Smashing Pumpkins’ Billy Corgan Announces 10 New Albums (Story from alternativenation.net)
Merry Christmas from Santa Corgan! Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan has announced that he is currently working on 10 albums. On the docket for 2019 are: a two part solo album, Smashing Pumpkins’ new album Shiny and Oh So Bright Vol. 2, The Smashing Pumpkins Christmas album, and the MACHINA reissue. Corgan is also working on a Zwan reissue, a Spun soundtrack reissue, The Future Embrace reissue, his unreleased solo album ChicagoKid, and a best of Smashing Pumpkins album. If you’re a fan of William Patrick Corgan, there is plenty to look forward to.
A fan asked Corgan on Instagram, “2019: solo LP, SAOSB vol 2, Christmas LP, Machina reissue. Anything else in the works?”
Corgan responded, “Also preparing future reissues like Zwan and Spun songs and The Future Embrace, oh, and ChicagoKid and an SP best of for 2020.”
In the last year, Corgan released a new solo album titled Ogilala in 2017, and a new Smashing Pumpkins album Shiny and Oh So Bright Vol. 1/LP: No Past. No Future. No Sun.last month. The Smashing Pumpkins are set to tour in Europe next summer, their first extended run of European shows with Billy Corgan, James Iha, and Jimmy Chamberlin playing together since 2000.
Corgan is currently demoing Smashing Pumpkins Christmas songs, and he will begin writing Shiny and Oh So Bright Vol. 2 on January 6, 2019. Corgan is talking to Jimmy Chamberlin about recording drums for The Smashing Pumpkins Christmas album in March. The Christmas album will feature 12 songs, including a few originals.
Marilyn Manson is selling a dildo with his face on it
The hypoallergenic masterpiece is currently on sale in his official store
On Thursday night, Manson announced via Instagram that he’s selling an officially licensed, black silicone dildo, which stands 8″ tall, has a solid 1.5″ girth, and even contains a handy sucker base. Hell, it’s even hypoallergenic.
Hear Cake’s First New Song in Seven Years, ‘Sinking Ship’
Alt-rock band paired track with bleak claymation video
Cake lament a self-inflicted apocalypse on their first new song in seven years, “Sinking Ship.” The alt-rockers churn up a signature groove built on grimy electric guitar, funky bass, carnivalesque organ and sighing trumpet, as frontman John McCrea observes a society crumbing in real-time.
“And if you’re people are the best, tell me why are you wearing a vest?” he sings. “This investigation into disinformation keeps putting everyone to the test/ So now we are getting drunk; what was sinking now is sunk/ And everything we were just trying to save is now vanishing under the waves.”
They paired the track with a stunning claymation video full of war scenes and deception, seemingly satirizing the public’s thirst for conflict and tragedy.
“Sinking Ship,” which will be available on seven-inch vinyl, is the band’s first song since their chart-topping 2011 album, Showroom of Compassion. The new single, which benefits non-profit organization Doctors Without Borders, is the first installment in a series of physical and digital releases that will culminate with a new LP.
“We are happy to be releasing new music; this time in the form of a series of singles,” McCrea said in a statement. “‘Sinking Ship’ is quite pessimistic but somehow does not seem hyperbolic right now. All proceeds from the sale of this song will be donated to Doctors Without Borders. CAKE is proud to be able to help out in securing real leadership for the United States. It is a critical time for the world, and it is more important than ever to find leaders capable of putting country above self-interest. Real greatness comes from community, cooperation and ethical leadership.”
“The new CAKE song ‘Sinking Ship’ is a sobering meditation on the current human habitation of the planet,” added instrumentalist/backing vocalist Vince DiFiore. “Where do we go from here? It’s always worth contemplating.”
Cake have a handful of U.S. tour dates booked for late 2018. Their next show is October 30th at the rally for Texas Senate nominee Beto O’Rourke in Irving, Texas.
