Van Halen "Put Out The Lights" 1976 Zero demo

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This and other VH demos were recorded before they hit it big. Some were recycled/reworked into tracks that we all know and love today, some like this were pretty much buried and forgotten. My feeling is that, after the wild success of VH 1, they thought this one was a bit too pop sounding for a monster rock back with a once in a generation virtuoso guitarist, so they buried it.
Roth shines here, the whole band sounds tight, and for sure you can hear the distinctive spin Eddie puts on the riffs, but it almost sounds more AC/DC than Van Halen. A few soon to be patented whammy dives and palm muted arpeggios, interestingly almost 0 tapping [I heard one very quick tapping run, almost as if he was sneaking it in 3:04] Hard to avoid the impression that they thought the tapping was too revolutionary for a 1st album, and might even scare off some producers.

I have an extensive collection of demos and outtakes, will be posting more as I am able to [many artists, including Beatles, cannot be posted here]

I have had some comments along the line of “Thats not new, I have heard it before” ect ,, I can assure you, I am not trying to present these as something new, something never heard before. Some are indeed tough to track down, others are widely available. Many folks don’t have the resource to find tracks like this, and I only offer the convenience of listening to them with a click of the mouse, and downloading for your own collection if desired.

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