The Second Wind
I try to write things that other people have forgotten about, but which is important for future generations to be taught as part of our shared cultural memory.
In Japan, they speak of The Divine Wind. It was the true original meaning of the word Kamikaze.
This was a legendary gust that upset the sailing equilibrium of the Mongols invading boats as they attempted to cross the strait of Japan from the Korean Peninsula to the land of the Rising Sun. From The land of the calming moon to the land of the rising sun.
Ying met Yang on those days (cos it happened twice - two separate invasions), a divine force of nature had intervened to give the defending Japanese Samurai the upper hand, and save the Japanese from conquest.
No such good fortune ever favoured other nations that crossed the path of the Mongols, though it can now be stated conclusively with hindsight that Genghis, Ogedai, Kublai and co were far too soft and compassionate towards the Chinese.
Now to draw the analogy to more recent times, we often speak in the metal world of a Second Wind. To me it happens more in that genre than in other genres. A group that for one reason or another needs to change an important member of personell, or take a break, or enters an artistic rut, but through some force of divine miracle, recovers, and produces more good work, but in a new form. And conquest/salvation can occur once again, in the musical form. Its the divine wind, differently manifested.
Today we will look with insight at Samuel Roy Hagar, also known as The Red Rocker. But you will most likely know him by the good-natured nickname of Sammy.
And look I really don’t have too much to say, other than I was driving to my unprofitable-and-soon-to-be-extinguished day-job today, in my car, with a cd player that no longer works and has recently been keyed externally twice, having only last year also been stolen and recovered, and which idle revs the whole way, and who’s rear-right-side tailight is now staying on when the ignition is switched off, due to some inexplicable short, meaning i now need to disconnect the battery every time I park.
But Samuel R Hagar did have a song called I can’t drive 55, a great album with Van Halen called 5150, some other passable shit with the band, and leaves behind a trove of fascinating onstage and backstage footage of a man floating on the absolute sugary apex of the late 80s, even as the wimpy faggy self-loathing scourge of grunge bubbled to the surface and sought to destroy all that was good in the world.
Going back a few years ago, I was deep into a Van Halen phase. Infact it extends further to drawing their logo in my school diary in the early 00s, and a white-Zimbabwaen science teacher with a humorous looking bald head and moustache, in the persona of David Lee Roth doing a star jump. Critical dictum stated that if you were to be so uncouth as to like this band at all, you had better stick to the Rothian era. And I mostly did, and it was great. I think i only picked up 5150 on the cusp of Covid lockdowns and realised how great it was as I was driving to and from Ballarat everyday. And then at some point we lost Eddie Van, and the whole misery of the lockdown era under the rule of petulant lefty globalist shits like Daniel Andrews and co, who had no good rationale for their abusive autocratic governance other than spite, seemed more acute because we realised we had just lost a force of good in the world. This was obviously back when my car CD player was still working. And no I can’t just move to an aux attachment from my phone to stream audio because the whole head unit died and I don’t have the money to replace it.
5150 was Hagars first album with the band after Roth left the group, and the band had a lot to prove that they were still as good as they always were. They achieved that with flying colours. What’s more, this was 1986. A year before I was born and one of the greatest years in musical history. This was confirmed by a man who sat at the bar once during my bartending years, to whom I was serving drinks for on some sunny late afternoon. He, I beleive, was some part-time ski instructor from the Vic Alps. I was chatting with him and a couple of other strangers and the banter got more good-natured and merry as the drinks were knocked back. And he did say, seemingly out of context to anything other than the fact that he was skiing the slopes in the mid 80s, but he also meant the larger cultural maillieu of the time, the following: “1986 was a great year mate, it was bloody terrific.” In fact he said it more than once. I have no doubt it certainly was. The evidence puts that beyond all conjecture and I have no reason to disbelieve him one iota.
How good were Reagan and Thatcher.
And Kurt Cobain was a twat and a tosser.
“Wah wah. Im sooo sad and depressed” he would whinge. He was nothing more than proto-antifa garbage.
Did you know EVH was a quarter-Indonesian and the US embassy in Jakarta put out a tribute to him when he died? Upon his passing he was being hailed as that nations greatest contribution to rock n roll. Selamat jalan Eddie indeed \m/. I like the Indos, the Indos are good.