INTERVIEW
John McCrea On CAKE’s First New Music Since 2011, Unionizing, And Why There Still Isn’t Anything Rebellious About A Leather Jacket
Tracking Down is a Stereogum franchise in which we talk to artists who have been out of the spotlight for a minute.
Smirking alt-rock troupe CAKE haven’t always used music as a platform for political change. When they initially broke out in the ’90s with the sardonic “Rock ‘N’ Roll Lifestyle,” the Sacramento-based band mainly sought to address things they regarded as inherently shallow and insincere, like, oh, the music industry itself (“How much did you spend on your black leather jacket?” lead singer John McCrea sniffed at the time).
But that’s yesterday’s CAKE. Today, McCrea is far more interested in raising awareness about causes he cares about, like world poverty and global warming. The band has recorded in a solar-powered recording studio since 2011, and McCrea serves on the board of directors for HeadCount, a non-partisan organization that works with musicians to promote participation in democracy.
The singer is also funneling his energy into the band’s first new music since 2011, beginning with the unambiguous protest anthem “Sinking Ship,” the profits of which will go to Doctors Without Borders. Though the single sounds inspired by our current polarized landscape, McCrea reveals that he’d actually been sitting on “Sinking Ship” for more than a decade. But releasing it now feels like part of his “civic duty,” which also includes performing at benefit concerts for grassroots politicians like Andrew Janz and Beto O’Rourke.
“I’ve never really wanted to get my hands icky with direct support on candidates, but I’ve made an exception this time,” McCrea says in a phone call. [Ed. note: We spoke to McCrea one week prior to the midterm election.] “Truly terrifying things can happen even in the United States when you don’t have checks and balances. If Democrats are not able to take the House [Of Representatives], the truly horrific events have only just begun.”
Happily, Democrats have recovered the House, but there’s a lot more work left to do. Below, McCrea elaborates on CAKE’s more overtly political voice, when he expects they’ll release more new music (their next song will be a cover of the 5th Dimension classic “Age Of Aquarius”), and why it benefits workers in every industry to unionize.
STEREOGUM: What can you tell me about your new song, “Sinking Ship”? It sounds like it could address any number of things. What were you thinking about when you wrote it?
MCCREA: Well, “Sinking Ship” is a song I worked on a long time ago. It always felt hyperbolic and too negative, but it somehow it feels appropriate now. I think for that reason it spurred me into action after a period of not feeling particularly compelled to put out recorded music. I’m still playing music all the time, but I’m not sure what it was we’re supposed to do. Like [are] we supposed to release albums or singles or just maybe play live? I thought maybe we’d just play new songs and do it that way.
It occurred to me that there are all these songs that we have that we should probably formalize in sound recording. I have a better studio situation now, so it’s a lot easier for me to record.
STEREOGUM: Yeah, at what point did you start writing this collection of songs? Was it over the period of six or seven years since the last CAKE album?
MCCREA: Yeah, some of them before. For instance, “Sinking Ship” I wrote probably 10 or 15 years ago. The way I write, I work on a song, and I don’t really force myself to finish it. I finish it when I feel like finishing it. I’ve got dozens of songs going at once. That’s the way I preserve my happiness in writing: by doing it because I want to do it, not because I’m trying to finish a job. If I hit a wall, I just move on to a different song. For some reason, this song worked out rather easily. I think probably because of current events. I’m not disconnected from what’s going on.
STEREOGUM: Yeah, and “Sinking Ship” has a real evergreen quality, thematically speaking. I’m curious, how have you been spending your time in the last few years when you weren’t touring with CAKE?
MCCREA: To be really honest, I had kids. My wife and I had kids. That just kicks the wind out of you physically and psychologically. There’s sleep deprivation. There’s all kinds of like weird rites of passage that they don’t warn you about beforehand that can actually just really impact all kinds of things in your life. Everything’s beautiful, but it’s also challenging.
