No Filler Music Podcast - Dad Tunes: Van Halen

Episode Date: August 17, 2020

Everyone knows Van Halen: the finger-tapping, spandex-wearing, high-kicking glam metal band from the 80s that took the world by storm with some of the biggest hits in rock history. On this episode, we hope to share a few tracks that you may have overlooked if you tuned in to Halen for just the songs you heard on the radio (or saw on MTV for that matter). We also ask the age-old question of whether Van Halen truly is a metal band, and discuss the time we saw them in 2008 where we ultimately conclude that you really don't have to wear the spandex anymore David. Tracklist Van Halen - Runnin' With The Devil Van Halen - Loss of Control Queen - Stone Cold Crazy Pantera - Fucking Hostile Van Halen - Secrets Van Halen - Girl Gone Bad Led Zeppelin - The Song Remains The Same Hong Kong Express - Waiting Koi Child - Touch 'Em This show is part of the Pantheon Podcast network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Explore the new Peloton Cross-training Treadplus at OnePeloton.ca. For us, it's not an act. Dave, it's just as crazy offstage as he is on. A lot of people think that when they put on spandex pants and get some long hair and look good, that they can walk up on stage and play and be, quote, quote, rock stars.

We don't think of that at all. We enjoy what we're doing, and we're just happy that enough other people like what we're doing. And welcome to No Filler, the music podcast dedicated to sharing the often overlooked hidden gyms that fill the space between the singles on our favorite records. My name is Quentin. I've got my brother Travis with me, as always. And we're riding in the backseat of our dad's station wagon. buckled in.

And this time he's playing some Van Halen, dude. Yeah, and we, you know, we got our, we got our Tiger, Tiger Electronics handheld. Oh, nice callback, dude. Maybe Batman Returns or something like that, right? Yeah. Or some, what, I think, dude, I remember we had like a weird, like a baseball one too. Or like a double dragon, something like that, you know.

Yeah. That's what we're doing. We grew up in the 90s is what we're trying to. Yeah, the year would be, like, like, a baseball one, too. like 90, 91, 92, something like that. And our little ears are hearing what some people would call heavy metal. We're hearing, we're hearing it. Are we processing it? I don't know. But our ears are hearing the shred of Eddie's guitar solos. You know what I mean? Like I always think about that. If you're, if you're somebody who from our early age hears rock and roll music, I mean, that's got to leave an

imprint, right? Oh, yeah, dude. It's there somewhere in your psyche. Yeah. Of all the stuff that our dad listened to and still listens to, you know, the majority of it was that classic rock, yeah, rock and roll. And most of it was from the 70s. We're talking Led Zeppelin. Last week, we covered the cars and that was late eight, late 70s. And now we're just rolling straight through into the 80s, dude with some Van Halen. Well, the funny thing about my recollection of him playing Van Halen, it was typically 5150, which came out in 86. And it was a record of his.

Yeah, but I mean, we definitely, I definitely remember hearing, why can't this be love all the time. Oh, man, such a good song. All the time. Yeah, dude. I remember listening to Van Halen in our dad's music room more than anything else. And it was 515. Yeah. And we're not talking about that today.

No, we're not. We're not covering any songs from that album, aren't we? No, no, we're not. So here's what we decided to do. Nobody listening to this podcast needs a history lesson on who Van Halen is, right? What they contributed to the rock and roll landscape of the 80s, right? These guys were arguably the most successful, you know, rock stars of that era. You know what I mean? Like if you think of the term rock star, I think of Eddie or even David Lee Roth to some extent, right? Yeah.

Or, you know, just name any of those quote unquote, like for me at least, because I was a guitar player, was. I should say was. I don't, this thing just sits in the corner, dude. That's a damn shame, dude. But the guitar gods, right, Jimmy Page. Yeah. Eddie Van Halen is one of them. Tony I owe me a Black Sabbath, right?

But I guess what I'm saying is like, we don't need to go into who these guys are, give you a history lesson. There's plenty of other resources out there if you're one of the few people who don't know who Van Halen is. Again, I don't imagine if you're listening to this that you're like, who are they talking about? Van Halen. Not knowing who Van Halen is is the same as being like McDonald's, never heard of it. Right. Especially if you have paid any. attention to pop culture in the last few decades, right?

Yeah, because that's another thing. Van Halen finds a way into commercials, TV shows. Like, even if their name is just referenced, if not their name, then some of their music is going to find their way to movies, TVs. Exactly. So we're not going to, we decided, you know, obviously we're going to stay true to the format of this podcast and talk about some non-singles from Van Halen's. catalog. But I chose three records and chose, I mean, to me at least, these are records that I don't

have much familiarity with, except for the last one. So we're going to cover a track off of women and children first, came out in 1980, Diver Down came out in 1982 and 1984, which came out in 1984, of course. These are all David Lee Roth. Yes. Alms. And actually, let's name the roster off real quick, or at least the lineup as it was with the albums that were covering. Yeah. David Lee Roth on lead vocals, Michael Anthony on bass, and then you've got brothers Alex and Eddie Van Halen. Alex plays drums.

Eddie, of course, plays guitar. And that was Van Halen. Up until when did Sammy Hagar take over? He joined in bass. basically right after 84, 1984. I mean, because he was on 5150, which came out in 1986. Oh, yeah. So within that window, that span of time, you know, Sammy joins.

