The Counterforce No. 52
Alex Van Halen, Nöthin' But A Good Time, Fightmilk, (Record) Thieves Like Us
I LOVED Alex Van Halen’s memoir, Brothers. Listened to the audiobook, which he reads himself, and, oh man, it is great. It completely changed my opinion of the man too. You see, I never really understood AVH and always thought he came across as arrogant, this largely gleaned from photos of him and having read an early version of Sammy Hagar’s autobiography that got leaked. But I mean he was in one of the biggest bands in the world in the 80s, of course he was going to be a bit arrogant. His telling of his life story though, he really stresses how they were musicians first and just how hard they worked. As Edward - and it’s definitely Edward, or Ed, now, no ‘Eddie’ as was made clear how much EVH disliked being called that - but as Edward once said ‘I’m a musician, Dave’s a rock star’. And it must be said, Alex is very fair to Dave. Singing his praises a lot of the time, and giving him credit for his lyrics. Ted Templeman pointed out Dave’s lyrics in his book too and they’re definitely right. Most lyrics, especially in hard rock, are pretty vapid, but Dave’s were always interesting, not easy boring rhymes. I've never understood what Sammy Hagar’s problem was with the Jump lyrics, why he wouldn’t sing it on that first tour, for I can’t think of a single Hagar lyric that has anything to it at all. Sammy only gets mentioned twice, I think, in the whole book, and in passing at that. The story ends when Dave leaves the band. And Alex goes into how heartbreaking that all was, right at the summit of what they’d worked so hard for for a decade together. The title Brothers seeming to stretch to encompass Dave in there too. But, of course, the real focus of the book is Ed. And I had tears in my eyes at the end of it. The whole thing is a lovely tribute to Al’s musical genius brother.
The book is written with wisdom and humor, constantly extolling the importance of music, and filled with a deep sense of feeling for all whom were with the band along the way. There are lots of ‘see you on the other side’s. Writing about how they grew up in Holland before moving to Pasadena at ages 9 and 7, he says ‘Northern Europe is relentlessly grey.’ And this struck me. Most people associate them with being a California party band. But I think those grey beginnings are part of what attracted me to their sound. For there was always a darkness to the music. I was put in mind of the relentless grey of the Manchester bands, Joy Division especially, what can’t help but seep into the music, and it’s there too in the Van Halen DNA. That mixed with the California sunshine made for a unique sound indeed.
Alex quotes Nietzsche, Huxley, and others, and I was surprised to learn he’s so well read. The book is very quote-heavy otherwise too, referencing things written about Van Halen, especially by those with books out - Noel Monk and Ted Templeman, and primarily David Lee Roth. And then Alex commenting on these quotes. I involuntarily laughed out loud when he quotes Dave saying that the ‘Van Halen brothers would just stand there like the guys in Nirvana on stage’ and Alex retorts ‘in our defence Nirvana were a great band and extremely successful’. I love the story too about him buying his first drum kit for $1000 and paying in one dollar bills. He’d been working a job for a dollar an hour and each bill represented an hour of his life he was exchanging for that kit.
When I said earlier that I never understood Alex Van Halen, I very much meant his drumming. He doesn’t sound like anybody else. Which is a great thing. But it took me years to get used to. He talks about locking in with his brother a lot, following what Edward was doing on guitar. And to me nowhere is that more apparent than on the song 5150, a very underrated tune. The guitar riff is killer, one of the great rock riffs, so damn catchy, and the drumming is incredible on that one
Alex references Nöthin’ But A Good Time a lot in his book - and yes, that is an extraneous umlaut in the title - so I decided to give it a go when I finished Brothers. So glad I did too. I grew up with all that stuff so it’s very much a part of me. That said, when it got to the late 80s and I tried to go listen to some of the songs I had missed or didn’t remember too well, I shut almost all of them off after the first chorus realizing very definitely that I’d rather be listening to Wire. It’s a great oral history though. The work ethic of those bands was insane, very admirable. No matter what you think of the music or if they were any good or could even play their instruments, they went out and made it happen. I always felt I had that energy and drive when I was younger when it came to music, but I didn’t know what to do with it, how to direct that passion and make things happen, and this has always been a great regret of mine.
I do still listen to some of that stuff though. I’ve always thought Too Fast For Love was the last great glam album. Mötley’s sound changed after that. Toast Of The Town from their first 7” is an ace tune, arguably my favourite song of theirs
Ever since it’s release, I have loved Kix’s Cold Blood. Great AC/DC-esque verse riff and a huge pop chorus
And Poison’s Talk Dirty To Me still makes playlists of mine. Just a great pop tune. I love how, despite the title, there is absolutely nothing sexy about it.
