Your thoughts on A Lil Ain't Enough

[SchenkerFan]

What's the verdict on this album? I think it's a really mixed bag. The elements were there for a great record: excellent musicians, great producer. Yet the songs are... meh. Title track is classic DLR and is what the rest of the album should have sounded like, but none of the rest comes close. Some tracks have good parts, but the whole just leaves you disappointed. Shoot It is a good example: starts off strong, sound is top notch, then the chorus is just totally bland. Weak choruses pervade this album. There's a couple of other good tracks. Lady Luck has a nice riff (courtesy of Craig Goldy?). Tell The Truth has that great laid back smooth vibe. Then there's songs like Hammerhead Shark and Last Call which are pure garbage. And I never got why Sensible Shoes was a single and why it appeared on his best ofs.

[BernieTaupson]

Crap.

[Zander]

I've been listening to this a lot lately for some reason. Granted it's not great, half of it is pure filler, but title track is probably my favourite of his solo songs. Shoot It, Hammerhead Shark, Dogtown Shuffle and Sensible Shoes are also good, though the latter was a weird choice to follow up the title track. Maybe he/WB realized his Diamond Dave shtick had gotten very old and stale and he had lost all his cool alongside his hiar and tried to re-establish him as a lounge act.

[TBONESBURDEN]

After hearing the title track, I was genuinely excited to hear the album. Boy, was I in for a huge disappointment. This album is bad. I never bought another Dave solo album after this.

[EyeDocOfRock]

AWFUL !!!!

[Nobodyspecial]

After hearing the title track, I was genuinely excited to hear the album. Boy, was I in for a huge disappointment. This album is bad. I never bought another Dave solo album after this.

Ditto!

[Tenacious_Dio]

I actually listened to this on my way home from work last night (I found the box set for under $40, so I bought it).

I didn't think much of it back in the day, but it's better than I remembered. Decent songs, not great. I agree that most of the album is nothing like the title track.

Jason Becker's talents were kind of wasted here. He gets to cut loose on a handful of tracks, but for most of the album, he's doing a generic blues-rock thing. That stuff could've been handled by any random studio guy.

Anyways, it was definitely better than the album that followed.

[BernieTaupson]

Becker isn’t even on everything, the other guitar is Steve Hunter n

[SchenkerFan]

I actually listened to this on my way home from work last night (I found the box set for under $40, so I bought it).

I didn't think much of it back in the day, but it's better than I remembered. Decent songs, not great. I agree that most of the album is nothing like the title track.

Jason Becker's talents were kind of wasted here. He gets to cut loose on a handful of tracks, but for most of the album, he's doing a generic blues-rock thing. That stuff could've been handled by any random studio guy.

Anyways, it was definitely better than the album that followed.

Your Filthy Little Mouth is what remained when they stripped A Lil Ain't Enough of the good stuff. A bunch of half finished ideas that may have had the potential for good songs but resulted in an end product of hot garbage. Who the fuck is Terry Kilgore?

[SchenkerFan]

Becker isn’t even on everything, the other guitar is Steve Hunter n

That's what I always wondered, on how many tracks did Becker play? I thought the more bluesy bits would have been Steve Hunter, but I've never seen confirmation of that.

[Van Ailin']

Becker isn’t even on everything, the other guitar is Steve Hunter n

That's what I always wondered, on how many tracks did Becker play? I thought the more bluesy bits would have been Steve Hunter, but I've never seen confirmation of that.

To my ears, Jason may be only on It's Showtime and perhaps Dogtown Shuffle. Maybe he completed some rhythm work on others?

[Tenacious_Dio]

I know Steve Hunter did the slide stuff.

From Hunter's website:

This album is important to Steve for a very good reason, it introduced him to Jason Becker who became a lifelong friend along with his family.

Jason had been asked to do the album and David Lee Roth wanted him to have a little more Blues in his style so Steve was recruited as a teacher. At first Steve was concerned that Jason was too young and that his shredding style might be a barrier, but those concerns turned out to not be an issue at all. From their very first meeting they had things in common, not least of which was their love of Classical music.

Steve played Jason some of the old Blues greats and Jason lapped up everything he heard.

Steve was hired to play rhythm and harmony lines which was fine by him plus he co wrote four tracks.

https://www.stevehunter.com/a-little-aint-enough.html

[Love_Industry]

I've been listening to this a lot lately for some reason. Granted it's not great, half of it is pure filler, but title track is probably my favourite of his solo songs. Shoot It, Hammerhead Shark, Dogtown Shuffle and Sensible Shoes are also good, though the latter was a weird choice to follow up the title track. Maybe he/WB realized his Diamond Dave shtick had gotten very old and stale and he had lost all his cool alongside his hiar and tried to re-establish him as a lounge act.

