It amazes me that I haven't yet written about the exploits of
Diamond Dave. A
real icon of 1980s rock music. He was in his element 25 years ago. Roth was ultra-excessive, super suave and he didn't even know how to play guitar. He had six pack abs, and yet he drank excessively. He knew how to
give an epic interview. Women loved him. He became too big for an already-big band (they started to use keyboards*).
Crazy from the Heat showed MTV he could go solo, with the legendary videos of "
California Girls" and "
Just a Gigalo/I Ain't Got Nobody" (both by Pete Angelus, a Van Halen artistic guru). Other great videos followed (I'd bet you've never heard or seen "
Goin' Crazy!").
Skyscraper came out in early 1988, and I seriously have the "
Just Like Paradise" music video burned into my childhood.
David Lee had his pick of the litter for a backing band, and I bet dudes were clamoring to get in on the action. In 1988, "Team Stud" was Steve Vai, Gregg Bissonette and
Billy Sheehan (actually Matt Bissonette in the video). I think Brett Tuggle was on keyboards*, too. All-star, all-glam.
Steve Vai is best known as a masturbatory shredder, and for outlandish guitar designs. Gregg, for his surfer mullet.
