album to feature the band’s joyous surf boy harmonies – described by David Fricke of Rolling Stone as the sound of The Byrds singing through a sewer pipe. However, like the rest of the record it is the sound of Amercia’s greatest rock ‘n’ roll band having fun. Well, ain’t life grand when you finally hit it? Might as well Jump.
I could have picked any of the first four Van Halen albums but, in the end, I keep coming back to this one. I may have listened to Women and Children First as often as Physical Graffiti, my first review for this thread. VH have better selling and more iconic albums, not least their hugely influential debut. However, my first listen to WACF was so memorable. I can still recall bringing home the twelve incher and placing it on the deck in my room, putting on the headphones, dropping the needle to the groove and lying back to be truly astonished by what I heard. I played the record three times in quick succession (it’s not long), wondering how to describe the new songs to my friends later that evening, when we were off to see Pat Travers Band and Girl at the Apollo.
Talking of gigs, the 1980 Invasion Tour that supported the album arrived in the UK three months later. My best friends and I were fortunate enough to be able to attend four of the shows: Manchester Apollo, Leicester De Montfort Hall and both nights at the London Rainbow, which for me were the culmination of nine gigs in ten nights.
The lighting rig was so humungous that it could light up the sky. Easily the largest I had seen at that point: they didn’t have the option of using (the about to be invented) Vari-lites. The rig was so big that at De Monfort, where the stage is quite shallow, much of it was hanging over the audience. No wonder they chose to cover Jimmy Reed’s Bright Lights, Big City. The setlist also featured six of the nine tracks on WACF.
The album itself represented a progression for the band, after their debut’s heavy metal onslaught and it’s slightly lighter, more commercial sounding follow-up. The brilliant Ted Templeman and his able engineer Don Landee remained at the production helm. They chose to give the band a more sophisticated sound, but this was no Doobie Brothers’ record: the Van Halen brothers provided heavy duty riffs and beats, whilst Michael Anthony’s bass gained more prominence in the mix. Meanwhile David Lee Roth sang like a cross between Robert Plant and Al Jolson and truly brought his master of ceremonies schtick to the recording studio.
The disc opens not with the sound of a guitar being tortured by EVH but of a Wurlitzer electric piano being played through an MXR Flanger and 100-watt Marshall. And the Cradle Will Rock… was the first track to feature Eddie playing keyboards, a form of instrument that he was somewhat of a child prodigy on. His guitar work on this sorry tale of a wayward youth with poor grades provides colour rather driving the song; his guitar solo is short but spectacular, apparently inspired by Allan Holdsworth’s work.
On Everybody Wants Some!!, Alex Van Halen pounds the jungle drums and Diamond Dave talks dirty while Eddie and Mike explode around them.
Fools is the album’s longest track. On an extended intro, Eddie noodles, shreds and generally shows off before morphing the music into a juddering riff. DLR described the tune as a heavy-duty Broadway shuffle that sounds like the city streets at night.
Side one ends with show opener Romeo Delight - a pulsing hard rocker where Michael Anthony’s bass throbs like an idling dodge charger.
Tora Tora is basically a Sabbathesque intro to Loss of Control, which is VH’s version of speed metal.
Take Your Whiskey Home starts with some acoustic blues before turning into a midtempo rocker on which Alex stomps like Bonham and swings like Charlie Watts and Dave sips from a bottle of JD filled with iced tea.
Could This Be Magic? is essentially the album’s title track. It’s an acoustic folk foot-tapper laid down in one take that brings sunshine to a rainy day, with David on rhythm guitar and Edward using a bottleneck given to him by Ted Templeman just a few days earlier. Eddie had never previously played slide but still conjures up something to give Ry Cooder a run for his money.
In A Simple Rhyme closes the album in fine style. The track is not quite a simple as it might first appear. It’s one of the few songs on the album to feature the band’s joyous surf boy harmonies – described by David Fricke of Rolling Stone as the sound of The Byrds singing through a sewer pipe. However, like the rest of the record it is the sound of Amercia’s greatest rock ‘n’ roll band having fun. Well, ain’t life grand when you finally hit it? Might as well Jump.
RobMCFC
Well-Known Member
Nice. I'm not familiar with all of VH's work - I've got the best of (which features the excellent "And the cradle will rock") plus 1984, and I have listened to most of their early albums on Spotify. So I'll need a few spins of this to reacquaint myself with the songs.
IIRC, when we did the bands/artists poll, you said that your top 4 were locked in - now we've had Led Zeppelin, Kiss and Rush, I was 99% certain Van Halen were up next so I was able to zero in on the clues pretty quickly. Well done to @Coatigan for getting it.
OB1
Well-Known Member
Yeah, the band was not too difficult.
I reckon Foggy would have guessed.
BH should have got it, he has a list of my top 20 albums with this at number 2.
If I get invited to review again, the artist is not likely to be obvious.
BlueHammer85
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