Dave Grohl of Foo Fighters and Greg Kurtsin of The Bird and the Bee’s have shared night four of their Hanukkah-centric series of covers celebrating Jewish songwriters – Hanukkah Sessions. Watch Dave and Greg cover of Van Halen’s classic 80s track “Jump” as a tribute to David Lee Roth. Continue reading
Van Halen frontman David Lee Roth appeared as a guest this week on Marc Maron’s “WTF Podcast”. In a great and wide-ranging interview, Roth weighed in on many topics including the current state of affairs between himself and Eddie and Alex Van Halen. Notably, Roth commented that the band has “always hated each other” and rarely gotten along, even in the best of times. He expanded this by discussing the dynamic of the three leaders of the band, both historically before they worked together, right up to their very last tour together. He also mentioned recently performing a remix of ‘Jump’ at Pinkpop Festival with Armin Van Buren, and many stories from his life. Listen to the podcast below and read some quotes we transcribed. There has been much speculation that Van Halen would announce full reunion with bassist Michael Anthony to perform at festivals or tour dates this summer, but a published report revealed it was called off.Continue reading
The 1980s was a truly golden age for rock music. As a lot of the successful bands from 1970 transitioned to new era of music competing with heavier styles of rock, New Wave, Punk, Post-Punk and Pop music, many acts had to step up their game to stay alive. While some adapted to new sounds to stay a float and reach for ears and hits, others fell by the wayside. One band that managed to changed while keeping true to what made them great was Van Halen. As proved by their definitive work on 1984 (Warner Bros.), released thirty-five years ago on January 9th, 1984, the album would not only mark the final chapter (at the time) for the David Lee Roth led period of the group, but set a new bench mark for them at the same time.