If your favourite Van Halen album is Fair Warning, you’re a real fan. The band’s fourth release — done in just a few days, recorded AND released in April 1981 — has everything that made the band awesome. If you like the Diamond Dave aspects of David Lee Roth, it has loads of that. If you like the band at its heaviest, this will not disappoint. The refreshing sense of humour is all over the place, the rhythm section is tight and driving, those high backing vocals are plentiful, the songs are consistent and solid, but most of all, it is Eddie Van Halen at his most explosive, melodic, and inspired. This was his angry album, the one he made instead of quitting the band. It gives the whole thing a slight dark undertone, which should have been evident from the cover.
Let’s talk about that cover. It’s by Canadian painter Bill Kurelek, perhaps best-known for having illustrated W.O. Mitchell’s Who Has Seen The Wind. The Fair Warning cover is a cropped section of his 1953 painting The Maze, about his tortured youth. He called it a depiction of the inside of his skull, one which he did while a patient at a psychiatric hospital.
Kurelek had some definite issues, and he was also quite worried about nuclear war. Back in the ’90s I was news editor for a small paper in Renfrew County. I did a story after getting a tip about a bomb shelter which was found on a rural property Kurelek owned outside of the hamlet of Combermere, Ont. That’s about two hours northwest of Ottawa in the Madawaska Valley. It’s a place where one imagines Kurelek would probably have been pretty safe from a Soviet attack. The only links that area has to the Cold War were the base an hour up the road in Petawawa, the nearby CF radar station at Foymount, the military landing strip in Bonnechere and the fact that Avro Arrow test pilot Jan Zurakowski lived about 15 minutes from there. I suppose the massive Diefenbunker in Carp was just under two hours away as well. (Can you tell I love this stuff?) So, the boys chose perfect artwork for their darkest, arguably heaviest album.
It kicks off with the excellent Mean Street, the song which contains the album’s title. “Somebody said fair warning, Lord, Lord, strike that poor boy down.” The opening guitar sets the tone and needs to be played loud, because that’s clearly how Ted Templeman recorded it. (Also with Eddie mostly on the left, except for the solo). One thing which is noticeable compared to the first two albums, which were recorded live off the floor, is there is rhythm guitar during the solos on this album — meaning the solos are overdubs. Personally, I’ve always found Eddie’s non-solo guitar playing more enjoyable, clever and cool. Very lyrical and snarky.
Dirty Movies is next, with its catchy chorus and classic Diamond Dave “take it off” bit at the end. It also has heaps of effect on the drums and bass. The drum intro would make a great loop. Songs like this remind me that I never thought of Van Halen as a metal band. Hard rock is more like it — and quite often, prog! That’s what’s going on here. Hate to break it to ya.
Then it’s riff city for Sinner’s Swing! Who doesn’t like a song with an exclamation mark? And an early F-bomb! The band was tight, goddamn. This is a perfect example of a Van Halen song from the Roth era.
Hear About It Later is next, with its slower, accessible and melodic Eddie intro before thumping into a rock groove. The chorus is really reminiscent of I’m A Rocker by Bruce Springsteen, tho. It’s the same.
Side 2 takes off with perhaps the album’s best song, Unchained. That’s some serious guitar tone, drenched in flanger. It has everything — an out-of-breath sounding Roth, those great backing vocals, phat phat bass and classic, inimitable Eddie flourishes. That really is the word for Edward Van Halen. Inimitable.
Push Comes To Shove is unexpected, with its disco beat and porn bass. This is so very Diamond Dave — spoken-word bits and pseudo-Janis Joplin crooning. But there is a very long and non-repetitive solo by Eddie before the premature fade-out ending. It demonstrates, at least in my view, that creative and mesmerizing solos just flowed out of him like sap.
Then it’s the big single, ish. This was the closest thing the album had to one — So This Is Love? You can just see that Eddie grin. Van Halen was so much fun. This song feels like summertime.
Sunday Afternoon In The Park is the Intruder (from Diver Down) of the album. Dark, almost entirely synth and drums. Some might call this filler, but I love it so much. It’s one of the things which made Van Halen so different from their contemporaries.
The whole affair ends with One Foot Out The Door — fast and heavy, with squonky synth locked in with the bass. No guitar at all until almost a minute in, which makes its entrance even more dramatic. Seems like a tough one to sing, with its loose melody, not tied very tightly to the music in any way. It feels like an assault. You can really hear Eddie’s aggression in the solo on this one, which basically takes up the entire second half of the song.
This album is aural testosterone. 4/5
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Area Resident is an Ottawa-based journalist, recording artist, music collector and re-seller. Hear (and buy) his music on Bandcamp, email him HERE, follow him on Instagram and check him out on Discogs.
