January 27, 2012 Snippets from the entire album leaked today. It's hard to tell what's really going on in some of them, but we can tell that two of the songs were definitely based on old demos. Outta Space is based on Let's Get Rockin' and Big River is based on Big Trouble.
Update: An iTunes preview of the song Beats Workin' reveals that the song is based on the unreleased song Put Out the Lights. (via @vhlinksdotcom)
January 25, 2012 Rolling Stone released 90-seconds of a new song today, Blood and Fire. Here's what we know...
The song first appeared in the score for the movie, The Wild Life. The Van Halen News Desk says the song in the score is the same song as Ripley, an unreleased tune from the 1984 sessions, recorded with a Ripley guitar (a guitar capable of panning each string to the right or left in a stereo recording). We're just going to take their word for that, because the band has never acknowledged (publicly) that Ripley was used for the movie and the title Ripley does not appear in the credits for the movie. It does sound similar to Top Jimmy, however, which was also recorded on a Ripley guitar.
The intro also seems to have a bit of No More Waiting (or Take Me Back as it later became).
January 22, 2012 Mike Wood sent in a new date for the Invasion Tour. He has a ticket stub and some great memories of a 11/06/80 show in South Bend, IN. Ramon Tripp also provided a ticket stub for the 05/08/80 show in New Haven, CT. The entry was also updated with the inclusion of Alex's drum kit from the tour in the Rock Hall of Fame.
The Everybody Wants Some!! entry was updated with new links and the appearance of the song in the movie Zombieland.
The On Fire entry was updated with info about Stryper's 2011 cover of the song.
The (Oh) Pretty Woman entry was updated with references to Pete Angelus's interview in the book, MTV Ruled the World.
The Jump entry was updated to include the contraversial banning of the song from the DVD and U.S. versions of the Ricky Gervais show, An Idiot Abroad.
The Hot for Teacher entry was updated with the Glee episode covering the song.
The 1984 entry was updated with the true story of the cover image relayed by the artist.
Time's a Waste entry was added. I'm not sure if it qualifies as a full, unreleased song, but fan lore says it does.
January 10, 2012 Today, Van Halen released the Tattoo single and video.
I loved Down in Flames. It's one of my favorite unreleased songs. And Tattoo sounds exactly like what I would expect a modern Van Halen interpretation of the Down in Flames might sound like with the band's more mature personalities. Whether that speaks to you, is a matter of opinion. I prefer Down in Flames, but it would be hard to pull off today without Mike's vocals.
Here's what isn't a matter of opinion:
Van Halen should not be making cheap videos like this. How is it that no one spoke up and said, "This is the kind of video old rock bands make. You guys are one of the best live acts the rock world has ever known. Let's just show 'em the a live performance of the song. Simple. Raw. Van Halen." It worked for Unchained 30 years ago and it would work today (we've all seen the Cafe Wha? show).
Even if they didn't agree and wanted to make a more flashy video, this still misses the mark by a mile. Many modern rock (mostly metal) bands with much smaller budgets are churning out great videos these days with the help of up-and-coming directors and student film crews. Tattoo looks like a "friend of a friend" did it.
Van Halen is notoriously bad at picking the best first single for their albums and their videos (for the last 20 or so years) have not been good representations of the songs. So, if Tattoo isn't your favorite, don't worry. There's a lot to look forward to in February. I can't wait to hear the rest.
January 6, 2012 The new single from Van Halen has its origins in Down in Flames, one of my favorite unrelease songs. Read up on Down in Flames.
May 12, 2011 Added 05/03/80 tour date based on ticket stub provided by a reader.
Added the working title of Sinner's Swing based on this article.
March 29, 2011 While the press focuses on Sammy's alien abduction story and the sex tents under the For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge Tour stage, I'm focusing on the stuff that never appeared in the Van Halen Encyclopedia, because I either didn't know about it or didn't have a source to confirm it.
Here's a few things I'll be updating the site with that were news to me:
December 11, 2010