The first conversation I ever had with a professional musician took place in a hardware store parking lot.
It was fall 1979 and I was on the cusp of turning 17, driving home after hanging out with my friend Neil at his house over in Mill Valley. I can’t remember what music we listened to at Neil’s that day, but there’s a solid chance it included something by Sammy Hagar, the local-guy-making-good hero of many of our friend group’s adolescent rock and roll fantasies. (And in fact, a group of us had spent the previous New Year’s Eve at Hagar’s headlining gig at the sold-out, 16,000-seat Cow Palace.)
At the time, Hagar—among Mill Valley’s growing number of musicians-in-residence—had recently issued his fourth studio album Street Machine. The most-likely-to-please-his-fanbase third track, “Trans Am (Highway Wonderland),” was a hard rock anthem manifesting all the single-minded exuberance of his earlier mission-statement songs “Rock And Roll Weekend” and “Turn Up The Music.”
Not content just to put his brand-new cherry-red ride on the back cover of the album, though, the never-lacking-for-confidence Hagar used his alpha-bro vanity license plate—“IEATZ28”—as the punchline to the first verse of “Trans Am.” It’s the kind of decision you make late at night in the studio when you’re young and feeling untouchable.
By now you’ve probably guessed what appeared right in front of me that day as I cruised down East Blithedale Avenue minding my own business: a cherry-red Trans Am with the license plate “IEATZ28.”
Mesmerized by the good fortune the universe has sent my way, I follow until the Trans Am cuts left across the opposite lane into the parking lot of a hardware store. Pulling in a couple of slots over, I leap out of my car to intercept the shaggy blond driver before he can disappear into the store.
“Uh, uh, Mr. Hagar?”
He’s wearing big sunglasses and his expression and body language are giving strong “Why the fuck are you in my way?” energy. But it’s absolutely him, and I’m absolutely not stepping aside, not yet.
The problem is, I don’t have so much as a slip of paper on me to ask him to sign, and no clue what to say. In this moment, I am quite literally the dog who caught the car.
“Uh, uh, I—I just wanted to say hi.”
The sheer innocence of this request seems to defuse the moment. He relaxes and gives a little grin. “Hi.”
With no idea what else to say, I stick out my hand for a soul shake. He obliges.
“Th-thanks!” I blurt out as he’s already moving past me, off to search for galvanized nails or a spool of wire or whatever he headed into town to pick up that day. I stand motionless in the parking lot for a count of five, staring at my hand.
And, scene.
It occurs to me, though, that you probably came here looking for an album review. Alrighty then.
After three enthusiastic but stylistically all-over-the-map studio albums, Sammy Hagar’s post-Montrose solo career was on the verge of foundering when he issued his 1978 live collection All Night Long. Collecting all of his best solo songs to date, plus a couple of Montrose classics, All Night Long felt more focused on Hagar’s natural audience—the melodic hard rock crowd that still adored those first two Montrose albums—than his previous studio efforts, which veered into pop, r&b and power ballads in between headbangers.
Street Machine was his first opportunity to capitalize on the lessons learned... and also a lesson in how hard habits can be to break. On the band side of things, Gary Pihl (guitar) and Bill Church (bass) were back, but Hagar and Church’s fellow Montrose alumni Alan Fitzgerald (keys) and Denny Carmassi (drums) had moved on, with the latter replaced by another Montrose connection, former Edgar Winter drummer Chuck Ruff.
The producer’s chair saw an even bigger change, with Hagar himself taking over from Capitol A&R man John Carter, who had produced all three of Hagar’s previous studio albums, as well as co-writing a number of songs on them. You might think the change to self-producing would result in a more cohesive, coherent, confident album, free of the sort of labored, too-obvious attempts at generating a pop single that were Carter’s stock in trade… but you would be only partially right.
On the plus side, Street Machine is somewhat more focused than previous studio outings and plays to Hagar’s strengths with hard rock tunes like punchy opener “Growing Pains” and the chunky, ringing “Feels Like Love.” And while lead single “Plain Jane” feels like a no-apologies grasp for a radio hit, its abundant hooks are delivered with undeniable enthusiasm.
You could say much the same of “Trans Am (Highway Wonderland); it’s as obvious as they come, and I laugh out loud every time they get to the goofy-as-hell “T! - R! - A! - etc.” chant at the bridge, but are you not entertained? ’Cause I have to admit, I am. Ditto for “This Planet’s on Fire (Burn in Hell)”; lyrically it’s as profound as a silly-string battle, but musically it’s the year 1979 poured into an incendiary, balls-out rocker.
The rest of the album is spottier fare. “Child To Man” presents one of Hagar’s more serious and grounded lyrics, but ends up feeling gawky. The Bad Company-flavored blues-rocker “Wounded In Love” flips that script with solid music and squishy lyrics. Melodramatic mid-tempo grinder “Never Say Die” offers a nice Steve Douglas sax solo, but that’s about it. Still, it’s a cut above “Falling In Love,” a saccharin power ballad so formulaic it verges on parody; not even guest harmonies from Brad Delp, Barry Goudreau and Sib Hashian of Boston can rescue it from itself.
Closer “Straight To The Top” bolsters the back half of the album with an upbeat early-rock homage that reminds you how well the early Elvis single “Good Rockin’ Tonight” fit into the track list on Montrose’s hard-rock-perfection self-titled debut.
Street Machine suggested Sammy Hagar had diagnosed the biggest problem with his earlier studio efforts—lack of focus—and was working on solving it. This is a solid album with more good songs than bad, even if none qualify as standouts. Street Machine’s most glaring weakness falls to Hagar himself; never a brilliant lyricist, here he leans on cliches even more than usual and ends up with an album that feels both vibrant and rather generic.