We love occasionally jumping headfirst down the YouTube rabbit hole to find music videos that we either haven't seen in years or never knew existed in the first place. Just roll the dice and let the algorithms guide us where they may. Our latest trip brought us to what is one of our best discoveries in ages: The 2014 concert where Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band covered Van Halen's classic song, "Jump." Let's be clear, no one will ever top the original version, and that's not up for debate. However, this cover is fantastic It's pure joy for... Read more →

I would have thought by now that it would be difficult for this year to be any more of a disaster. Then came the news that guitar god Eddie Van Halen died today after an extended battle with cancer. He was 65 years old. My apologies, 2020. You clearly have no bottom. This one hits hard. My holy trinity of fandom for the last 35+ years has been the Boston Red Sox, Doctor Who, and Van Halen. Anyone who has hung out with me for 30 seconds knows they're my favorite band. Just about every aspect of my life over... Read more →

These are challenging times for Van Halen fans. Eddie and Alex seem to have dropped off the radar with no return date in sight, and David Lee Roth is taking his act to Las Vegas, which is the perfect location for him. At least Sammy Hagar and Michael Anthony are still good old-fashioned rock in their current band, The Circle. This crew released a conceptual album of new material called, Space Between, back in May of this year, and now there's an experimental movie by the same name to go with it. The movie is a combination of interviews with... Read more →

Hi everyone, Welcome back! Come on in, have a seat. How are you? We were just trying to figure out what to today since there's no football this week. BDH and Little Buddha seem to think this would be a good day to do a laundry. Not sure if they're trying to tell me something, but they're right. However, let's see what's going on in today's headlines first. The guys made some coffee, so help yourself to a nice medium DD, because it's time to clear out some Sunday Clutter. The 2020 presidential election is still a long ways off... Read more →

Is Van Halen planning on coming back to life in 2019? Fans haven't heard anything from the band since their last tour and live album in 2015, and it seemed like perhaps that was the end of the road. However, David Lee Roth recently made some comments implying that there would be an announcement coming soon about...something. Right now, no one seems to be talking about a new album. That may disappoint many fans, since the group hasn't released any new material since A Different Kind of Truth, which was a solid album, came out in 2012. Going by Roth's... Read more →

The Clutter staff are big fans of Chuck Klosterman. The social critic brings a cutting sense of humor and unique perspective to his subjects, which makes his writing a consistently engaging read. (Check out our review of Kloserman's recent essay collection, X, here.) We've also been fans of Van Halen for more than 30 years, so we were thrilled to find out that Klosterman has reviewed all 131 songs in the Van Halen catalog and ranked them from worst to best. That's right, Klosterman covers everything from David Lee Roth, to Sammy Hagar, and Gary Cherone, then back to Roth,... Read more →

Hi everyone, Welcome back, you're just in time for the party! What party, you ask? Today is Clearing out the Clutter's 9th anniversary! We've got cake, cookies, balloons, and all sorts of other goodies. BDH and Little Buddha have been looking forward to this all week, and I'm pretty sure they've already had too many cookies, because they're racing around Clutter Headquarters with their party hats on and their noisemakers at full blast. As always, we want to thank all of you for giving us a little bit of your time every day. We never take that for granted. You... Read more →

Many Van Halen fans were hoping that the band might release some new music, or maybe even play some shows, in 2018 to celebrate the 40th anniversary of their legendary debut album. Unfortunately, Eddie Van Halen's only priority seems to be selling some new guitars, while Alex Van Halen and David Lee Roth are off doing who knows what. Michael Anthony is still having fun with Sammy Hagar, and we're not holding our breath waiting for him to come back to the the group. However, it's now being reported that the band's current bassist, Wolfgang Van Halen, has completed work... Read more →

Van Halen's OU812 album was released on May 24, 1988, which, according to our calculations, was 30 years ago. Where does the time go? It was the band's second album with singer Sammy Hagar and eighth overall. As a youngin' at the time who was still working on developing his tastes in music, OU812 seemed like a perfectly fine album. The songs were dependable (if not generally that memorable) odes to women and partying. The personal favorite track was always "Cabo Wabo." As always, Eddie Van Halen was doing the kinds of crazy guitar tricks that I dreamed about being... Read more →

Welcome to the first edition of a new Clearing out the Clutter feature called, "Five Questions," where we'll be posting interviews with people from a variety of backgrounds with interesting stories to share. We're thrilled to kick things off with Noel Monk, who was formerly the manager of Van Halen from 1978-1985. Monk is also the author of the new book, "Runnin' With The Devil: A Backstage Pass To The Wild Times, Loud Rock, And The Down And Dirty Truth Behind the Making of Van Halen." (You can read our review here.) Monk got his start working for legendary promoter... Read more →