I think what’s really unsettling for me is that for most artists, especially artists that are not pop artists, they can’t stop touring. Literally, they don’t have food if they stop touring. I think most artists wouldn’t mind recorded music being free as long as no one was getting paid for that music. As it turns out, everyone is monetizing it. Everybody in the supply chain gets paid except for the artist. That’s particularly difficult if you’re playing non-commercial music like bluegrass or all kinds of valuable genres of music.
You have to have a job that’ll let you tour all the time. The touring doesn’t pay if you’re not a big enough artist. It’s like, you’re in this van, and you get paid a few hundred bucks. Then, you drive to the next town. Writers have the same issues. People need to understand that it’s work.
STEREOGUM: It’s so true. With the massive success of CAKE’s ’90s singles, to what extent have you seen some extra income via streaming services?
MCCREA: I think you read these news stories once in a while, like, “Oh, the Korean pop star had four billion plays of their song and got maybe a couple thousand dollars.” It’s like that. Not very many artists can get billions of streams, so it’s a math thing.
Artists haven’t really been able to organize, but I think ultimately we should be able to say, “Altogether, we’d like to say that .0006, whatever it is, of a penny … Maybe we’d like .005.” We can’t do that. We can individually say, “We’re gonna try to extricate ourselves from this system,” but it would be better if we had [unions].
It’s true of all workers right now. Everybody needs to organize. We need to create institutions of organized labor. Maybe there’s some innovation that can occur that can make that easier, especially if we used some of the tools of the internet and the kind of interconnectivity that could occur. There could be an organized labor app. I’m just saying.
STEREOGUM: As a band that got its start pre-internet, how else do you see technology as beneficial to the music industry? Or even just beneficial to CAKE itself?
MCCREA: The elephant in the room is it’s nice to get paid for something that you’ve worked on for a year or two. When that doesn’t happen, you have to be in the van more. Aside from that, I think it’s very cool to be able to have a musical idea and put it out there quickly. We were able to release “Sinking Ship” rather quickly in that way. Once the video was done, we were able to just pop it up. I think that’s amazing.
There’s also more two-way communication between musicians and listeners. There’s more of a feedback loop. It’s mostly just made things more smoother in terms of announcing shows and things like that.
STEREOGUM: Yeah, you have a little more control instead of having to funnel messaging through, say, your label.
MCCREA: Oh, yeah. It was horrible. The gatekeepers of the label, we can go around them now. It used to be impossible. But we have new gatekeepers: the giant multi-billion dollar companies that rule the internet. You can’t ignore them just because they’re more invisible. They’re Wall Street.
STEREOGUM: Right. Well, I noticed that all of the profits for “Sinking Ship” are slated to go toward Doctors Without Borders. What made you decide to donate to that particular organization?
MCCREA: You know, holy shit. I was just thinking about Yemen and Saudi Arabia and all the culpability of the United States in that situation and just how much worse things will probably get and how humans are going to be killed. Doctors Without Borders is just such an amazing organization, so much bravery. It seemed like the right thing to do.
STEREOGUM: Yeah, definitely. It’s a great organization. Well, I don’t know if you’re permitted to say, but I’d love to know what else you talk about in the songs you plan to roll out this year.
MCCREA: Well, the B-side or the A-side — I don’t know which side is which — of the vinyl single “Sinking Ship,” we do a cover of the old “Age Of Aquarius” song from the early ’70s. [Ed. note: “Age Of Aquarius” was released in 1969.]
That’s a rather hopeful song with a very unhopeful song on the other side. I’m thinking what’s happening is we’re gonna be releasing singles. When we release enough, we’ll put them all on an album. It will be like that first single of creating a balance between the abyss and hopeful utopia. I’m feeling that way myself. I’ve never felt so much positive possibility as I do now. At the same time, literally the whole thing could be flushed down the toilet.
