One more thing.

David Lee was incredibly dumb. He tried to do the impossible. He tried to recreate the lightning in a bottle vibe of Van Halen with his new band and their album Skyscraper (1988). I assume the band’s goal was to be a fantastically successful supergroup. I don’t know if he literally said to Steve Vai “Pretend to be Eddie” but that’s what Vai did. Vai and the bassist were technical wizards but they bring to mind a quote I learned decades later from the jazz saxophonist Stan Getz. He said “I can’t play a lie.”

The album was painful to listen to. It will always be amazing to me how some insanely talented musicians can have no taste and no soul. I felt embarrassed for Vai and the bassist.

-–

Ninja edit

I haven’t listened to any tracks on the album ~35 years. I remembered the songs as being at best about 2/10. If this song is typical - that’s far too kind. Maybe all the tracks are sub 1/10. My god. All that talent to create utter crap. And the Eddie ripoff stuff is even worse than I remembered.

Knucklebones.