David Lee Roth: ‘Looking Back Now, Even I Envy Me!’

David Lee Roth released another video/stream of consciousness on his YouTube channel. This time, Diamond Dave looks back on his "California Girls" music video.

Roth, of course, released his cover of the Beach Boys classic in 1985. The cover was featured on the EP Crazy from the Heat. That EP title would be recycled by Roth as the title of his 1997 autobiography.

Roth reflected in the new video, "On a personal note: I feel fairly confident saying that these were some of the best times in my life, not the times on stage that my dad most envied about me. These were probably the moments everyone else's dad envied most about my life, and looking back now, even I envy me."

Diamond Dave has been utilizing his YouTube channel a lot in recent weeks. In the process, he's made some interesting headlines. The most interesting among them was about two incidents involving Wolfgang Van Halen on the final Van Halen tour.

In a video titled "This Crazy Kid," Roth says Wolfgang complained throughout the tour that he wasn't paying enough attention to him on stage. DLR refutes that and says he was giving Wolfgang " ... the best, everything I've got in front of 20-30,000 people at a clip." Roth refers to Wolfgang as "The f---in' kid" in the video, even though he was about 24 in Roth's story.

Roth then alleges that at a tour stop in New York, Wolfgang had security kick out two women who were Diamond Dave's guests. However, Roth claims these two women also work at the accounting firm that represents Van Halen. He then accuses Wolfgang of doing this as a way of "teaching me a lesson." According to Roth, these women had the paychecks of the road crew on them. When he found that out, Roth said he laughed so hard he spilled his Snapple.

Cut to the final shows of this tour, which are hometown gigs at the legendary Hollywood Bowl. Roth alleges Wolfgang pulled the same move and had a guest of his removed from the venue.

"Wolfie Van Halen's going to teach me a less by throwing out what he thinks is my girlfriend, but guess what? Not only is she an accountant again, and not only is she carrying the paychecks for 82 of us on the road crew, but she's carrying cash bonuses for everybody there ... and that's how I remember my last show with Eddie Van Halen."

Eddie Van Halen was the most influential guitarist of our generation.

Of course, flashy, fleet-fingered guitarists were a dime a dozen in the late ‘70s and ‘80s. Eddie was better than all of them, but he was more than that. A songwriter, a keyboardist, a studio wizard, ¼ of Van Halen’s four-part harmony team and a band leader that was able to guide VH through losing the most distinctive frontman of the ‘80s and led them to four chart-topping albums with Sammy Hagar.

Here, we take on the tough task of ranking their top 30 songs. (It was really, really tough to cut any of the songs on the first six albums from this list.)