But yeah, it's just interesting to me. Whenever I think about Ben-Hillan, like I said earlier, like these guys were like the quintessential idea and like embodiment of rock star, you know? Dude, and I wanted to bring this up too. We kind of talked about this last week with our dad and the cars. Those like mega groups that were kind of just classically trained, seasoned musicians that would be pulled together from record labels. Like these bands were created to make money and make albums.

Van Halen, like, you said, they, they were the real deal and like the quintessential rock and roll story. They apparently played every night hours and hours and hours of sets promoting their own shows, uh, like just sweating it out for four years straight before they, they were discovered. And that's pretty cool, you know? So yeah, dude, like that's, that's the story, right? That's the dream. You start a, start a band with your friends and you put in the,

effort and all the hard work and you get discovered. And that that's what Van Halen did. I read here that one of the first shows that they put together and so they would rent out music halls and they would make their own flyers and just plaster the city with these flyers. And they'd always rent out music halls near high schools and colleges. And the first show that they put together in Southern California, they drew about 800 people. And then the last show, and he says this was about eight months ago, and this was from an interview back in 78, so right after, you know, around the same time that their debut record came out, that last, you know, self-promoted show that they put together, they drew 3,200 people with

just the flyers alone that they put out. It's pretty insane, right? 3,200 people. This was before they made it huge. Yeah, I mean, those days are over as far as, like, needing to make flyers, you know? Right. I mean, you don't, you just don't, it's called Twitter, you know. Right.

But, but no, I was speaking of that, that era, I'm reading here that this is kind of interesting. In 1977, according to an LA Times article entitled Homegrown Punk, somebody named Rodney Bingenheimer, saw Van Halen at the Gazari Club in summer of 76. and he took Gene Simmons of Kiss to see Van Halen and then Simmons then produced a Van Halen demo tape Yeah, I read that too. With recording,

beginning at the village recorder studios I don't know if I don't matter. So yeah, he wanted them to change the name to Daddy Longlegs. Who the fuck knows why? Daddy Longlegs. Maybe because Hagar,

or not Hagar, because Roth, maybe, maybe I don't know. Who knows? I mean, that's an awesome band name for one. Daddy long legs? Yeah, I love it. But, yeah, he says here that Simmons then opted out of further involvement after he took the demo to Kiss Management and was told that they had no chance of making it.

Jeez. Point were they wrong. Classic, dude. Classic story. Yeah. But anyway, that's just a random ass fucking little little story there that I read on the Wikipedia page. very easily, easily obtainable information here. That is the extent of the research that we've done for this.

Because Q, as we like to say sometimes around here, we're going to pull this one out of our ass. It's Van Halen. You know, what more do you need to know? Let's just play some tunes. Exactly. Let's get into it. We're not here to give you a history lesson on Van Halen. We're here to talk about, talk about music, basically.

Listen to some songs that you may not be familiar with if you're not a die-hard Van Halen fan. and I've only really tuned in to the hits, right? And I think a lot of people, it's probably safe to say that that is all they're familiar with, you know? Yeah. It's the mega massive hits that are everywhere. Totally. You know, so, all right.

So here's one thing I wanted to do, what I wanted to make sure I did. So for these three records, I want to give you the name of the singles on the record, right? Nice. Yeah, you know what, dude, we don't do that enough. We need to keep, we need to do more of that. We need to name off the singles. For the, you know, for the artists that we've been covering over the last few months, it didn't really matter. Oh, that's true.

Because you most likely, they mean that I've had singles number one or number two. Yeah. But with this particular record, which to me is kind of shocking because, at least with their first one, their first record, right? Which has... The self-titled 78. Yeah. That's got a ton of singles on it that came out of that. But this one only has one.

only has one single and it's called, and the cradle will rock with the B-side being, everybody wants some. So I'm not familiar with those two tracks, honestly. I probably would recognize it if I heard it, but I don't know it off the top of my head. I mean, I bet you would recognize it if you were someone paying attention to music in 1980. If you're, yeah, sure.

I mean, if you're a Van Halen fan, you probably know. So we're going to go to the B-side here. and we're going to listen to a song called Loss of Control. That song's fucking awesome, dude. Yeah, it's cool, man. It's a lot of fun. So the first thing that I thought of when I heard this song, and, you know, I heard it for the first time last week

when I was digging through these records to try to find cool tracks to bring, I thought of, and I want to play the song, dude, I can't help but think of the song, Stone Cold Crazy by Queen. Yeah, dude, I was just thinking that. Were you? Yes. I knew you were going to say that, man.

I feel like it's almost an homage to it, almost. Yeah, I'll play it real quick. Let's play. So 1974, Shear Heart Attack is the name of the record by Queen. The song is called Stone Cold Crazy. All right, let's listen to that real quick. It's cut from the same cloth. Yeah, I feel like metal bands do that, do a version of that song.

And I'm not talking about covers. because Metallica did actually cover that song on garage ink. But there's a song that I also think of that we're not going to play unless you want to, unless you want to get crazy and just play a bunch of songs that make me think of that. You're saying like maybe we should go Stone Cold Crazy? Yeah, I think we should go, we should have a loss of control here and just play a bunch of songs that I could think of. Because there's a Pantera song that I also think of, which is out of left field.

