It’s Turntable Tuesday because life is too short not to listen to great music! Turn that TV off! Summer days are going by so fast you need to savor everyone of them with some awesome music in the background! This week the feature for Turntable Tuesday is the debut album from Wolfgang Van Halen titled “Mammoth.”
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April 21, 2012. Greensboro, North Carolina. On stage a youthful Wolfgang Van Halen was playing bass with one of the best Rock and Roll bands to ever hit a stage anywhere. This was a tall order to stand in the shadow of his Dad who is known as one of the best Rock guitarists to ever play. Honestly I was trying to fathom why all this had happened at the time but now that I understand the history since this time period I get it. I really don’t want to dwell on the history of the band or the family as most of that is documented all over the internet. What I really want to say is I have lived through the time of the rise and basically the end of Van Halen and I still respect anyone who played in the band for their contributions to the music catalog. It really is too bad we did not get to see the reunion tour that was being talked about. That would have been a spectacle to hear the catalog played with all of that talent on one stage. Suddenly Eddie was gone and all of us rockers were grieving the loss of such a stellar guitar talent and smiling face.
WVH. I signed up for the pre-sale of this record so I could get a vinyl copy on the release date. I opted for the exclusive red vinyl version from Walmart because I like colored vinyl for some recordings. I really did not know what to expect from this record but I knew it was going to be pretty good from the You Tube video I was seeing slowly being released. Before I even heard the album in full I had already heard 6 of the tracks on You Tube. By June 11 the album was on my doorstop and I was excited to crank this one up. Frankly I had no idea Wolf had this much talent. He played every instrument on the record and wrote all the music. Every instrument! There is a reason he is the only one in this video and it’s funny at the end. Check this video out…
Wolfgang is going out on a tour with his band. He is opening for Guns and Roses this summer and beyond on a world tour. I know his show might be hard to follow. Guns and Roses better be on their game because there is a new band that is kicking ass out there. I cannot wait to see this band live. https://www.gunsnroses.com/tour
A quick story. On the morning of June 12th I was on my way to watch some live music up in Delaware and spend a couple of days in Ocean City, Maryland with some musicians I had not seen since the lock down for the pandemic. From there I was heading to New York City to pick up some vinyl and take in some urban vibes. I was listening to Wolf on satellite radio talking about his album and listening to all the digital tracks from the release. I think that is most of what I listened to for several hours just thinking of the history of Van Halen and where life is today in 2021. These tracks are very easy to consume for even a part-time rocker. For the full time rocker I know you will like this music so you should make sure you are listening to this whole collection of music. Take it from me…Wolf is the real deal. He is already Mammoth.
A note from my reading of the lyrics sheet in this package. I really like something I read in the song “Mammoth.” From the song lyrics:
Hey you
Anything is possible
You’re not the only one
Yeah, let ’em think you’re unremarkable
And prove them wrong
The album’s first single, “Distance,” has already hit No. 1 on the Mainstream Rock Airplay chart. Wolf says “I was wanting to put something out for my father and all the proceeds went to his favorite charity, Mr. Holland’s Opus.” “I was not expecting it to do what it did. The video just hit five million views on YouTube. It’s just insane to me. I never would have imagined that. https://www.mhopus.org/
This album has been a work in process for several years. The songs on Wolf’s album were written several years back and he had the album finished in 2018. His father’s cancer diagnosis caused him to put his career on hold. “The songs were all written from a period between 2013 and 2015.” “Half of them were done before the Van Halen tour in 2015 and then when I was out there, I wrote like 10 or 12 more songs, so when I got back it was, ‘Okay we’ve got a whole album’s worth of stuff to record.’ Over time I think we got to close to 30 songs that we slowly had to chop away at, so there’s a lot that hit the cutting room floor that I’m excited to turn to for another album.”
As Eddie’s health deteriorated, Wolfgang put his plans on hold to spend as much time as he could with his Dad. “My album was done by August 2018,” he says. “I was even rehearsing with the band come December of that year, but as time went on my father’s health kind of declined, so it was a matter of, ‘Hey do you want to go on a tour cycle for 18 months or do you want to spend all this time with your dad?’ I think I made the right choice.”
I think Wolf has made an excellent choice. Now is his time and he has started his career with a bang. I think it is a fair wager to say that this is the beginning of a very successful run of music from the third generation musician. “Nuff said. I’ll be on the companion podcast with a few more thoughts on this album.
Until next time I’ll see you, down the road.