Van Halen... JUMP! 1984

In the early to mid 80's our house didn't have cable TV. Not even close. There we only three houses on our entire street. So even when cable TV was branching out to more areas, our street was a low priority for years. How my brothers lived without Mtv through highschool escapes me. Although, I'll get to this when I go through my H.S. years, how Mtv was in the 90's was vastly different than what you see it as today.

Back to my house growing up. A house without cable TV must greatly rely on VHS tapes, rented or self recorded. The label on a certain VHS tape was an orange post-it note with no adhesive, so it was Scotch taped to the video cassette. It was clearly labeled as the Van Halen Video for Jump! I figure one of my brother's friends taped it for one of them. I should probably ask to see if they remember.

I watched this video over and over. Eddie Van Halen played BOTH the guitar and keyboards in the song. I didn't think that was possible! They jumped in sync, it looked like they were having so much fun on stage. Everyone in the band was smiling. Happy rock!? I loved it!



My brothers in Defiance covered that song too. Mike taught me how to play the first five or so notes on his keyboard. I thought I was a rockstar at that point. Two fingers, not unlike "chopsticks" combined with the lowest key on the keyboard.

After Led Zeppelin broke up, people have said "there will never be another Led Zeppelin." I think Van Halen was the Led Zeppelin of the 80's. Flashy frontman, guitarist with pizzaz, killer drummer & bass player. I mean these guys were HUGE.

The album 1984 had WAY more hits on it than Jump. It also featured Panama, Hot For Teacher, and countless others. Everyone knows of record sales. Gold is a half million sales, platinum is for a million sales. Diamond is the 10 million mark. In 1999, VH's 1984 hit the diamond mark.

Eddie Van Halen single-handedly changed the guitar industry. Suddlenly old "vintage" guitars were worthless. Everyone wanted guitars with more frets and a huge Floyd Rose Whammy bar! Many lesser known guitar companies took advantage of this, while the big wig Fender and Gibson stagnated in quality and design. Word is you could pick up a 1950's Fender or Gibson for only a couple hundred dollars... in today's market those same guitars are worth hundreds of thousands. Thus started the "wanker-generation" of guitar players that wouldn't die until Kurt Cobain and Nirvana almost a decade later.

Love him or hate him, Eddie Van Halen is one of the best guitar players EVER. He revolutionized the way we play guitar, and expanded the possibilities of what can be done on a guitar. Don't believe me? Watch this. Custodians became in demand because of all the drool left behind to be mopped up at local concert stadiums!

1984 "Lights Out"... establishing a pecking order

Lights Out - Peter Wolf

Peter Wolf's "Lights Out" was a big hit in 1984. Unluckily, when you are the youngest sibling of four - it doubles as an excuse to to prank your little brother. "Lights Out" became what they sing when pulling someone's hat down over their eyes. Although I have memories of Tommy, Mike and Amy doing this to me (and eachother for that matter) I can still hear Mike singing "Lights Out" in my head.

The act of pulling someone's hat over their eyes was a total kid's pecking order establishment. It was something simple you could do to someone short of making fun of them or even worse beating them up. Totally harmless. It is sort of humiliating and funny at the same time. While it's always been popular to do this sort of act (especially among boys), now there was a theme song for it! The first time, the prank funny to everyone involved. The second time, the victim grins as if he/she should have known it was coming. By the third and fourth time, the victim is greatly peeved.

Humans are not the only animals to do this. Deer spar, elephants have pushing contests, and kids prank each other. Butts of a prank establish a pecking order among kids. I didn't make these rules, but I was forced to live by them. Getting away with it unscathed put you higher in the pecking order. Blocking an attempt, etc. possibly prevents you from other (and possibly worse) pranks in the future. This is right around the time you had to pick teams using the "eenee meenee miney mow" scheme. And you are NOT IT! I was no bully by any means, but in my circles I did what was necessary to not be the runt.

Aside from the social connotations to my childhood, revisiting this song is still kind of fun. The beat has a feel-good energy to it. I do however wonder what exactly this song was written about. "Lights out" in terms of my already wired imagination still doesn't provoke any visual images other than pulling someone's hat down... the permanent effects of childhood!

1983 - Kiss: Lick It Up

Kiss took off their makeup? I couldn't believe it!

I knew of Kiss because I had an Ewok movie (Star Wars) on the same VHS tape as Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park. The Ewok movie was a Lucas Film afterthought... a "made for TV" movie that had the little bear looking creatures from Return of the Jedi. Kiss Meets the Phantom of The park was another "made for TV" movie from 1978 that featured Kiss as a rock band/super heroes that saved a theme park from an evil and maniacal roller-coaster and prop engineer. It's a lot like a Scoobie Doo episode! That was one of my favorite VHS tapes growing up.

In 1983 Kiss released Lick It Up. My brother Tommy had the record, and I was shocked. I readily noticed the KISS logo on the album cover, but there were no comic book-like superheroes on the cover! What happened? I couldn't fathom it. I remember going to the basement and seeing my brothers' stack of records, and Lick It Up was in the front for a while. I would walk past it and stare at Gene Simmons long tongue.

My previously favorite KISS member Ace Frehley wasn't even pictured. Where was Space Ace? He had left the band, and they replaced him with this Randy Rhoads/George Lynch type (read fast) guitar player named Vinny Vincent. It would be years later when I found out that Vincent wrote many of the songs on the Lick it Up album. From a "guitar history" perspective, Jackson guitars were made for Ozzy Osbourne guitarist Randy Rhoads. Randy died in a plane crash in 1982. Vinny Vincent would go on playing the same Jackson "offset V" guitar prototyped, developed, and named after Randy Rhoads. Vincent was one of the few to want to play the guitar and keep its popularity strong in the guitar industry. I think without Vincent's and a few others' desire to play the guitar, the Jackson Randy Rhoads model might have disappeared.

In 1983, Ace Frehley started a band called Frehley's Comet. His drummer Anton Fig would appear later in 2009 in one of my favorite blues/rock bands. It's actually really funny to see photos of him in a metal outfit next to Ace Frehley.

I also came to find out what Ace looked like without makeup. The dude is UGLY. Not that it mattered. His face was banged up from fights and car wrecks he'd been in. Although I missed the makeup, Frehley's Comet still featured a lightning bolt outfit not entirely different than something Jimmy Page would have worn in the 70's, and Ace's signature Smoking Les Paul guitar.



I would grow through my childhood years really liking the band Kiss even without makeup, but always wishing that they would get Ace back AND put back on the makeup.

I won't lie, I've blown out birthday candles wishing for that to happen... so I can say some birthday wishes come true! (eventually) Conan O'Brien announced the press release in 1996... it was SO cool. But I will be talking more about this later.