From Rolling Stone, an update on the infamous M&M story here:
We finally have proof of the mother of all insane tour rider demands, Van Halen’s request for “No Brown M&Ms,” thanks to the Smoking Gun. Written in 1982 and coming in at an astounding 53 pages, the band’s oddball demands range from “herring in sour cream,” countless bottles of alcohol and a “large tube of KY jelly.” But it’s in the rider’s “Munchies” section where we find “M&Ms (Warning: Absolutely No Brown Ones),” meaning someone at each venue was given the job of plucking the brown M&Ms away from their yellow, green and orange candy-shelled counterparts. Keep in mind, this is 1982, so there were actually two shades of brown M&Ms at the time, with the standard brown and tan, which was eventually eliminated to make way for blue.
That infamous request for no brown M&Ms spawned both an urban legend (now confirmed) and a joke in Wayne’s World 2. Why the outlandish demand? According to the Smoking Gun, “If brown M&M’s were in the backstage candy bowl, Van Halen surmised that more important aspects of a performance — lighting, staging, security, ticketing — may have been botched by an inattentive promoter.” Nowadays, Van Halen has moved away from banning brown M&Ms and instead request normal things like tutors and room to practice martial arts.
So one of the most notorious examples of over-the-top pop star prima donna antics is debunked, and for what turns out to be (ostensibly) entirely legitimate reasons (they were genuinely concerned about the bozos in charge of the various venues getting the sound stage prep down properly)? That almost is enough to make one…respect Van Halen. And, well, I’m sorry but that is simply unacceptable.
Actually, even if this turns out to be the case (the band was as anal about their performances as they were about their anal performances), it’s more difficult to dismiss them as the biggest buffoons in rock. Wait, no it isn’t. This is, after all, the band with David Lee Roth in it. This is the band that, once David Lee Roth left, never made any good music (man, that has to kill Eddie Van Halen). It’s almost enough to make you feel bad for Eddie, knowing he had to work with DLR all those years. Then you realize: wait, Eddie might be an even more insufferable prick than DLR! (Exhibit A: “Hey Michael Anthony, we’re finally doing that reunion tour thing; all the shows are sold out in advance…by the way, you’re not invited!”) But hey, I’m sure fans were delighted to see those stellar backing vocals provided by Eddie’s cherubic son Wolfgang (and by cherubic I mean chubby).
But more importantly, if we start acknowledging that some of these Spinal-Tap inspiring anecdotes are not based in reality, we may have to start questioning how debased our rock gods actually were. What’s next? Jimmy Page was actually just eating tuna fish on that boat? Gene Simmons did not bed 4,000 women? (Well, considering that Simmons, like David Lee Roth, is so obviously gay, this one is not such a stretch to disbelieve). Mick Jagger and David Bowie really were just hiding the salami, literally? Ozzy Osbourne did not actually urinate on the Alamo in the early ’80s? (That would be the unkindest cut of all; I need Ozzy to have urinated on the Alamo.)
All this on the heels of the news that guitar guru Brian May just completed his PhD (!!), in Astronomy (!!!)–no, not Astrology, Astronomy(!!!!!!), we are approaching DEFCON 1 status in terms of authentic rock and roll debauchery. James Hetfield? Clean and sober. Nikki Sixx? Same. Courtney Love? (Who cares). Practically all the others have now become the designated drivers that Keith Moon, John Bonham and Janis Joplin (to name a handful of favorite hard-cases) could have used, back in the day. At least we can still count on Keith Richards, right? Well, except for the fact that it’s pretty apparent even he doesn’t know who he is these days. Too many brown M&Ms will do that to you, apparently.