But I mean, why the hell not? What's it called? This one is called, if you pull up, I'm trying to think of the name of it. Fucking hostile is what it's called. Damn, dude, you don't have to be so fucking hostile. Jesus. But think about it. Like, the template is, I'm losing control.

I'm still in cold crazy. I'm fucking hostile. And they all have the same energy right out of the gate and very simple, like, you know, get to the, you know, whatever type of, whatever level of insane that you are, you know, that's the course, right? So let's listen to that just for fun. We're having fun. We're pulling this out of our ass.

I mean, seriously, though. Replace fucking hostile with Stone Cold Crazy. You can almost put the queen chorus right in there like, Stone Cold Crazy. Yeah. Fucking hostile. Yeah.

It's the template, right? a song, cliche almost, in the heavy metal, hard rock, you know, rule book or whatever, playbook. So let's talk about that, dude. All right. Is Van Halen metal? Yes. According to, you can't argue it, I guess, because.

Glam metal, glam rock. I mean, here's the thing. So, you know, when you listen to their first record, there are definitely moments of metal, right? Yeah. That's a fucking badass name of a documentary or something, moments of metal. You know, you listen to a song like Ain't Talking About Love. That guitar riff is very, very metal, you know, quote unquote metal. Yeah.

Running with the devil. I mean, there's the, there's Satan, you know, whenever he shows up, it must be metal, right? Obviously, Van Halen, you know, had their own, their own flair to it. right because that's the thing about metal metal is just as like varied and whatnot as other subgenres of other umbrellas of rock right but i mean yeah it's just it's like uh punk and email you know it's like you've got your pop you've got your pop punk and then you've got your hardcore punk so here's the thing they actually opened they being van helen they opened for black sabbath yeah that was their that was their first world tour yeah which is really really interesting because

it's almost like here's the uh here's the forefathers you know and here's like the here's another wave of it right here but i actually have a funny clip that kind of highlights exactly what we're talking about here where it's like the two the two sides of the coin i guess and um i have a quote from an interview i don't know when the interview happened but it was in the 90s 97 okay 97 um so this is a interview between eddie and Alex and um somebody named molly meldram interviewed him on the drum I don't know what that is. What was her last name?

Meldrum. Meldrum. Oh, I get it. There you go. Now, that's something clever. But they were just talking about a really, one of the, yeah, basically, it's not laughing at me. Basically, they're talking about the song, danced the night away and sort of acknowledging

that it's pretty cheesy, right? Especially when you're on stage after or before Sabbath, right? So you're playing to an audience of Sabbath fans and you're singing. a song called Dance the Night Away. So here's what Alex has to say about that. But you know what's funny? We played a gig once with, what was it, Black Sabbath? And I think Sammy was actually on that gig.

We parachuted into... Oh, and M Stadium. Stadium. And, you know, in a stadium, I mean, Sabbath music really works well in stadiums. I mean, it's got the balls. And here we are playing the dance tonight away. When is this song ever going to end? Now let's play faster.

Let's get the hell out of here. It just didn't end up, I don't know, I, I, I, I, there's one section that's, that's kind of hoon-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-ha. You know, I wanted it to be, you know, instead of the Spanish twist to it, this Latin feeling, this dancing. You have to remember though, you know, in the beginning, when you start out, there are other people, there are a lot of other people involved in making a record, you know, whether it's the producer or the record company. We want to involve this, we should do. Now, what's funny is they said that, Sammy was on that tour. So they must have toured with Sabbath years later, right? But anyway, guaranteed they played dance the night away when they toured with Sabbath. Well, depending on the

year that they toured with them back of the day. But anyway, I liked what Eddie said at the end there where he was like, you know, you have a bunch of different people involved with the making of a record. Oh, that was Alex talking there. Alex is on the right. That's right. That's right. And the early years. And so they weren't as involved as they should have been. Yeah. So we talk about that all the time, Right. But that to me, you know, kind of speaks to this. Like Dance the Nighterway was one of the singles. So, I mean, yeah, you got to make, if this is a metal band, you know, that's trying to have mass appeal, like, you're going to have to tame it down a little bit and make it more like palatable, you know, versus Sabbath was like singing about Satan and stuff. Right. It's singing about, well, I mean, dancing with the, running with the devil is about Satan too.

But, like, it's different. I mean, Sabbath is heavy metal, you know. Yeah. Like, what I love about the Wikipedia page, I like reading the genres that a band has on them, on their Wikipedia page because it lumps everything that they could, you know, any genre that's been placed on them, I feel like shows up on the Wikipedia page.

On Sabbath's Wikipedia page, it only says one genre, and it says heavy metal, right? when you go Halen, it's hard rock, heavy metal, and then like you said earlier, cube, glam metal, right? So that's what this was, right?

This was glam metal. This was, you know, the 80s. That's to me, it's like, if you only have one idea of what metal is in your head, then likely you wouldn't put Van Halen in that camp. No. But I think that's because of the theatrics and the cornyness.

and just the, I don't know, the packaged nature of it, you know. But the songs we're playing today, I think, are some of the exceptions, right? So yeah, that song was cool. That was called Loss of Control. It was on their 1980 record Women and Children first. So we're going to skip ahead a couple more records to Diver Down, which has a very cool, very, very, simple, minimal record cover.

I mean, it's a boating flag, right? Yeah, that's exactly. DiVer Down. So, 1982, and here are the singles on Diver Down. Okay. All right. Here's what's interesting about this record. This was kind of a, this is, this to me is so funny, dude. So five of the 12 songs on this record are cover songs. Oh, man.