Agree with the good songs but I also like SS and Tell the Truth, and indeed Roth realized the Diamond Dave shtick was getting tired and the music landscape was changing so he retired the character at the end of the ALAE video and tried to reinvent himself with SS and Tell the Truth. Too bad it didn't work, in theory it was the right thing to do for him at that point. Also it was discussed here how WB killed the album and his career because he pissed them off when negotiating a VH compilation album that eventually became RHRN live.

Always thought the album was a bit muffled sounding but that is fixed on the 2025 remaster - sounds bigger, more detailed and a bit brighter. If you don't want the box I would be surprised if there isn't a stand alone release later this year.

[FreddyFender]

Roth was absolutely LOST musically by this point. He had tried to out-Van Halen Van Halen by hiring the EEAS band, but VH took a massive left turn with their sound and turned into a keyboard hit machine. And DLR's only hit on Skyscraper was a keyboard song. Where was he gonna go?

You can hear Roth wanted to go in a blues direction, but didn't have the balls to go all-in. Showtime and ALEA are just Van Halen Rewrites (listen to ALAE and imagine it without the guitar riff - definitely based on Jump). But for the rest of the album, a lot of the songs sound like those shitty major-key blues songs you heard in action movies at the time. They were just throwing shit at the wall. Tell The Truth is a good example - clearly they heard "Black Velvet", which was a huge hit, and just went "lets write a copy of that song."

The two VH rewrite are fun, you can forget the rest. It's a bad album. I think Sammy Hagar and VH blowing past him just devastated him as an artist. Didn't get his mojo back for decades.

Edit: and what the fuck is the album art? Did the artist listen to a minute of the title track and go "Devil... got it!". It's Black Sabbath Born Again-level bad. Roth is FUN... so they put something fit more for Slayer as the art??

[Love_Industry]

Your Filthy Little Mouth is what remained when they stripped A Lil Ain't Enough of the good stuff. A bunch of half finished ideas that may have had the potential for good songs but resulted in an end product of hot garbage. Who the fuck is Terry Kilgore?

Probably a rhetorical question but it may be interesting to some that Kilgore was in DLR's pre VH band Red Ball Jets and used to jam with Ed when they were playing backyard parties. He also wrote a song with Ratt on Detonator and was in the band Reddi Killowatt who was on some obscure singles and compilations. There are some who claim that Kilgore taught EVH tapping....

https://www.vhnd.com/2025/01/13/former- ... nyon-fire/

[DonJuanDeMarco]

I always liked the record. Dave sounds good. The title track is a great rocker. Sensible Shoes and Tell the Truth are cool bluesy numbers.

Big, glossy production. A little overproduced for what it is, actually. That was the beauty of classic VH. It sounded like it was recorded live in the garage!

I hated the records that came after this though! I don't think there is one song I like outside of the 2 bonus tracks on Diamond Dave which are actually from the 90's with this Vegas big band.

[LSD69]

7.75/10

[Chip Z'Hoy]

I like the title track but the blues lawyer stuff is not for me.

[SchenkerFan]

Your Filthy Little Mouth is what remained when they stripped A Lil Ain't Enough of the good stuff. A bunch of half finished ideas that may have had the potential for good songs but resulted in an end product of hot garbage. Who the fuck is Terry Kilgore?

Probably a rhetorical question but it may be interesting to some that Kilgore was in DLR's pre VH band Red Ball Jets and used to jam with Ed when they were playing backyard parties. He also wrote a song with Ratt on Detonator and was in the band Reddi Killowatt who was on some obscure singles and compilations. There are some who claim that Kilgore taught EVH tapping....

https://www.vhnd.com/2025/01/13/former- ... nyon-fire/

I looked him up in the past and that's about the same I managed to find out. Didn't know about Reddi Kilowatt. Wonder what the story behind the RATT song was. I have no clue what the dude was up to pre-DLR and after. He came across to me as a very mediocre guitarist who got his lucky break when his childhood friend turned superstar decided he didn't want another hotshot guitarist but just some regular dude.

[BernieTaupson]

The story goes that Dave pissed someone off at the record company and they killed the promotion before the record went platinum. Not sure if I believe it, Dave was mostly done by the start of the 90s.

