In 2003, writer Bill Tuomala offerred a career overview of Van Halen from an alternate universe in which The Stooges, The Ramones and the Clash had become stadium rockers and knocked heavy metal bands deep into the underground. “If you were lucky and knew someone in the know or if you hung out in the right record store, you might have gotten turned on to some metal during the seventies. Like there was underground favorites Led Zeppelin…” Tuomala describes Halen as dogged explorers who pursued their own path in the face of total commercial failure, but who finally got some belated respect when Nirvana became famous in 1991 (“The Year Metal Broke”) and had Eddie and Dave join them on their MTV Unplugged special. more ›