I also have a VH shirt that I found in kmart and it cheers me up just to wear it. I needed the cheering up this morning.
I’ll leave it there for now, other than to say:
Sometimes, oftentimes in fact, a good way of finding your true North is by identifying absolute South and going the opposite way. When the people you most hate in the world express disdain for something, that thing can usually be predicted to be pretty damn good. And a seminal moment of my life was when I was walking with my half-brother, about aged four, through some shopping centre in the very early 1990s, and I asked him if he liked this thing called Heavy Metal. And he told me: “Don’t listen to Heavy Metal.” And so the seed was planted, which would germinate many years later.
Onto the links:
from the album 5150;
Summer Nights - The riff of this track and its accompanying hyper-misogynistic lyrics are just chefs kisses from me.
Why Can’t this Be Love - The lead single off the album. Obviously this is the one that gets played on Gold FM alot and thus can be called The Red Rocker’s most enduring artistic triumph, along with Dreams (see below). Probably everyone has sung it in the shower, kitchen or car at some point. The video is basically peak VH, along with Jump. Bassist Michael Anthony seems to be embracing the new era with a sharper and smarter look in the form of a shoulder-padded blazer, I suppose trying to shed an earlier image of being not that. That’s sounds insulting but really I have a lot of respect for this man and the role that fate ordained him to play. Along with Hagar and Alex, he also deserves his moment in the sun and the pages of eternity.
Dreams (known to millennials as that “higher and higher” song). This version, though billed as an “official” music video, actually seems to have come out in 1993. Thus the increased attempts to convey “stripped-back small-venue authenticity” to conceal the fact that their commercial popularity was by that point severely on the wane.
The Best of Both Worlds - live!
From the album OU812: Feels So Good, Mine All Mine, When It’s Love
His solo work highlights: I cant drive 55, Never Give Up, Winner Takes It All (with Giorgio Moroder)
From the album For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge: (turn it into an acronym):
Right Now An epic 90s ballad, with an overwrought music video trying to lean in to “street-concern” crap. That shit has no place in VH world, so I’ve linked a remastered audio-only instead. The excellent youtuber The Charismatic Voice did her own review of this track. If you’re not familiar with her be aware she stops-starts tracks, and breaks them down and analyses them. It’s disorienting, especially if you like the music, but her gen-z interpretations are interesting.
Accepting the award for best hard-rock band/heavy metal album (For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge) at the 1992 AMAs. Spinaltap presented them with the award. They Beat Metallica s/t, and GnR: Use Your Illusion 1. Interesting that Use your Illusion 2 wasn’t nominated. Anyway, an appropriate and deserved winner for that year. On this there can be no conjecture, and the same can be said of the VMAs, for which they scooped up 3 awards including best music video. Here is an article/interview that reminisces that golden year. The Rhino Report also has an interesting take (its only 5 mins). The reviewer seems honestly chuffed at the end and I truly beleive his sincerity. This has nothing to do with money and contractual obligations. I love capitalism.
From The Album Balance:
Don’t Tell Me What Love Can Do Live in the Great White North: Toronto, Canada, August 19th 1995. THe spandex and frizzy hair have been traded in for torn jeans and mullets. But I consider it defiant. Alex Van Halen is drumming with a broken neck. In addition to Eddie having a hip injury, on this tour the band had been dubbed Van Handicapped.
Youtube auto-cues an AI background track called “Big Josh Radio - Desert Driving” after i play these, or something similar. What does it do for you?
Aperitifs:
There is no Hagar on this song, but it may be decribed as Hagar-adjacent: Y&T - Summertime Girls
There was no third wind for Van Halen. But DLR did appear on Joe Rogan a few years back and that was a very good podcast. There’s so much more I could’ve discussed: The electric drumkit, the good-natured alcoholic phenomenon that was Michael Anthony and his bass that was modelled on a bottle of Jack… But I might have to leave it for another time.
I will write future articles on metal milestones. don’t you worry about that. DLR and Possessed i reckon are on the cards. Also listen to this: Waning Crescent. Its from the 60s, mannnn….
Japon vs Le Mongols. Mon Dieu.
The Red Rocker himself.