the mehallo blog. beta.

Misunderstood genius or fool? Or a little bit of both.

I’ve actually been a fan of David Lee Roth since high school. Just deal with it.

With a friend, we used to do DLR music video comic strip parodies in our high school newspaper. We called him David Lee Broth and changed lyrics to be all about food. ‘Just a Buffalo’ instead of ‘Just a Gigolo.’

And you know, I do think Dave’s part genius – with a bit of the foolish side dancing around what works/what’s public opinion/where his next career move will be.

Pictured in this post are highlights from Dave’s sketchbook, which can now be seen at his rather sparse website. The art bounces thru a few genres, as is his thing.

as a tike
Dave describes himself as a Jewish kid who grew up in El Lay. Where the smarts come in is as a child he’d always been exposed to really cool stuff: car culture, jazz. His record collection is incredible, a mix of many and obscure genres. The dude is not a dull blade.

I know this cause I read his autobiography. Which starts out really cool, then sort of falls into some rambling thoughts. Rumor has it the tome was ghost authored by Henry Rollins, also a fan. But just a rumor.

‘Young musicians are always coming up to me and asking how do you know when you’ve made it. When you can spell subpoena without thinking about it, that’s when you know you’ve made it.’ -quote from DLR

rockstar
When fronting Van Halen – which was just another hair band with a nifty guitarist (Dave once noted that Van Halen was more based on Queen than not) – he brought Vegas showmanship to the mix. Jazz songs in the middle of albums, references to all kinds of obscure stuff. Improv lyrics that either worked or didn’t. The story goes he wrote the vocals for their 1984 album while taking a taxi ride around Los Angeles.

On the side, the guy climbs mountains, takes risks. Jumps over things.

them 1980s videos
After leaving Van Halen – with his own band – he managed to snag Frank Zappa’s incredible guitarist, Steve Vai. It was a weird mashup that worked. For awhile.

For his videos, he worked with director/manager/creative partner Pete Angelus. And they went under the moniker The Fabulous Picasso Brothers. Which to Dave suggested, ‘Fine art. And pizza delivery.’

They made some videos, a few below:

da movie
Dave and Pete also had a film deal in the works with Warner Brothers. Same look as the videos. Then they had a fight or Dave went on vacation or something. And the film was never made. Years ago I found the script online – here’s a downloadable PDF.

Today, the film would either be a cult classic or something akin to the Bee Gees version of Sgt. Pepper. It would have been totally stupid. And fun.

update
Since, Dave’s been sort of all over the map. Climbing mountains, Vegas show, odd tours with Van Halen cover bands, working with the Boston Pops (Really. Symphonic version of Jump) – doing a bluegrass Van Halen tribute album. He howled for the new Wolfman film.

When Howard Stern left terrestrial radio, Dave ended up doing an East Coast-based morning show. It had its moments – but sort of became more random rambling thoughts, then overprogrammed by CBS radio. The powers that be that forced Stern to satellite ended up reformatting and shutting down Dave’s show.

He also worked as an Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) – just because. Showed up in some Conan O’Brien sketches and did a 2008 Van Halen reunion tour where he dressed like a circus master of ceremonies and as streamed around YouTube, at one point sort of forgot his own lyrics. Released some odd, experimental albums that a friend described as, ‘Wow, so Dave just likes to sing in the shower or what?’

A few years back, Entertainment Weekly suggested Dave should do a sitcom. Which prompted many angry readers to tell EW that they’ve lost their mind.

‘Money can’t buy you happiness, but it can buy you a yacht big enough to pull up right alongside it.’ –DLR

But the foole did manage to storm the castle and had a lot of fun along the way.

How many can say they’ve been able to do just that.

tags: art, cool finds, music // 2 comments  . . .