David Lee Roth Vocals and NWA in high school
The folks over at Chunklet Magazine (prior guests on Tom Scharpling's Best Show on WFMU - real audio link) have uncovered this highly entertaining isolated vocal track of David Lee Roth singing Running with the Devil. (via Coudal)
David Lee Roth - Running with the Devil Isolated Vocal Track
Also of possible interest: The C.I.A 12" over at BAF in the event that you want to hear sketchy quality recordings of NWA back when they were RUN-DMC-loving high school students.
If only I had some Oingo Boingo tracks to share this could have been a "Los Angeles adolesence in the 80s" trifecta...
Thanks Doron! I cant wait to cut this up and play with it on the air next Wednesday!
Posted by: Station Manager Ken | January 24, 2008 at 11:38 AM
Use multiple tabs to hear Roth sing with himself...
Posted by: Woo! | January 24, 2008 at 01:02 PM
On a related note: At some point last year, I finally put together an edit that I had been thinking about for years. In the same vein as the NWA "Fuck" edit that passed around years ago, I edited all of Dave's "punctuation" from the first VH album into one piece:
DLR Is Nuts!
I wouldn't be surprised if someone had done this before, but here it is all the same.
I'll be working on VH II and the rest sometime soon, but I don't think those will come close to the 5:26 that this one comes in at. Feel free to enjoy. :-)
Posted by: Chris | January 24, 2008 at 01:58 PM
Not as funny as I thought--he's not such a bad singer after all...
Posted by: pat | January 24, 2008 at 03:57 PM
Man, if only you had some Boingo outtakes. Maybe Danny grumbling over his nephew being a Scientology tard or something...
Posted by: vjb2 | January 24, 2008 at 09:40 PM
Diamond Dave's track made my parakeet chirp his head off. I love the sound effects on the track too.
Posted by: Ivy | January 25, 2008 at 06:51 AM
I think I have a new ringtone!
Posted by: ZebZiggle | January 25, 2008 at 12:57 PM
no, its really not that bad. its worlds better than his singing on VanHalen's original demos(produced by Gene Simmons)
Posted by: DanO | January 25, 2008 at 03:27 PM
I couldn't resist synching this with the video, a la StSanders:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMdKczP5zMo
Posted by: eric | January 25, 2008 at 04:42 PM
What a great post! I had to pick my laughing self up off the floor just now. What would America be without baseball, apple pie, and David Lee Roth?
Posted by: Libby | January 25, 2008 at 05:49 PM
OMG! My old friend forwarded me this link. We would sit around and talk about trying to isolate DDLR's high pitched screams on this song and you have finally done it 20 years later. Thanks so much!!!
Posted by: Defend Thyself | January 25, 2008 at 08:56 PM
Thats awesome!
Any chance of getting some more of these posted? Light Up The Sky or Your No Good would be kick ass!
Posted by: fullbug | January 25, 2008 at 09:57 PM
In this genre, isolated vocals sounds horrible for the most part, but David Lee Roth sounds great, great vibrato, timbre etc... and you can hear the whisky shots from the night before, great rock'n'roll singer!
Posted by: John from Oslo | January 27, 2008 at 06:01 AM
I propose we have a remix contest of this - I already proposed it to 10 of my friends - we're gonna chop the hell out of this
Posted by: Jay | January 28, 2008 at 02:54 PM
REMIX!!!!!!!
http://www.sendspace.com/file/f8up3o
Posted by: RyanMcG | February 01, 2008 at 02:52 PM
Amazing remixes at http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=2754796&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=4
notably:
http://www.tindeck.com/audio/my/fyky/drving-with-the-devil
Posted by: Joe | February 20, 2008 at 08:08 PM
You only wish u had an 1/8 of the career,experiences, & chicks he had.
Posted by: Ray T | March 25, 2008 at 07:04 AM
davidleerothruns.ytmnd.com
Posted by: I made a YTMND of this | April 25, 2008 at 02:24 AM
Here is another remix of it!
Posted by: Frank | May 16, 2008 at 08:04 PM
To the dumbass who remarked about the "special effects" on Dave's vocals.... there were none you moron... This was recorded in 1977. Dave sang back in the days when actual musicians really sang using their real voices. This clearly demonstrates your youthful ignorance.
Posted by: C | June 22, 2008 at 10:55 PM
Aug-11-08 11:41am SLAVE 4 TRUTH
Robert John "Mutt" Lang and Matt Haywood (formerly of HHO Publishing) together with B. Spears SONY ZOMBA BMG stole my SOCAN registery pre dating liner note suggestion.
DDLR: So what's the angle on your Dave Lee Roth scam? Does it not just make you look dumb?
Dean Hajas: The angle on the DLR story is that the OPP released the story to CTV as though it were fact. CTV ran the story without talking to me to verify the validity of the claim. When the media finally realized it had mad a blunder, it then tried to pin the story on any donkey in the area. I chose to run with the story, thinking "what the hell" if people want to believe DLR was staying at my house in Oakland Ontario, let them. It was fun, interesting, controversial, and entertaining.
DLR camp can't thank us enough.! And we've been on Howard Stern now and Radio one in Detroit.
Not bad for a rumor
DDLR: Ah ok thanks for answering. I should have said in my original email that the reason I asked was as a webmaster at the main Roth fan site I saw through it pretty early and found the whole thing odd. Did you ever meet the weird impersonator guy?
Dean Hajas: The impersonator guy? It gets a little darker around the edges when you mention DLR and DPA together in the same sentence. There is a gag order with regards to these two. Remember the Police released the info as GOSPEL and CTV followed. I could get into financial trouble for giving anymore info as of yet.
Posted by: M. Dean Hajas | August 15, 2008 at 12:32 PM
I awoke to this song on the Van Halen CD a few hours ago. What a kick to hear this version! Dave's voice is richer and more flexible than I first thought.
Posted by: Frank Neubauer | January 08, 2009 at 11:48 AM
Whether it's bad or good, it's Dave. Most importantly it's Rock 'n' Roll. Believe me there could be worse things to hear. Ever seen/heard Dave's performance on the Night Show with Jay Lenno doing blue grass version of "Jump"? Now that was bad. Still it's Dave. In his prime he was one of the best lead vocalists for a "Rock" band. Sure he can't sing as well as he did, but look at his life since then and it wouldn't be any surprise. It's just to bad that people who are close to him don't tell him the truth or at least say "maybe you should just enjoy life". I guess enjoying life to him would be doing what he loves best, so forget that part. Keep on rockin Diamond Dave!
Posted by: Chris Ashwood | January 30, 2009 at 08:58 AM