Dude, they were all about that from the very big. beginning. Well, they have two covers on their on their debut. They do? Yeah. What? Uh, you really got me. That's a king's song. Oh, that's right. And, uh, ice cream man. Okay. So yeah, this has been part of their playbook. But yeah, so listen, what's funny to me is that straight up, this was a, a record label decision. So basically the record company, which at the time was Warner Brothers, the record company thought that it had a greater chance of a hit record if it was composed of songs that were already successful. Jesus, man.

It just sounds like the dumbest. Dude. Hey, I have an idea. Let's just, you know, here's how we guarantee a hit. We play a hit. Hey, man, you can't have a shitty record if you have nothing but covers on there.

If we add an already successful song to the record, it will guarantee become successful again. I mean, that's just stupid. I can see them saying that. to the boys in Van Helen, they're all just like, you know, blinking twice with like a blank stare like, are you fucking serious? So Eddie says it all right here.

This was a quote, you know, after the fact, right? I think this was a guitar player magazine interview or something like that. He says, I'd rather have a bomb with one of my own songs than a hit with someone else's. Thank you, brother. I love that shit.

Yeah. That's great. That's great. And yeah, that says it all right there because like if it's a bomb and it was one of our songs, at least we wrote it. You know what I mean? At least we learn something from it aside from like the obvious, you know? Yeah.

And that goes back to to their days when they were, you know, busting ass and throwing flyers out across the entire city trying to pull together a show, you know. Yeah. But that's how annoying is that? you're ready with your bandmates to make the next record and the label's like hey guys hey we're gonna need at least four covers on this one yeah hey cash cows can you can you can you guarantee some some money for us here we need this to be a hit our spandex budget is just through the roof we got to we got to sell some records and studio time doesn't grow on trees you know

no um so the five single or the five covers on this record were oh pretty woman by Roy Orbison, who we talked about last week when we talked about the origins of punk with our dad. Roy Orbison was brought up? Oh, I'm thinking of Buddy Holly. My bad. Yeah, wow. My bad. But they covered another King's song on here, where have all the good times gone?

Dancing in the Street by Marvin Gay. What are the other ones here? Let's see. Happy Trails. Really? Really? Yeah. Who thought that that would be a hit?

Happy Trails in 1982. And then the other cover on here was Big Bad Bill is Sweet William Now, a song that came out in 1924. Okay. Come on. They're just throwing stuff at the wall. All right. You know. Maybe they actually did put stuff up on the wall and throw things in it.

See what stuck. Obviously, that's what they did. With their eyes closed. Those were the only, those are the only singles that they released. So they didn't even release one of the original Van Halen tracks as a single. I mean, that's just, that's annoying to me, dude. But we're going to listen to one of the non-singles here. Yeah, I'm bummed out now.

So let's play an actual Van Halen tune. But hey, before we play that one, let's take a quick break. All right, so we're playing a non-single from Diver Down. So the name of this track is called Secrets. And I've got a little quote here from Dave. He says, the nucleus of the lyrics. come from greeting cards and get well cards that I bought in Albuquerque, New Mexico on the last tour.

And they were written in the style of American Indian poetry. And then he gives an example, Mayor Mockasson's leave happy tracks in the summer snows. And then Eddie says he used a Gibson doubleneck 12 string, the same model that Jimmy Page uses. And he played with a flat pick. The solo in Secrets was a first take. I kind of laid back and it fit the song. There you go. Cool.

So here we go. This song is called Secrets. I like that song a lot. A little different. Yeah. It's different. That's what I like about it. So, you know, like I said, when you think about Van Halen, you just, you think about that.

You think of the energy and the energy, the super hyper kind of stuff. Like the upbeat. Yeah. Very. Stadium rock. Yeah. You think of the. the hop for teacher and all that kind of corny stuff that they did.

So, like, it's nice to hear, you know, a little bit more kind of team. You know, he's using a 12-string guitar. So that's why it kind of like, you know, that kind of, I don't know, dude. It's got that more sort of like harp kind of sound to it, you know. No, it doesn't. I'm an idiot. I don't know what a fucking 12-string. Hold on.

mandolin no you know it's got a more like thicker what's cool about the cue is that the strings of the lower

four courses are tuned in octaves with those of the upper two courses tuned in unison that's why it has such a cool sound you know

yeah like we're supposed to like you just have that rattling around in your brain the neck is wider and so because of

neck is wider, it accommodates those extra strings, and it's similar to the width of a classical guitar. See, dude, you're talking like, I mean, the sound particularly, it has a fuller and more harmonically resonant sound than a six-string instrument. Yeah, dude, but they all knew that. Why are you getting into details? Everyone knew that. Oh, that's common knowledge.

Okay. What I'm trying to say is it has a different, you know, he's got, he's using an instrument that you're not going to hear on every inhale on track, right? There we go. And that's what makes it different. So, but it's really cool. And that wasn't, like you're saying, this is not the, like, testosterone-fueled kind of stuff that you're used to when you hear a Van Halen song.

No, it's not. All right. So, Kulah, let's hear the, let's hear the solo that he talked about. I think it's, I think it's about to happen. So let's jump right back in here and hear Eddie give us a little solo. Mr. One Take Eddie over here. Yeah, Mr. One Take. I think he does bust out his traditional guitar, electric guitar for this solo, if I remember correctly.