STEREOGUM: I think you’re right. I think a lot of us are kind of just pinballing from processing horrible news cycles to feeling emboldened by small moments of redemption.
MCCREA: I think no matter what happens, we have to keep our eye on the ball for a while. I don’t feel like it’s hopeless completely, but it could be very easily. It’s a high-stakes adventure right now.
STEREOGUM: Do you have an album release date in mind at the moment?
MCCREA: “Age Of Aquarius” will come out in January, probably like March or something for another single. Probably every month or so there will be another single, then probably in a year we’ll release the whole album. I keep thinking September for some reason.
STEREOGUM: Cool. You know, as long as we’re talking politics, I’d love to know at what point you decided to use CAKE as a platform to raise awareness? I just know that this isn’t something you always did with the band.
MCCREA: I think I resisted it for a long time, just because I thought music can subliminally get through to people who may overtly disagree with you. It’s like a stealth way to influence people’s attitudes. I think as things have become more of an emergency, I’ve realized that that was a luxury that I don’t feel like we can afford anymore. I think we need to be just straight-out blunt about what’s happening.
The part that I really love is musical, but also part of it is cultural. That’s just a fact. The culture that usually surrounds me, I’ve always found it very vain, narcissistic, and immature. There’s just nothing rebellious, as far as I’m concerned, about a leather jacket. Mostly, I just think about discarded leather jackets in a landfill that are no longer in style. I just think that the Earth can’t support popular culture in the way that we’ve come to expect. What has passed for gritty rebellion is really just like fucking foam on a cappuccino.
STEREOGUM: That’s very well said.
MCCREA: That’s the way I really feel. From the very beginning, we had a song called “Rock ‘N’ Roll Lifestyle” that was a little angry. It was just looking around me and feeling like I [would] vomit a little bit.
I understand what it’s like. I know high school is hard for people. They try to work it out into their early adulthood to find a more secure emotional space for themselves, but ultimately I think that’s a fucking luxury right now. We need to fucking wake up and pay attention.
STEREOGUM: Yeah, I identify as a liberal, but I’ll be the first to say that I think it’s way too easy for liberals to get caught up in rhetoric and fail to see the bigger picture.
MCCREA: Rebecca Solnit, a feminist writer who I enjoy, said back in 2016, “Voting is a chess move, not a Valentine.” I think that’s really key for the left to understand that it’s not about your individuality or your self-expression. It’s a collective thing that we do together. We have to put some of our agenda aside in order to do what’s best for the group. Sometimes you have to vote for somebody who is not a perfect expression of your inner self in order to do the right thing for the highest number of people. It’s an altruistic and adult thing to do. I think it’s time we stop strategizing individuality at the expense of humans.
Nothing More confront mass shootings in “Let ‘Em Burn” video: Watch
“The real question is, why are we killing each other?”
(Story from consequenceofsound.com)
In a press release, the band stated, “Hundreds of people have been killed in mass shootings over the past several years. Almost everyone has chosen the red team or the blue team and we’re stuck in this mode where we fight over political problems instead of human solutions. More guns or less guns isn’t the question. The real question is, why are we killing each other?”
Singer Jonny Hawkins added, “The ‘villain and victim’ narrative in media is so seared into our brains that we can’t see straight. The media has become our God and we have become its bitch. We are blind to human solutions because our emotions have been glued to political problems, and it has paralyzed our progress. Most of us know that mental health is the cause of mass shootings, yet we are obsessed with talking about the symptoms and gridlocking ourselves in political battles without proper action. It’s time to find solutions… it’s time to focus on mental health.”
As previously reported, Nothing More will headline a 2019 U.S. tour with support from Of Mice & Men, Badflower and Palisades. One dollar from each ticket sold will benefit the mental-health charity To Write Love on Her Arms.
