25 Unreleased Van Halen songs on Youtube

[Jimmy9190]

There are 25 previously unreleased VH songs at the link below, some from the very early days, 1973 to 1976 era, some from the time leading up to/right around when the first album was released. Some of these do not sound good because the songs are not very good to start with, some are pretty good songs that just have bad sound quality in the recording and some of these songs are very good for early-mid 70's California hard rock/party band sound.

There are a few songs here from the Van Halen Zero album. Not all of those are good either but it is easy to hear why Gene Simmons was so interested in the band in 1976. There are also a few songs from the middle 80s and 90s here too. There are some cool pictures of the band from the early and mid-late 70's. The Zero album is available on mp3million.com, and I have heard the whole Eyes Of The Night bootleg album on Youtube before, not sure if it is still there.

Some of this is really cool, some of it is not that good. A lot of this is from when the band was just getting started, learning their chops. It is really cool hearing some of Edward's very early guitar pyrotechnics and you can hear a lot of the developmental beginnings of his guitar sound and technique. VH fans should check these out real soon. I don't know who released these songs, and I have no idea if it was an official release. I have a feeling these videos might be taken down soon.

https://ultimateclassicrock.com/unreleased-van-halen-songs/

 

[paulri]

In your link, who is the singer over the word "Unreleased"? Doesn't remind me of Hagar or Roth

 

[Jimmy9190]

Originally Posted by paulri
In your link, who is the singer over the word "Unreleased"? Doesn't remind me of Hagar or Roth


That's Gary Cherone, from Extreme. He sang on the Van Halen III album after Sammy Hagar left the band in 1996.

 

[Hall]

Are these some of the same songs from Looney Tunes Merry Melodies ? I remember sending blank cassettes to someone via a Usenet newsgroup and weeks later, getting them back with those songs taped onto them. Years later, someone made CD versions and I still have that 4-disc set.

 

[Lolvoguy]

This post reminds me of the recent Family Guy episode

 

[jurko]

Cool, thanks for sharing

 

[ZeeOSix]

Related material ...

 

[aquariuscsm]

I like the one at 3:12. They sound like an early punk band on that one. Probably trying to figure out their sound and what direction they wanted to go in.

 

[aquariuscsm]

Very interesting history! Thank you Jimmy! I had no idea they went back that early:

1972-1977: Formation and early history
The Van Halen brothers were born in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, Alex Van Halen in 1953 and Eddie Van Halen in 1955,[20] sons to Dutch musician Jan Van Halen and Indonesian-born Indo Eugenia Van Beers. The family moved to Pasadena, California, in 1962. Young Edward first began studying classical piano, and became quite proficient (although he never fully mastered the art of reading sheet music). Eventually the brothers started playing music together in the 1960s-Eddie on drums and Alex on guitar. While Eddie was delivering newspapers to pay for his new drum set, Alex would sneak over and play them. Eventually Eddie found out about it, and out of frustration he told Alex, "OK, you play drums and I'll go play your guitar."[21]

The Van Halen brothers formed their very first band, called The Broken Combs, in 1964. As they progressed and gained popularity, they started to play many backyard parties and changed the name of their band to The Trojan Rubber Co. In 1972, the Van Halen brothers formed a band called Genesis featuring Eddie as lead vocalist/guitarist, Alex on drums, and Mark Stone on bass. They initially rented a sound system from David Lee Roth but decided to save money by letting him join as lead vocalist even though his previous audition(s) had been unsuccessful.[22] By 1974, the band decided to replace Stone, so Michael Anthony, bassist and lead vocalist from local band Snake was auditioned. Following an all-night jam session, he was hired for bass and backing vocals.[22]


Van Halen at La Cañada High School 1975
The band later changed its name to Mammoth when they discovered the name Genesis was already being used. In 1974, Mammoth officially changed its name to Van Halen.

 

[Jackson_Slugger]

They played together for a while, which is why they kicked Journey's [censored] off the stage in their first tour in 1978 where they were the openers and Ronnie Montrose was the second act and Journey was the headlinter. By the end of the tour, Van Halen was getting away with murder because everyone was coming to see them more than Journey.

The 1977-80' tracks were demos, and there is a demo bootleg that was allegedly produced by Gene Simmons of Kiss. Some of these demos are parts of official Van Halen tracks, IIRC "Voodoo Queen" is a basically an early riff for "Mean Street" off Fairwarning. After listening to it for the first time years, the ending is basically used on Hot For Teacher*..

A lot of the riffs of these songs found their way into Van Halen's last release, A Different Kind of Truth...

 

[Jackson_Slugger]

BTW, they were also, as a party band, big into cover songs. Some made it into their early shows like Beer Drinkers and [censored] Raisers featuring both Dave and Mike on alternating lead vocals:

 

[Toy4x4]

Going the other way in time, VH almost hired Mitch Malloy and made this song. There is a video on the story of how it went down and obviously Mitch wasn't the choice. Pretty cool song. He shows off his pipes at the end of the song.

 

[BlueOvalFitter]

When I was 10-12 years old (1972-1974) I used to play pool at my friends house down the street. He had 4 older brothers that were always playing albums and 8 track tapes of rock music I had never heard before. Some of the albums were Van Halen, these same songs. I thought they were very heavy and liked them A LOT!