Author:David Lee Roth
'I WAS THERE WITH THESE TWO GIRLS ONCE; THEY WERE STRIPPERS. THEY SAID 'DAVE, WE'D LIKE YOU TO GO UPSTAIRS, THE TWO OF US, WITH YOU. ' SO I SAID, 'OKAY'. IT WAS ANGUS, AND IT WAS HOT AND SWEATY AND HUMID, AND WE COMMENCED TO DELIVER THE GROCERIES AT 138 BEATS PER MINUTE OR MORE. ONE OF THE GIRLS HAD $1500 IN SINGLES AND FIVES AND TENS, HER END-OF-THE-WEEK TIPS AND PAY AND EVERYTHING IN HER G-STRING. NOBODY NOTICED, YOU KNOW, WHEN THE G-STRING CAME UNDONE -- WELL, I NOTICED -- NOBODY NOTICED THE MONEY, LIKE, FLOATING AROUND. I WOKE UP AT SOME POINT AROUND DAWN, THE TWO OF THEM WERE ASLEEP, AND ALL THREE OF US WERE COVERED WITH MONEY, EVERY SQUARE INCH OF SKIN HAD A DOLLAR BILL PASTED TO IT -- THERE WAS NOTHING BUT. THE WHOLE BED WAS COVERED WITH BILLS. OUR BODIES WERE COVERED WITH BILLS. THERE WAS BILLS IN MY UNDERWEAR. TAKE A LITTLE PICTURE OF THAT. ' So begins perhaps the ultimate rock autobiography. Throughout the late-seventies and eighties Van Halen were the archetypal American rock group. Whats more they were also the highest paid band in the history of show business, taking a cool $1 million for a night's work at a festival in 1983 and making the Guiness Book of Records.
A candid look at fifteen years of astounding talent and public adulation
—— Sunday ExpressWill amuse and entertain the legions of Pavarotti's fervent admirers
—— Irish IndependentWonderful, moving and revealing
—— Publishing NewsI've been reading this biography of Neil Young called Shakey and it's changed my life, man
—— Liam Gallagher , NMEThe most flash personality British pop ever had, the most anarchic and obsessive and imaginative hustler of all
—— Nick Cohn