Trying to keep busy until the Van Halen family decides to (maybe) get together and record a new album has been pushing David Lee Roth closer and closer to going off the deep end. He’s made a second (or first as he calls it) home in Tokyo, Japan and has been uploading all sorts of batshit crazy to The Roth Show, a video podcast series where he basically rambles on and on stream-of-consciousness style to the point where after a few minutes, the hamster in your inside your brain has exasperatedly thrown himself off the wheel, hoping for a quick death to follow.
First came two and a half hour long “50 Rides on the Love Train,” where the Diamond one sang the O’Jays hit 50 times. Then there was the trailer for Tokyo Story, which may or more likely may not become a full-length feature starring DLR, an acapella version of Pharrell’s “Happy” – complete with the story behind learning how to sing it – and a odd swordplay video dubbed, “David Lee Roth and the Kabuki Orchestra perform The Oo-oka River Blues.” Oh – and did we mention the bunny suit?
But this latest gem might be the grandest of them all. Simply titled “Happy Holidays,” it’s a two-minute acoustic guitar and harmonica number a-la Bob Dylan where Roth sings about getting smashed with Santa, Oprah asking questions, a reality series vampire, whose family lives next door, and something about people doing yoga on his roof. In the waning seconds, he sings, “That’s all I wrote…short attention span,” which may be one of the more honest statements made in the history of civilization.
For the sake of everyone, let’s hope Messrs. Edward, Alex and Wolfgang Van Halen come up with something quickly, preferably before Roth goes from your crazy uncle territory to psychiatric hold central, because the last thing anyone wants is a repeat of the scene in Rocky II where Gazzo exits the gym where Rocky is sweeping the floors and points to a picture of a young and hungry Balboa and says, “Remember that guy Rock?”