The jarring video depicts people from all walks of life gunning each other down, as the band performs the song, which features lyrics like, “They preach the blood, in fear we trust / Embellish it, it sells itself / And I’ve bought in for the last time / Everybody lies / Everybody buys it / We all divide, divide, divide / So let ’em burn.”
In a press release, the band stated, “Hundreds of people have been killed in mass shootings over the past several years. Almost everyone has chosen the red team or the blue team and we’re stuck in this mode where we fight over political problems instead of human solutions. More guns or less guns isn’t the question. The real question is, why are we killing each other?”
Singer Jonny Hawkins added, “The ‘villain and victim’ narrative in media is so seared into our brains that we can’t see straight. The media has become our God and we have become its bitch. We are blind to human solutions because our emotions have been glued to political problems, and it has paralyzed our progress. Most of us know that mental health is the cause of mass shootings, yet we are obsessed with talking about the symptoms and gridlocking ourselves in political battles without proper action. It’s time to find solutions… it’s time to focus on mental health.”
As previously reported, Nothing More will headline a 2019 U.S. tour with support from Of Mice & Men, Badflower and Palisades. One dollar from each ticket sold will benefit the mental-health charity To Write Love on Her Arms.
Check out members of Green Day and Guns N’ Roses covering The Damned, Nirvana, Bowie and more
image: https://ksassets.timeincuk.net/wp/uploads/sites/55/2016/10/Trendell-150×150.jpg
That’s quite a party…
Members of Green Day and Guns N’ Roses came together to celebrate New Years Eve with a party set packed with covers. See footage and photos below.
The Coverups are band consisting of Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong and Mike Dirt, along with their tech/manager Bill Schneider, audio engineer Chris Dugan and touring guitarist Jason White.
image: https://static.apester.com/js/assets/loader_100x100.gif
They played a number of surprise covers shows last year, but returned for two special gigs over Christmas – culminating at a New Year’s Eve party where Guns N’ Roses bassist Duff McKagan joined the band for a rendition of The Damned‘s ‘Neat Neat Neat’.
Earlier in the festive season, The Coverups performed another secret show in Albany on December 19, where they covered classic tracks by the likes of Nirvana, Led Zeppelin, David Bowie, Bryan Adams, INXS and many more. Check out footage and the setlist for that show below:
The band’s December 19 setlist was:
A Million Miles Away (The Plimsouls cover)
I Wanna Be Sedated (Ramones cover)
Don’t Change (INXS cover)
I Fought the Law (The Crickets cover)
Father Christmas (The Kinks cover)
Where Eagles Dare (Misfits cover)
Born to Lose (The Heartbreakers cover)
Bastards of Young (The Replacements cover)
I Will Dare (The Replacements cover)
American Girl (Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers cover)
Summer of ’69 (Bryan Adams cover)
All the Young Dudes (David Bowie cover)
Should I Stay or Should I Go (The Clash cover)
Neat Neat Neat (The Damned cover)
Sheena Is a Punk Rocker (Ramones cover)
Dancing With Myself (Generation X cover)
Ziggy Stardust (David Bowie cover)
Drain You (Nirvana cover)
Suffragette City (David Bowie cover)
Happy (The Rolling Stones cover)
Surrender (Cheap Trick cover)
Whole Lotta Love (Led Zeppelin cover)
My Sharona (The Knack cover)
Run Rudolph Run (Chuck Berry cover)
Jumpin’ Jack Flash (The Rolling Stones cover)
(What’s So Funny ’bout) Peace, Love and Understanding (Brinsley Schwarz cover)
Meanwhile, Armstrong recently confirmed that he was at work on writing songs for the next Green Day album. This comes amid speculation of an anniversary tour in 2019, after the band revealed that they had been rehearsing classic albums ‘Dookie’ and ‘Insomniac’ in full.
The band are also believed to be working on a movie adaptation of their now seminal comeback album ‘American Idiot‘.
In 2016, Armstrong told NME that progress is well underway with the project, that HBO were behind it and that he’d be reprising his own Broadway role as the character St. Jimmy.