[HueyRamone]

I thought the title track was like Yankee Rose, but bad. No way that was gonna work. Maybe hardcore fans would like it, but not the general public.

It's funny how he is "old and bald" in the video, but he's only 37. Perspectives can sure change.

Also funny is is "Final tour 2021" clip at the end of the vid. He looks just like current Vince Neil, instead of the walking skeleton he actually became.

[Fat_Elvis]

This CD was in every cut-out bin I saw back in the day.

[TheDeadBastard]

I love me some DLR but I remember when that album came out and the lead single hit MTV he just seemed …. Old. Felt like a guy who was trying to hang on but popular music has passed him by.

Loved the video (sucker for his Picasso Bros. stuff) but felt like he was now a VH1 act. Maybe that’s why he tried changing it up on YFLM (which was produced by Nile Rogers).

[rockker]

A little is enough

[FreddyFender]

The story goes that Dave pissed someone off at the record company and they killed the promotion before the record went platinum. Not sure if I believe it, Dave was mostly done by the start of the 90s.

If a tour is tanking, they're going to stop spending money on the record. The tour is to increase sales of the album - at least how it was back then!

If no ones going to the show, it's a bad gamble to sink more money in. I mean, I'm sure the guys at Warner were not pleased Dave had turned in a dud of a record. They pushed the record, but as another poster said most of the copies ended up in the bargain bin.

Didn't Pete Angelus fire Roth and after Roth melted down on the Black Crowes around this time? That could have been the final straw in WB giving up on the record.

[BernieTaupson]

The story was Roth fucked someone he wasn’t meant to. Record company exec’s wife or something.

Agree the cover is absolute dogshit, dark covers like that just disappear in album racks. He should have learnt his lesson from Fair Warning’s cover, which they had to payola to get to platinum. It died. It’s still the lowest selling classic VH album despite being one of the best.

Again, he should have done a video release of the tour. He had those goofy big inflatable legs on this tour right? And he rode the big microphone over the audience like a big dick headed between the legs. Quality.

Not doing videos of the EEAS and SS tours was batshit insane. Maybe he thought people wouldn’t come if they had videos of it. No, the opposite is true. Same with classic VH. The fact they never did a concert release is fucking MORONIC!

They pro-shot MSG 2008 with Fartgang but never released that either.

[dmbrocker]

Title track, "It's Showtime!", "Tell the Truth", and "Sensible Shoes" are pretty good. Otherwise kinda average.

[Bono Nettencourt]

Again, he should have done a video release of the tour. He had those goofy big inflatable legs on this tour right? And he rode the big microphone over the audience like a big dick headed between the legs. Quality.

Not doing videos of the EEAS and SS tours was batshit insane. Maybe he thought people wouldn’t come if they had videos of it. No, the opposite is true. Same with classic VH. The fact they never did a concert release is fucking MORONIC!

They pro-shot MSG 2008 with Fartgang but never released that either.

A video of the ALAE tour? AYFR? They would've had to shoot it pretty tight to hide all the empty seats.

EEAS would've been the move. That band was on fire. When did LWAN come out? That might've figured into it.

AFA classic VH, they weren't as great live as their legend would have you believe, especially the toastmaster general. By FW he pretty much stopped singing. If Oakland '81 was really as good as people claim, they would've put it out. Roth would've had to practically re-sing the whole show in the studio for them to put out a live album. Nobody would've believed it, and this was in a world where people bought Alive and Alive II.

On to '08 - they were lucky to get thru the gigs that they did. I'm sure that there was no appetite to go back in the studio and polish a live tape afterwards.

[FreddyFender]

Yeah, it's a shame Roth never did a home video - I guess he wanted the movie or bust.

Seems pretty clear to me that Roth thinks reworking live stuff is inauthentic, wont do it - there's no other possible explanation for that Tokyo live album.

West Palm Beach '79 Soundboard is as good as we're getting. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pH2kCkeaPgs

[BernieTaupson]

Pretty sure all that coke just eventually fried his brain, he probably thought Tokyo sounded good. He didn’t even tell them to pick the best performances from that mini-tour they did in Japan, they just put the whole thing out like that. It’s unlistenable because of the vocals, he completely fucks up Chinatown, he’s yelping through Panama and singing DTNA god knows how many octaves too high. Mind boggling that the other three guys approved it.

The feed of the jumbotron from that show leaked a year or two ago, you can watch the whole thing.