SLACK TIME! - New Year's Eve with David Lee Roth

Diamond Dave: Everybody Wants Some - I Want Some Too!

Twenty-six years ago today, DLR and I "hung out"  in the Village on W 4th street....

December 30, 1984 - 'twas a Sunday morning and I'd spent the week crashing with Hoboken friends in advance of a big New Year's Eve party, but Saturday afternoon had relocated to Manhattan to join my visiting family who had rooms booked at Morgan's, the new Steve "Studio" Rubell / Ian "54" Schrager hotel on Madison near 38th.  Following Sunday breakfast I called the Hobokeners and we agreed on a noon meet-up at McBell's tavern, a great old Irish place on Sixth just south of Washington Place where a decent steak and cold beer could be had cheaply.

Doesn't do justice but you get the point

As I'd cabbed down to the neighborhood around 11:00, with time to kill - slack time - I was prowling "Geoffe's Trail" of neighborhood record shops and turned west off Sixth Avenue onto West 4th, where it bent northward to cross Cornelia and then Jones streets.

Mid-block, I spotted a small bric-a-brac place - really no larger than a walk-in closet, and the wallspace chock-full of cheap sunglasses.  Stepping in, I saw a large mane of blond hair over the back of a jean jacket that had a gorgeous, WWII Memphis Belle warplane 'nose art' style, hand-painted Pin-up-Girl-in-Champagne-Glass image.  'Round turns David Lee Roth - at the time, my absolute #1 idol in the world - and says to me "Hey buddy!"

I'm your Ice Cream Man

[Ulp] "Hi, Dave! What are you doing here?"

"We're just picking up some fine glasses for tomorrow night! You're gonna watch me hostin' the MTV New Year's Eve party, [Rothian pause & head-swivel] - ain'tcha?"

"Big party in Hoboken - we'll be watching on TV" was my 'cool' response.

I'd been such a huge Van Halen fan and recalled how, a year earlier, VH had released their mammoth "1984" on New Year's Eve, and MTV had then beaten that drum for months.  Dave was one of the most recognized mascots and dependable faces on MTV - a total showman and font of shameless zingers and self-promoting bravado.

"Well, why don't you and your friends come on by? You tell 'em you're with me, and come right by and see us!" With a hardy laugh: "We're hard to miss!"  Then Dave introduced me to his entourage - two beautiful young black-haired girls (one Asian as I recall), and to his compadre Eddie Anderson. "Eddie'll getcha IN!"

David Lee Roth - Swash, Buckle and Blow-dry

Dave was definitely pumping iron in those days, and I knew from reading Creem, Circus & Hit Parader that he was into he-man adventures such as skydiving, cliff-jumping and running through the Amazon jungle blitzed on 100+ proof Brazilian sugarcane cachaca. Thinking fast, I mentioned that I was presently managing a film for National Geographic TV called "Iceland River Challenge" documenting a team's trek across Iceland above-ground via snowshoe and ultra-light aircraft, and below the ice in kayaks through underground fjord channels.

Dave expressed genuine interest in the methods of traversing the wilderness, was with-it enough to speculate on how they surmounted Iceland's waterfalls (the ultra-light solution) and the perils of underground kayaking through ice-caverns.  We agreed I'd send him a copy of the program upon completion - Dave gave me Eddie's address and promised to watch the show.

After 10 minutes of bantering while Dave tried on 30 pairs of sunglasses and mugged for the girls (who coo'd and ooh'd over every pair), we shuffled out onto the sidewalk.  I recalled reading that Dave's uncle Manny Roth had been the owner of old Greenwich Village haunt Cafe Wha? during the 60's, including at the time of Jimi Hendrix' "kidnapping" from the club a month after Woodstock in September '69.  Couldn't figure out how to work that into the conversation, but it turns out that we were all standing only about 3 blocks from Cafe Wha? on MacDougal street.

I nervously looked up and down the block.  it was 11:50 and I thought, "is it too much to ask that my ne'er-do-well friends might be on time and turning the corner headed for McBell's, they'll see me with the God of Rock, and we'll all hang out all afternoon drinking beer with Dave and his crew?"  Yes, too much to ask. 

"Sam throws a party - I AM THE PARTY"

In 1984 you needed to watch Star Trek to see anything remotely like a cell-phone, much less one with a camera.  Thus no call to the friends nor any photo of me and my new, close personal friend. But knowing those clowns'd never believe me otherwise, I pulled a small pad of Morgan's graph-paper style stationery from my pocket and asked Dave to write something "friendly" to my friend Ellen, a big fan of his (why, only recently she'd grabbed a Creem magazine from me, torn out the pin-up of Dave, and rubbed it warmly between the legs of her lavender Reminiscence-issue Fiorucci  jumper-alls).

Ever the gentleman, Dave obliged.

Went to McBells, got change for the pay phone, and called the clowns in Hoboken.  They were just getting up hungover and would try to get into the city by 1:00 (arrival time ended up being 1:30).  For the first hour or so they didn't believe me but, bellies in place at McBell's bar, they ultimately fell in line deferring to the mind and analytical powers of one in our party - the Goteboy - who set upon the task of studying rock 'zine evidence and, under the hot lights of McBell's, extracted and analyzed my own handwriting samples using a shot-glass for a lupe. Upon his proclamation of authenticity my tale stood and still stands tall to its full epic stature.

DLR's EP: heavy metal front-man turns lounge lizard

Following night we indeed had MTV's NYE Bash on the telly alright, and saw the stars of the day - Joan Jett, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, etc. - performing and parading, along with Dave in his guest MC role along with the MTV VeeJays all night.

Although VH had not yet announced a ways-parting, the big news of the night was DLR's release of solo project EP "Crazy From the Heat" and the premiere of the California Girls video

Slack Time:

The jean jacket image has always stayed in my mind: a voluptuous girl (Vargas prototype) comfortably seated in, and arms & legs languorously draped over the lip of, a champagne glass, with "Slack Time" inscribed above (homage to the WWII classic "Sack Time" adornment of the night-time bomber squadron: check out these reproductions and hang one in your rec. room).

Happy 20!!, One and All