A great memory has been popping up lately, a party in North London around 2010. There was an acoustic guitar in the living room and a few singalongs took place over the course of the night. But at one point after this had died down, Jim Rhesus picked up the guitar and started blasting out some tunes. Within a few songs, he launched into Poison’s Fallen Angel and it made me incredibly happy. I loved that song when it came out and to hear it here, across an ocean, over twenty years later was fantastic. And what happened next was even better. Also from out of nowhere, Jim went into Without A Trace by Soul Asylum, an album cut from Grave Dancers Union that has always had a special place in my heart. My jaw dropped. I didn’t think anyone else was even aware of this song, and always had the impression that the Brits only knew Runaway Train. Well, I joined right in with Jim and we blissfully belted out the whole thing together. This remains one of my favourite musical memories. Because really that is what music is all about, a joyous connection between people. And how awesome is it when you find others who also share deep feelings about songs you spent your teenage years listening to alone in your room?
Speaking of which, Shelly Bond sent me her (Record) Thieves Like Us book this week and it’s freaking great. You should all buy it, it’s only 10 bucks.
It’s basically the 20 Albums That Changed My Life pandemic meme written up and put into a lovely book with illustrations by ArtByLid. Shelly doesn’t so much go into the records as such but rather her own personal connection with artist and album. Which I think is great. Again, it’s about our relationship with these songs and bands that matters, that we have intense feelings about them. If you love something it comes across. I can listen to people - and especially Hanif Abdurraqib - go on about artists that have really never done much for me and get a whole new appreciation for them, even if I’m not going to listen to their records afterwards. But I love hearing/reading about that power. It helps here that in Shelly’s book, it’s artists such as Bowie, Bauhaus, Love & Rockets, Suede, and The Cure. Like I said, pick it up. I’m tempted to do one of these myself. Rick Webb once told me people should make these Top 20 lists every so often and that over time a definitive list will begin to emerge. And I have, sporadically over the years. Checking those lists now, it’s interesting to see what has dropped by the wayside and what has stayed - Afghan Whigs’ Black Love, Van Halen’s 1984, Suede’s Dog Man Star, Dolly Mixture’s The Demonstration Tapes…
Fightmilk released their third record on Friday, No Souvenirs, and I’d advise you to get on that as well. I haven’t spent enough time with it to offer up a proper review but what did occur to me is that I love how Fightmilk’s singles are never necessarily the strongest song on the album, rather they point to how strong the album is as a whole. And I have just been loving Banger #7
My first thought upon hearing the record was ‘This is unabashedly ROCK’, but maybe the ‘bash’ was coming from the fact that they sound like they’re playing the hell out of their instruments. This will definitely be getting more time on my stereo and is certain to be in my Top 3 Records Of The Year.
Fightmilk having a new record out actually inspired me to restart my Etcetera ETC podcast, dormant since late 2021. But there are too many cool things happening in the world, and I want to talk to the cool people making these cool things. Fingers crossed, Fightmilk will be on before the year is through. But the reboot began on Thursday, talking to fellow Sagging Meniscus author, John Patrick Higgins. A very funny man, I mentioned his Teeth earlier this year, and his first novel Fine has just been released this month. Feast your ears here as we talk about The Smiths, P.G. Wodehouse, David Coverdale, and of course writing:
I was on TV again on Wednesday. NBC too, which is pretty rad. CT Live! talking about Sporting Moustaches and how we’re donating a dollar from every book in November to the Movember charity to raise funds and awareness for men’s health issues such as mental health, prostate and testicular cancer. Buy the book wherever you get books, from bookshop.org here or a signed copy from me here. If you’d like to help out, it’s a good cause, and would be much appreciated, we’re still in low single figures this month.
Also got a great review in The Daily Nutmeg. I loved the review title ‘Hair Of The Aug’ and this was awesome:
Such is the density of wordplay Stone employs to keep readers delighted and surprised. His approach prompts thoughts of Nikolai Gogol’s absurdist short story “The Nose,” while his sly nods to cultural touchstones as varied as Back to the Future and Bela Lugosi add modernist ridiculousness in the best of ways.
In Sporting Moustaches, there are no appearances from famously moustachioed real-life athletes like Rollie Fingers, Mike Ditka or Dale Earnhardt Sr. (though in “Cracking Up,” a story about a figure skating dynamo so furry as to be “bear-like,” the mention of an Austrian town called Spitz made this reader think of Olympic champion Mark Spitz’s famously hairy upper lip; maybe that was the point). But the creative athleticism required to knit together this many hirsute sports yarns would have made them proud.
Alas these did nothing to bring people out to the events this weekend, where I was to be donating 50% of the sales to Movember. Despite my best efforts, sales were incredibly low at the signing on Saturday to the point where Sunday morning and afternoon I spent a lot of time debating whether or not I want to continue doing this. Not the creative stuff of course, I’ll always have a hand in that. But the trying to get it out into the world in the hopes it might resonate with people, that I might be able to go places and perform, which is what I truly love doing. I’ve been trying for 30 years now to very little success. In fact now it seems that it’s even gone backwards as I keep thinking that 15 years ago I was living in London, making music and writing and though I was facing the same challenges, at least I was where I wanted to be, surrounded by great friends. I had to put this all aside to go to the reading and resigned myself to the fact that I had a very funny talk planned, I was well-rehearsed, and I was going to entertain no matter how many people showed up. And then no one did.