So here we go. I mean, it just came to me, you know, like, not really a big deal or anything. Yeah, he just laid back and it just came in. Whatever, dude. But no, here's the thing. When you listen to enough of his, like, if you're familiar with his technique, he does recycle a lot of the same. Diddies? Yeah, well, the same, like, the same tricks.

He's got his bag of tricks, and he goes back to it over and over again. So, like, with that in particular, he always does that, the pull on tap, the bend and tap. the bend and tap he does it all the time you know obviously he is he is famous for sort of like revolutionizing or at least making it making it as popular as it became the tapping technique that he blew everybody away with he didn't invent it but he he did not slapped his name on it pretty yeah yes and i think everybody remembers especially if you're a guitar player you remember the first time you heard eruption and just having your mind blown like where are these notes coming from you know yeah when you see him do it live yeah it's just you know and so he's widely considered to be

one of the greatest if not the greatest depending on the poll that you're looking at so in 2012 he was voted by the readers of guitar world magazine as the number one greatest guitar player of all time out of a hundred. So that is a huge deal, obviously. And in, I don't know what the year is, but Guitar World voted the guitar cell in eruption as number two on the 100-greatest guitar solo. Yeah, and Stairway was number one.

So, so, yeah, I mean, he's Eddie Van Halen. He's a guitar god, you know. He's one of those, you know, I actually, I don't know if I ever were told this story, but I had, I would rip pages out of Guitar World magazine and put it on the wall. And Eddie was one of the guitar players I had on the wall, along with Tony Iommi of Black Sabbath, probably Jimmy Page, you know. So like I was the, I didn't have anybody obscure on the wall, right?

Probably Kirk Hammett was on there too. But, but yeah, you know, if you're a guitar player, Eddie is up there, you know. Yeah, he's a living legend. Yeah. So anyway, yeah, I like that song. I thought that was kind of cool. But yeah, so let's just chug right along here, Q. Well, I hope you're bringing some more, some more heavy with this last one. I got to be honest with you, Q, I don't remember how this one sounds. So, cool. But we're going to jump to 1984. And we're going to talk about the record of the same name. The infamous angel child smoking cigarettes on the album cover.

Yes, that's right. So unlike the other records, the two records that we've talked about, this one had some pretty mega fucking hits, dude. Hot for Teacher is on this record. Panama is on this record. That's one of my favorite Panhandling. I love it. Yeah, Panama's great. Jump is on this record.

So this is when like Van Hanlon was maybe perhaps at their peak, you know. I feel like, so this is when they start to pull on some synthesizers. Yeah, you're right. This might have been when they started to do that. And we could be dead wrong about that. Yeah. But think about it, dude, this is right in the thick of it, 1984. Yes.

You know. No, I want to say just to just so we, you know, so we, we stop the haters before they. So we cover our ass. Okay. I'm pretty sure on the record. that came out before Divered Down, Fair Warning. I think that's when they started doing the synth stuff. Okay.

Here we go. You're right. I'm right. I read this correctly when I read the Wikipedia page a couple days ago. It says here, the most significant musical development on the record, Fair Warning, is the synthesizer introduced at the end, which would be exploited to greater effect on later albums. So there you go. Okay.

So they first toyed around with that in 1981 on Fair Warning. So yeah, that's kind of what's cool about Eddie is that, you know, he would do these really cool things on a synthesizer as well, you know what I mean, as the guitar. Like, I want to say, you know, there are certain tracks where he's only, he's only doing a synth, you know? I mean, dude, the synth riff on jump is just so iconic. Yeah, that's right. I mean, this guy's a fucking riff machine, you know?

Yeah. So yeah, let's listen to this track here. And what I have, what I've decided on using my very sophisticated method of just listening to the songs that weren't singles and determining which one I like the most is number track eight, which is the B side. And you know, it is relevant actually to say which side it was on because this is the 80s we're talking about. Okay. So things are still very much A and B side, right? Yeah, yeah. This song is called Girl Gone Bad.

You know, you talk about loss of control being like a tribute to Stone Cold Crazy. Dude, this is very much Led Zeppelin. I'm trying to think of what the song is off the top of my hand. You know, kind of the way that they had the long intro. Doom-da-dun-dun-do-do-do-da-oh. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, song remains the same. Yeah.

Let's play a little bit of it, shall we? Yeah, I think, yeah, I can hear it. So anytime that we have a song that we think of that's similar, I always Google the two song names to see what. If other people think then. What does the internet think about this? And so apparently there's a like a Van Halen forum out there called VHLinks.com and somebody posted a thread that says, hey, to me, these two songs are like one. Eddie and the boys made a Zeptoon number two. And other people are like,

I don't hear that at all, dummy. And then other people are like, yeah, I can hear that. So yeah, that's funny. Yeah, you can definitely hear the similarities. It was the John Bonham beat that I heard straight up. Yeah, yeah. From Alex there. Yeah, yeah.

Fun stuff, dude. Love it. Yeah. So I think that that song, too, showcased more of Eddie's guitar prowess there. Yeah. For sure. But anyway, yeah. Yeah, so what more is there to say about Van Halen besides a lot?

