A previously unreleased Van Halen demo is to be released as a 7″ picture disc. The 1974 recording, Glitter – made with the band’s first bassist, Mark Stone – will be packaged with Van Halen, a limited-edition anthology written by drummer Alex Van Halen.
1500 copies of the anthology will be published by Genesis Publications in November. A Deluxe boxed set edition of 350 is already sold out, but the Collector boxed set run of 1150 – yours for a trifling £345 ($525) – is still available.
Each Collector copy is quarter-bound in black vegan leather with silver page edging, and features a silver debossed Van Halen logo. The book is housed in a black clamshell box with silver foiling.
In addition to the Glitter picture disc – which is backed by spoken word excerpts from interviews with Alex Van Halen – the package includes a Van Halen Productions keychain, three replica Eddie Van Halen stage-used guitar picks, and six 6″ × 4″ art postcards. Each copy of the book has been personally signed by Alex Van Halen.
While Glitter has not been officially released before, it has been widely available as a bootleg, notably on the unofficial Van Halen/David Lee Roth CRr compilation Back In Circulation. It was also released in 1998 via the Dave TV section of David Lee Roth’s website, alongside another demo from the same session, Gentlemen Of Leisure.
The recordings were originally made at the home of David Lee Roth’s father, Dr Nathan Roth, a prominent Pasadena ophthalmologist. The tapes were then distributed to club bookers in the Los Angeles area in the hope of securing live shows.
Alex Van Halen published a memoir, Brothers, in 2024.
(Image credit: Genesis Publications)
(LouderSound)
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