Shane’s Rock Challenge: DAVID LEE ROTH – 1985 – Crazy From The Heat EP

Shane’s Rock Challenge: DAVID LEE ROTH – 1985 – Crazy From The Heat EP
8.5/10

Diamond Dave had reached the top of the heap with Van Halen after their chart busting Jump, Panama and Hot For Teacher run of singles and the 1984 album from whence they came, but the band – and especially Eddie & Alex Van Halen’s controlling ways – couldn’t contain the gregarious motor mouth completely. After all the girls, JD and cocaine a rock star can carry, Dave wanted to step to the left and try something a little different.

That difference primarily amounts to Dave being Dave – just without the bigshot super guitar hero. The spandex, glitz, OTT-ness of Dave were all completely intact, he was, in effect, just branching out with a clutch of big band and Beach Boys covers for fun – being an entertainer rather than a rockstar for a few moments.

Opener Easy Street is a solid take on the Edgar Winter tune, restyled as a sort of swing number, while closer Coconut Grove gives The Lovin’ Spoonful song a DLR makeover, but it’s the two middle tracks – both released as singles with typically OTT film clips, directed by Pete Angelus, long-time Roth friend and collaborator – that helped forge the legend.

Just A Gigolo segues seamlessly into I Ain’t Got Nobody, while Dave sings and scats like a demon. It’s great fun, and based on the 50’s Louis Prima medley of the same songs.

California girls continues the good times, keeping mostly to the Beach Boys template, giving Dave heaps of wriggle space on top, and he owns the damn thing, with help on backing vocals from both Carl Wilson and Christopher Cross.

Crazy From The Heat is, in hindsight, EXACTLY what he should have done – a brief side project for Roth the clear his mind away from the Van Halen juggernaut, but the VH brothers saw red and before you knew it, age old tensions were back and insurmountable. BANG, Roth was solo and Van Hagar was about to be born… both of which are other stories for another day.

By Shane Pinnegar

 

Category: Shane's Rock Challenge