David Lee Roth is celebrating July 4 with a stream of his rare 2002 package “No Holds Bar-B-Que.”
Written, directed and produced by Roth and mostly filmed at his Pasadena, CA mansion, the set was originally designed as a media kit but quickly became something much bigger.
“Instead of a page that says, 'Dave's been fishing, is planning on going into the studio, and likes Django Reinhardt this year,' let's take the camera to the beach, play some Django, and go after what I'm best at!” Roth said in 2002. “I spent easily $600,000 outta pocket. I spent the mortgage, literally. It grew beyond a simple 'here's a kinda the day in the life,' because my day is full of fantasy and literary references.
“I've woven it together in a form that I think is much more appropriate for our national attention-deficit syndrome, or whatever it is we're having,” he continued. “In this, you're entertained right along with your current state of biorhythms, which is frenzied. If you watch television and listen to radio regularly, if you spend any time at the local shopping mall, then your inner tempo is frenzied. At least in the United States.
“And I tried to create a different type of television – it's not really a show and it's not really a biography. There's a lot of show-and-tell in there. I'm not really sure what it is. Perhaps that makes it pure. Like Picasso said, it's bound to go over some people's heads, so I also created a version with a director's commentary.”
“No Holds Bar-B-Que” features a dizzying array of images and musical performances, with a diverse setlist that runs from techno to blues to mambo to swing, mixing some Roth originals with plenty of covers by artists like Gerry Rafferty, ZZ Top, The Beatles, The Hombres, The Chemical Bothers and ELO, among others.
The hour-long video was initially sold on VHS during the ill-fated 2002 “Sam And Dave” tour – pairing up (at the time) former Van Halen singers Roth and Sammy Hagar (fans dubbed it the “Sans Halen” tour); the package has yet to see an official release.
See also:
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Search Van Halen at hennemusic
