OK, I’m getting slightly excited and anxious for early February 2012′s new album release. Sadly, we won’t get to hear the first single till just a few days before the whole album is released.

Anyway, the article below from the Van Halen News Desk drops the bomb that Van Halen has not only been filming the video for the first single (where do videos play now, other than YouTube, BTW?), but they’ve also been rehearsing hardcore for the 2012 tour.

Yeah, I’m a bit psyched.

Van Halen Rehearsals!

Guitar World has put together a nice little image slideshow of Eddie Van Halen’s axes through the years.

Eddie Van Halen’s Guitars Through the Years

Fellow guitar freaks, if you haven’t already come across woodytone.com, I highly recommend surfing over there on occasion, or do like I do — just subscribe to their RSS feed to quickly sift through new posts that interest you. Anyway, woodytone.com did a wonderful writeup on the off-the-wall and genius that is (or was if you take to heart a lot of account of the recent state of) Eddie Van Halen.

THIS Is Why Eddie Van Halen Is a Freakin’ Genius!

Anyone that knows me, knows how much I love Van Halen. In my book, they never made a bad album — with Roth, Hagar or even Cherone at the helm. I appreciate this guy defending the Hagar-era stuff. It’s always been cool to bash Sammy Hagar, and love Dave, but this guy makes a lot of good points about the Hagar era stuff, though I’d say he’s even overly harsh on Hagar. While I can’t wait for the day there’s a new Van Halen album, I’d be equally happy with David Lee Roth or Hagar helming the band on vocals.

In Defense of Van Hagar

Never have seen the show, but I meant to check it out when Eddie Van Halen made his cameo. But, I missed it… not really sure when the show’s on, nor did TiVo pick it up for me. Hmm, need to check to see if I still have an auto-record wishlist for Van Halen.

Thankfully, YouTube, is perfect for this type of thing in this day and age. Instead of having to suffer through the half-hour show or fast forward through it on the ol’ DVR, you can just check out the clip below. Not too funny, but at least EVH looks healthy, and we get a little lick from Ed on his new Fender Frankenstrat.

On the heels of yesterday’s announcement of the full setlist for Guitar Hero: Van Halen, here’s the official trailer and web site for the game. December 22, is quite a way’s off!

Van Halen Guitar Hero Official Site

Woo hoo! Guitar Hero Van Halen hasn’t been forgotten and is eventually coming out. I was really looking forward to it dropping at its original date here in August 2009. Now it’s coming out just days before Christmas — December 22nd. What a weird release date. But regardless, I’m psyched for this one’s release!

Here’s the official list:

* “Ain’t Talkin Bout Love” by Van Halen
* “And The Cradle Will Rock” by Van Halen
* “Atomic Punk” by Van Halen
* “Beautiful Girls” by Van Halen
* “Cathedral” (solo) by Van Halen
* “Dance The Night Away” by Van Halen
* “Eruption” (solo) by Van Halen
* “Everybody Wants Some” by Van Halen
* “Feel Your Love Tonight” by Van Halen
* “Hang ‘Em High” by Van Halen
* “Hear About It Later” by Van Halen
* “Hot For Teacher” by Van Halen
* “Ice Cream Man” by Van Halen
* “I’m The One” by Van Halen
* “Jamie’s Cryin” by Van Halen
* “Jump” by Van Halen
* “Little Guitars” by Van Halen
* “Loss Of Control” by Van Halen
* “Mean Street” by Van Halen
* “Panama” by Van Halen
* “Pretty Woman” by Van Halen
* “Romeo Delight” by Van Halen
* “Running With The Devil” by Van Halen
* “So This Is Love” by Van Halen
* “Somebody Get Me A Doctor” by Van Halen
* “Spanish Fly” (solo) by Van Halen
* “Unchained” by Van Halen
* “You Really Got Me” by Van Halen
* “Come To Life” by Alter Bridge
* “White Wedding” by Billy Idol
* “First Date” by blink-182
* “Space Truckin” by Deep Purple
* “Best Of You” by Foo Fighters
* “Double Vision” by Foreigner
* “Stacy’s Mom” by Fountains of Wayne
* “Pain” by Jimmy Eat World
* “Painkiller” by Judas Priest
* “The End Of Heartache” by Killswitch Engage
* “Rock And Roll Is Dead” by Lenny Kravitz
* “I Want It All” by Queen
* “Sick, Sick, Sick” by Queens of the Stone Age
* “Master Exploder” by Tenacious D
* “Safe European Home” by The Clash
* “Pretty Fly For A White Guy” by The Offspring
* “Semi-Charmed Life” by Third Eye Blind
* “Dope Nose” by Weezer
* “The Takedown” by Yellowcard

I still wish the Hagar era and Michael Anthony were both represented! I’m still holding out that some Hagar-era DLC will come out down the road, but highly doubt it.