There's a lot to be said about these guys. One of our podcast network mates, we're part of a music network, a podcast network called Pantheon Podcasts. His name is Martin Popoff. We've mentioned him a couple times. He's actually written a book on Van Halen. So, yeah, sometimes we like to point people in the direction of this guy because he's kind of he's written books on basically. he's kind of a metal, heavy metal, hard rock professor.

Yeah, you can almost call him an expert. He's been, you know, he's been cited on Wikipedia page. I think we were talking about Metallica and Ride the Lightning. And I was just going down the Wikipedia page and there's Martin Popoff, you know, there's a quote from him. A scholarly metalhead. Yes. And that's what we like to say.

Like you and IQ, we're not scholars. We're not critics, although we can be very critical sometimes. We're not historians. We're just big fans of music and like to talk about music. But if you want to learn more and, you know, dive into, you know, the history of a band and whatnot, there's probably a podcast on our network that is going to dive into some more of that stuff. And this guy, Martin Popoff, he has a podcast on the network called History in Five Songs. I bet you he's got some episodes on Van Halen.

not to say that, you know, maybe you don't need to hear anymore than what we just provided. But if you want to dive deeper, we would direct you to our network that we're a part of Pantheon podcast. We could do another whole other episode on these guys. We could do two or three more episodes. We could pick an album and actually talk about it. We can go into the Sammy Hagar years. Yes, we could.

And maybe one day we will. But right now we're not going to do that. Not today. But hey, man, good picks, dude. I enjoyed all three of those. Thank you. Yes. So yeah, that's that. This is our second stop in the station wagon of listening to some dad tunes. These are bands that our dad played heavily just in the background of our youth, you know. And what's our next stop, Q? Do we have our next stop picked out yet? Well, oh man, I don't know, dude. It's got to be, you know what, let's change it up. Let's get out of the, let's get out of the, let's get out of the,

The classic rock. Okay. And maybe let's do some, uh, shit, man. Let's do, let's do, uh, Gino Vanelli next. Okay. That would be fun. I like how you're pretending like we haven't mapped this out already. Well, is that actually next?

No, I think we were probably going to do like Boston next or something like that, not to tease another episode. I want to do, let's do Gino Vannelly next, man. Okay, I'm fine with that. So, Gino Vanelli. Oh, dude, I can't wait. I think that's going to be a left fielder for sure. Yeah. But honestly, you know, kind of like I was saying earlier, where like if I, if I as a child

heard Van Halen in my little, you know, budding music fan, like music lover ears, I also heard a lot of Gino Vanelli. And so when he mixed those two together, it explains a lot why some of the bands that appeal to me now, you know, you can almost trace back to Gino, you know? Yeah, absolutely. And at our father's request, we were going to cover his third album from 1975 called Storm at Sunup. Yes. And I'm excited because all these songs are going to be new to me. I'm really familiar with brother to brother. That whole album's fantastic. That was a few albums later. But yeah, this is going to be new for us. And maybe we'll try and get him, we'll pull him back in for this one.

Well, I was going to say, at the very least, I just want to ask him, even if we don't have his, voice on the pod. I just want to ask him, like, how does one stumble upon a Gino Vanelli? How do you, how? Well, he was a mega star, dude. But was he, though? I mean, compared to. I don't know, dude, I don't know what I'm talking about, man.

This is just, you don't want to talk about like two sides of, no, it's not even the same coin or the same building, you know. No, and this, and this is coming alongside, you know, leading up to the cars in Van Halen, and this is 1975, this album we're talking about. Yeah. You know, brother to brother came out in 78, the same year that Cars and Van Halen's first saw him come out. Yeah.

But before this, you've got Zeppelin and Sabbath have already happened and all the other heavy hard rock bands. So it's not like this is predates any of that. This is all happening at the same time, which is why the 70s are so interesting. Yeah. You know. So what would you classify as music as jazz? Definitely heavy jazz fusion.

Disco? No, no disco. Nah, I did. I don't know what you call him. light rock. Yeah, I guess. We'll get into that next week. Yeah.

All right. All right, Q. So that's that. That's Van Halen. That's three songs you may not have heard, hopefully. But again, there's nothing. We don't need to tell you much about those guys. It's Van Halen.

So yeah, let's do our weekly segment here. This is our What You Heard segment is what we like to call it, where Q and I both bring. two songs that we've heard over the last last time we talked. And the funny thing, this is our first episode with just the two of us, Q, in what seems like forever. Yeah. But it's only been two weeks to the listeners. So I'm excited here to bring this one to the table queue.

So you want me to go first? Absolutely. All right. So I kind of mentioned this to you in passing yesterday. day, maybe the day before. I fell into the vapor wave rabbit hole. Yes. And you can fall into there. Which it's about time, dude. Yeah.

I clawed my way out of that hole maybe like four years ago. So here's the thing, though. I, to me, and maybe EQ, if you were in that hole, maybe you could tell me if I'm off on this. But I feel like this particular artist is bringing something a little bit different to the vapor wave table. So he is a, he's one of those artists that has a bunch of different aliases.

Oh, yeah. That's one of the things about vapor wave, dude. Chances are it's like one of two people. Everything they're here. I'm serious, dude. All right. So maybe you're familiar with this. I'm kind of serious.