“That’s the plan right now, yeah,” said Armstrong. “We’ve got a green light from HBO, and the script is currently going through a couple of rewrites here and there, so I’m not sure when exactly we’re going to start shooting, but it’s definitely all systems go at the moment.”
Van Halen: Why the Original Line-Up MUST Return to Save Rock ‘n’ Roll
The rainbow belching Yeti requires Michael Anthony on bass.
1 hour ago
(Story from realclearlife.com)
Multiple sources state that the original primo line-up of Van Halen — David Lee Roth, Eddie Van Halen, Alex Van Halen, and the amazing Michael Anthony — were gearing up for a reunion tour.
As this information — still unconfirmed, mind you — began to sparkle and ooze over the webbernet, every white American over 45 gasped with excitement, releasing a sound oddly similar to the colossal downward “Thwoooooooo!” bass run in Gerry Rafferty’s “Baker Street.”
If you believe that rock’n’roll is a rainbow-belching Yeti wearing a puka shell necklace and a completely un-ironic California Jam II concert tee while holding a liter of Mateus Rosé, then you already know why this is such an important event.
When the brick-colored fog clears on the final day, when the mud-orange skies dissolve into a soot that can sustain no echoes of life or joy, when the dust from the earth meets the dust from the sky, when the mountains meet the seas and the life-salt of ocean becomes the lifeless talc of the desert, the creator (or at least the 22 year-old Nephew of The Creator who lives in the Creator’s paneled basement, sleeps on a sofa bed framed by posters of Farrah Fawcett and the “Hang In There!” cat, and when really high can explain, at great length, why you really really need to spend more time listening to Rainbow and UFO) will point its magical, misty finger at Roth-era Van Halen and say, that is rock’n’roll.
See, when rock was separated from it’s original intention and purpose — as a way to give voice to the rhythmic and melodic legacy of America’s disenfranchised — the very best status it could attain was ridiculousness. Ridiculous, gigantic, monumental, cartoon Golems striding across the earth and saying boo to the townspeople, spandex-wearing Thor-men throwing fake lightning bolts at teenagers who should have been out changing the world, but instead were getting stoned and watching fake gods playing giant chords under the blue and yellow lights of arenas in the shit part of town.
That’s the thing with rock: It rose from the throats, drums, stomps, shrieks, sighs and cries of slaves and sharecroppers, coalminers and dirt farmers, the sons and daughters of peat smoke and chains! Every shift and scratch of rock’n’roll bears this beautiful legacy.
But as the bitter and beautiful baby aged, as she was adopted by people who had never known hunger or discrimination, she came to stand for something else: The simplest and most accessible totem of middle class faux rebellion. Rock’n’roll became the repository of the Easy Anthems of The Culture Wars, a way for the conformists of the future to separate themselves from their parents.
Which is to say that white people did, in fact, ruin rock’n’roll by co-opting the deeply and essentially political nature of the animal. Except that’s not entirely true, because whitey also made some absolutely brilliant sounding noise.
White People made rock’n’roll not only meaningless but also a symbol of absolutely corrupt and crappy middle-class values. White people took this incredibly powerful tool and made it purely an instrument with which to piss off their parents, maaaan. After that catastrophe, all we are left with is THE RIDICULOUS, the beautifully ridiculous, our SAVIOR The Ridiculous, the brilliantly BIG noise that screams of cheap thrills and vagina dentata!
From the Sonics to the Stooges to Slade to the Troggs to Deep Purple to thee Kings of the sweaty thumpy ludicrous, the Cramps, we found an ecstasy. We found a release that could not be achieved anywhere else except in the Three Chord Burlesque, in the sticky-floored Live Peeps of Loud Arena Land.
And we must celebrate the band that did that best, the band who made the most perfectly ridiculous and magically engaging rock’n’roll of all time.