Guitar Hero Van Halen Setlist and Release Date Revealed

You can mute this video, as the audio playing is from the trade show floor of E3 and is completely unrelated to the trailer for Guitar Hero: Van Halen. This is the first glimpse of the game that had been confirmed, but didn’t even have a release date, unlike Guitar Hero 5, Rock Band Beatles, etc. So it was finally good to get a visual confirmation, and to just see the visuals.

Unfortunately, it’s looking like a lot of this game is going to be the worst case scenario — current Van Halen lineup — meaning Wolfgang Van Halen on bass, rather than Michael Anthony (or Sammy Hagar). I am holding out hope that both will show up deeper into the game. The article at IGN below references four songs playable at E3 — “Panama,” “You Really Got Me,” “Jump” and “Ain’t Talking About Love.” All of those are Roth-era tracks. Again, I’m holding out hope that the game will have a mix of Roth and Hagar tracks. The trailer shown at the show references 25 Van Halen tracks, which is only 5 shy of my wish list that I wrote up a couple months back.

Regardless, as such a die-hard VH nut, I’ll still be purchasing this one upon release. My fingers are crossed that this one will be as much fun as Guitar Hero: Metallica (which I just snagged this past weekend — review forthcoming).

I’m pretty sure a Van Halen fanboy like myself will get my money’s worth out of this one, regardless of any shortcomings or limitations it may possess. Then again, maybe I’ll be pleasantly surprised.

Guitar Hero Van Halen Preview

Sweet! It looks like next year we’ll finally get some new Van Halen music, with a tour to follow, supporting it. If the tracks are along the lines of the last new tracks with Roth (“Me Wise Magic” and “Can’t Get This Stuff No More”), it should rock. I’m looking forward to finally adding some more Van Halen tracks to my collection — finally!

As for Ed’s comment about Michael Anthony quitting the band — I gotta call BS! The Van Halens weren’t doing anything in the music biz and former Van Halen alum Sammy Hagar was. Anthony had every right and was justified going out on the road with Hagar. Once the Van Halens got Roth back in the mix, I can understand him wanting to be participating. But that being said, the Van Halens wrote Anthony off long before bringing DLR back. On the Van Halen 3 album (with Gary Cherone fronting), Anthony wasn’t involved in the studio recordings, and only was involved in the last Hagar-fronted tour at Hagar’s insistence. So I’m definitely calling BS.

That being said, I’ll be first in line to buy the album later next year, along with the Guitar Hero: Van Halen game [hopefully] this year.

Eddie Van Halen Promises New Album and Tour for 2010!

As much as I love all the Guitar Hero and Rock Band games out there, I’m so looking forward to the Van Halen Guitar Hero game coming out later this year.

It’s not actually going to be called Guitar Hero: Van Halen, but rather, Hard Rock Van Halen, possibly an offshoot of the Guitar Hero series. The Van Halen game will be the third game centered around a band – the first being Guitar Hero: Aerosmith. The second, being released in a few weeks is Guitar Hero: Metallica.

I’m really chomping at the bit to see the full setlist for the Van Halen themed game, but until then, I wanted to give my wish list of Van Halen tracks to be included in the game.

There are obviously some unknowns about the this game, including whether the tracklist will feature tracks from all three lead singers – David Lee Roth, Sammy Hagar and Gary Cherone (for that single album). The set list below is based on the assumption that all three artists will be represented. I may revisit this topic with a setlist that encompasses only Roth tunes, as he’s the original and current singer.

The Guitar Hero: Aerosmith game featured 25 Aerosmith tracks, along with a trio of guitarist Joe Perry solo tracks. So we’ll say 28 artist tracks. The new Metallica game features 31 tracks. So let’s go with a nice round number, and assume 30 tracks in the Van Halen title.

1. Runnin’ With the Devil
2. Eruption
3. Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Love
4. Eruption
5. Dance the Night Away
6. Beautiful Girls
7. And the Cradle Will Rock…
8. Everybody Wants Some!!
9. Mean Street
10. Unchained
11. (Oh) Pretty Woman
12. Jump
13. Panama
14. Hot For Teacher
15. Why Can’t This Be Love
16. Dreams
17. Best of Both Worlds
18. When It’s Love
19. Feels So Good
20. Finish What Ya Started
21. Poundcake
22. Runaround
23. Right Now
24. Can’t Stop Lovin’ You
25. Don’t Tell Me (What Love Can Do)
26. Humans Being
27. Me Wise Magic
28. Without You
29. Fire in the Hole
30. It’s About Time

Man, just seeing that list makes me anxious for the game’s release! If they do make the [wrong] decision to go only Roth era, I can see going a lot heavier off their debut album, but I really think it’d be a mistake to not include Hagar era tracks, especially “5150″ and “For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge.”

Can’t wait for this game! The other questions I have regarding the game is whether or not they’ll include Michael Anthony, with their recent history of giving him the shaft. I sure hope they don’t erase him from the game either. Then again, I’m not sure if the Metallica game will include their two former bassists, Cliff Burton and Jason Newstead.