I don't know for sure. Okay. I'm familiar with Macintosh Plus. Yes. Right, right, right. Yeah, I'm familiar with that too. this guy he goes by Hong Kong Express that's one of his aliases okay sometimes he also goes by H-K-E and when you look at yeah you're familiar with that yeah yeah good stuff really atmospheric

yes and that's what I liked about it because you know to me vapor wave the the dime a dozen vapor wave song that's out there or artist you know know they all sound kind of very similar and there's nothing to me about the music that takes itself very seriously so i i was i thought you were talking about a different artist because the album art and vibes are very similar but i'm thinking of an artist uh it goes by 2814 or it might be 2814 the numbers are all have have spacing between them but it's the same it's the same guy same guy Okay. Well, it's him with another guy.

2814 is a collaboration between Hong Kong Express and another vapor wave artist that goes by telepath. Okay. Well, yeah, some of that stuff is just phenomenal. Yes. And I listened to that record yesterday, actually, the 2814. So anyway, here is a track off of Hong Kong Express. his record that came out in 2016. It's self-titled, actually.

Dude, there's one from this year, man. We should give him a listen. It's also really good. I'm going to add that to our 2020 favorites list, Q. Cool, cool. But we're going to listen to a track called Watching. I could listen to stuff like that all day long, dude. Well, look, man, I'm all about it, but now here comes a whole conversation, dude.

what the hell makes a song a vapor wave song? Not that. There's nothing about that to me that says vapor wave. But that's, again, that's why I like this guy because there are elements of vapor wave on the record. Okay. But he also mixes in almost,

that's a down-tipo song almost. Yeah, that's what I was going to say, dude. With the elements of like the jazz elements. Yeah. Like the repetitive kind of looping. Yeah.

But I like the, I like the aesthetic of Yeah Just you know When you look at the album cover A lot of times There's this There's this thing with vapor wave

And an obsession with I mean his name is Hong Kong Express For grind out of love Japanese script Yes and it's kind of like A nod to Blade Runner right Yeah but then on the other side Dude you've got

You know like Macintosh And that other side of vapor wave Where the whole aesthetic is Like neon color Like Windows 95 Windows 98, clip art kind of stuff. Right. But there's something with sort of this imagery of like a neon city at night, you know?

Yeah. Where it is in the future, it's a neo future kind of thing. Yeah, 2814 has got that vibe. Yeah. And it matches the mood of the music really well. Exactly. And that's what I like about it. It's a mood.

And this whole record, this self-titled record by Hong Kong Express is a, I don't know, the proper term is for it, but it's, it transitions from song to song. So it's, it, there is no lull in the music, you know? You push play on track one and it just goes track to track. Something else that I like and appreciate. I love it when artists do this kind of stuff. Because he's, he's speaking to his listeners. The last track on his record that came out previous to this one, the last track is called 2048. The first track on the self-title record is called 2049. I like that kind of shit. I like that it's, hey, this is a continuation. You know what I mean? Yeah. I just eat that shit up. Anyway, so we'll see how long I hang out in this vapor wave

hole that I fell into, but probably not very long. It's one of those things where you, you know, you get it pretty quickly and then like you move on. You know what I mean? Oh yeah. But I appreciate it. And this guy in particular has a wide variety of sounds that he brings at the table. especially on his new record that came out. He actually put out a record in April. So anyway, that's Hong Kong Express. And I'm going to throw it over to you, Q. What do you got for me?

I got something special, dude. This is one of those bands that I totally missed, and they're not even together anymore. This is a band out of Perth, Western Australia, a band called Koi Child. They're actually a combination of two bands, Kashi Koi. and Childs play.

Coy Child. And man, this, so they only have one album released. It's a self-title. It came out in 2016. Guess who recorded Mix and produced it? Who? Mr. Kevin Parker. Okay.

Of course. Of Tim O'Pala. Kind of like that discussion we had with Mark, you know, there's a community. Australia. Yeah, their community in Australia. And it's just kind of blowing up right now. So this is a hip-hop. bands and it's a it's a full band it's it's like it's like a jazz hip hop band just this album just blew me

away i heard it a couple days ago uh so again they they've just they've since disbanded so they had the one album came out in 2016 we're going to play track three off this record it's called touchum yeah you thought that was it louder than the barn to fix you i put the cool brakes Sweet shit and drew. I'll tell you that It's part of the edge Queach cow broke the least like liquor Lightning would have done it much quicker

If you let it want what you think In child if you're knocking on the aisle You can't buy this move it to the Yeah, I'll tell you who that reminds me of a cue Antibalas Yeah man Just what a solid fucking backing band dude Man it's like

There needs to be more hip hop With like a full band behind it Because it just brings this whole other energy to it But I mean, it's almost, it's like, you know, with hip hop, it's a lot of times it's heavily, you know, mostly sample based music. Like this is just a backing band with the chops to like pull it off live, you know. Yeah. No, definitely. I mean, that's, I mean, that's, that's the ultimate question, Q is when are we going to do some hip hop on this podcast?

We did one, one episode. We did, um, tribe called Quest. seems like forever ago. Yeah, that was a long time. And we talked about, you know, one of these days, we'll do a batch of episodes on hip hop. Yeah, we keep saying that. Yeah, we'll do it eventually,

but dad, our father, did not listen to hip hop. I'll just say that. Not at all, dude. Yeah. He never will. Never. Likely never will.