That band is David Lee Roth-era Van Halen.
It just sounds so good, so right, it is like the most extreme caricature that transcends caricature and achieves an absolute beauty and transcendence. Simultaneously simple and baroque in a way so very, very few bands can achieve, the music of Roth-era Van Halen is muscular aural candy. It is full of depth and mischief, as peanut-butter-chunky as the U.K. Subs, as filigreed and wedding cake-iced as XTC, as full of glassy shimmer as The Go-Betweens, as loaded with cock-thrust swagger as Judas Priest.
If you were a teenager in the 1970s, you know what a truly awful time this was. The very air was full of garbage music masquerading as genius, smug pompous crap that smelled like patchouli and horsesh*t, like Dust in the f*cking Wind ghastly, wheezing, Europe ’72 and the worst album in recorded history, ELP’s Brain Salad Surgery, an album that is a stain against the very idea of recorded music. Honestly, and I mean this, I would rather listen to The Shaggs Play Along With Hitler’s Recorded Speeches than ever hear “Karn Evil 9” again.
Having said that, this is what you need to know:
Every gruesome, unnecessary, time and money wasting, drug and mammon fueled indulgence of 1970s music, every unnecessary drum solo or keyboard riff or gong hit or horrifying lyric about Mordor or Hobbits, even the entire existence of Kansas or The Outlaws, is justified and forgiven just for the first two minutes of “Everybody Wants Some” by Van Halen.
I mean it.
If every awful, hideous, hateful, Steely Danful and Grateful Deadful and Andrew Gold-en and David Crosby-ian wretched squeak and squawk of pathetic self-indulgence of the entire decade existed just to make those two minutes possible, well, dammit, I’ll take it. Because those two minutes are everything, I would (literally) trade every minute the Beatles ever recorded just for those two minutes, those thumping, squealing, chunking, kicking, split-leaping, fat-chord feedbacking screams of desperation and apes-whacking-on-megaliths garage rock.
And it’s not like this was an isolated moment. True, unlike far inferior bands, Roth-era Van Halen never made one single great front-to-back and back-to-front album (then again, neither did Neu!, the greatest rock’n’roll band of all time). But they created song after song that blended dumbass riffing, sonic extremes, and insane choruses with production and mixing that was so absolutely perfect that it was truly incandescent. Today, four decades after its creation, it still makes you grip the steering wheel with a childish, snow day glee.
Who knows if the reunion will actually happen. Van Halen has effed with us before on the reunion front. Just the idea that they ever thought Michael Anthony was replaceable (as they did in 2012 and 2015) shows that the Van Halen brothers have a loose grasp on the absolute near-divinity of the original Van Halen, and the unique angel-magic of the Eddie/Alex backing vocal thing (which sounds like Brigadoon rising out of the mist if Brigadoon was full of really horny chimney sweeps).
Oh, but I hope it happens. I cannot think of one single reunion I would want to see more (though, for the record, I wouldn’t mind seeing Henry Cluney and Jake Burns get onstage again as Stiff Little Fingers, or an Eric Bloom/Buck Dharma/Albert Bouchard/Joe Bouchard Blue Öyster Cult).
Even if it does not happen, this fact, written in glitter and fools fold, still remains:
On the Final Day, when the last rosy finger of the last sunset has tickled the skies over our bruised and doomed experiment in sentient civilization, the new, unimaginable god, the conquering god, the one who laughs at you like you were an inadequate Ozymandias, the one who will say, “You built civilization after civilization seeming unaware that the only certainty is that they will all one day vanish”…on this final day, this god will look at your whole silly middle class white rock era, and go, “Ah, there is David Lee Roth-era Van Halen, they got it right.”
Many thanks to the legendary Jack Rabid and The Big Takeover, for essential help assembling this bus plunge of words. If there is a Rock’n’Roll Heaven, Jack will be standing at the gate asking, “What’s your favorite Adverts B-Side?”