All right, so. So, yeah, man, that was a really, really great album. And, yeah, I guess, My guess is all these members are probably, probably have tons of stuff going on all the time in other bands and other projects. So it's no wonder that this was a one and done kind of thing. But yeah, man, I had this similar feeling like when I finished the last episode of Freaks and Geeks,

you know, I'm like, I got to have more of this. Yeah. Why isn't there more of this? That's funny that you mentioned freaks and geeks. Because I have similar to thoughts when I get to the end, the last episode.

But then I also say to my. myself, I'm glad it didn't go further than this because they wrapped it up in a perfect way. Yeah. They didn't leave a teaser. You know, they kind of ended it perfectly. They did. But yeah, so again, that was Toucham, track three off of Kua Child's one and only self-titled record from 2016. All right, so that's that, man.

Yeah, that was fun. It was fun, Van Halen. Van Halen, I mean, it was bound to be a fun episode. It's Van Halen, you know? It's nothing but fun with Van Halen. And now, Q, and this is a weird time to bring this up. But you remember when we saw them? We saw them with Mitchell, actually.

I would like to forget that, dude. Yeah, well, that's the thing. Terrible show. So. Terrible. It was, it was Van Halen in probably like 2000, I don't know, seven, 2007, 2008 maybe. Yeah.

So it was exactly what you'd do. expect, I guess, for... Now, was that when David Lee Roth came? Yes. So it was David Lee Roth. He reunited. Yes. And it was, I think Eddie's son or something like that was the bass player.

The bass player. Wolfgang, his name is. But, yeah, the reason that we joked that it was a terrible, horrible concert is because David Lee Roth just doesn't... It's like you don't have to put on the... leather pants, dude. You don't have to do that. Yeah. Yeah. Like, we get it. Like, hey, I'm, hey, remember me? Ha, cha, cha, cha, you know. And he's up there, like, he's bouncing around on a, on a blow-up microphone and stuff. It's like, dude, you don't have to do that. We're here for the

songs. But I mean, I guess that's a thing. Especially when, you know, Eddie and Alex are just dressed in, and clothes that are appropriate. Yes. For their age. Yeah. Exactly. And they're, you know, Well, just they just look like they're, yeah, they're just wearing whatever the fuck they want to wear. That's the thing. Like, we've got, their respect is there, you know. We're here to see you play. You don't have to put on it. No.

You don't have to do what you were doing in 78. But that's the thing. I mean, maybe in his head or their agent or their label or whatever, they probably think, well, we got to give the people what they want. And maybe the people that came and saw us in the 80s would like to see you bounce around on this microphone. So. Yeah. get to bouncing. You know, it's just like, man, come on.

Yeah. You know, but whatever. I think what I enjoyed about it was seeing, and I think this is something that Eddie's been doing for forever, is, you know, he has his moment when he just does his solo guitar stuff for 10 minutes or whatever, maybe longer than that. But all right, Q, that's why we didn't bring that up because, you know. Well, we did.

There's no need, other than just to make fun of David Lee Roth. Yeah. Just cashing in, you know. Yeah, that's bad. Anyway, if you're a diehard fan of Van Halen, you probably didn't appreciate that, but here we are. So next week, we're going to take a left turn. Still going to be in the backseat of the station wagon, but we're going to listen to a different style than perhaps than we've ever played on this podcast before, Q. Well, this is more in the like, shoday vein.

Maybe. But yeah, I am curious to get to dive deep, as deep as we feel like. with Mr. Gino Vinelli. So that's coming up next week for the, you know, three people listening that know who that is, you're going to be excited. You might be totally wrong on that, man. Maybe, but any time I bring up Gino Vinelli to people,

they're like, who? Well, who are you talking to people who are age? Yeah, I know. But I'm just saying if I said, hey, Van Halen, they'd be like, oh, yeah, I know of Van Hales. Of course they would. Sure, sure, sure. So this is more obscure.

But anyway, that's that. So you can find us on our website, no filler podcast.com. you can find all of our previous episodes and a show notes page for each episode where we list out the track list. So that's every song that was played, including our What You Heard's. And we have a What You Heard Spotify playlist that I'm not sure if we've actually been keeping up with. Oh, I've been doing it. Okay, cool.

Don't you worry about that. So if you search No Filler in Spotify, you'll find it. It's one of a few playlists that we have available. we also have our best of 2019 I think or best of best of the last decade I think we have that playlist on there too yeah that you should be able to find that one too yeah it was uh no filler's 100 favorites from the 20 the 2010s there you go yeah yeah if you search the word no filler you'll you'll find it along with some 41's great album no filler or what all killer no filler you'll probably see that at the number one you'll just have to scroll down a little bit I swear if you search it

you'll find it. Yeah, you got to look for playlists. Yes. And you can also find us on the network that I mentioned earlier. It's pantheonpodcast.com where you will find plenty of other great music-themed, music-centric podcasts, including the one that I named, dropped earlier, History in Five Songs by Martin Popoff. The reason he's relevant, because I guarantee you he's done a lot of episodes on Van Halen, If you want more podcast content on Van Halen, you can probably find it on his channel.

Anyway, that's that. My name is Travis. And my name's Quentin. And we'll talk to you all next week. Simons has your holiday outfits sorted. Be ready to wow in a wardrobe designed to celebrate the season. Revel in luxurious velvet, shimmering satin, elegant silhouettes and sparkling details. Whether you're going full glam or keeping a casual, you're sure to shine bright in our festive party wear.

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