I’ve recently been reading Noel Monk’s memoir about managing Van Halen during the early years of their career, Runnin’ with the Devil: A Backstage Pass to the Wild Times, Loud Rock, and the Down and Dirty Truth Behind the Making of Van Halen.  

Among the many revealing stories in the book is one about an incident that happened when Van Halen was touring with Journey.  Monk went backstage and discovered that David Lee Roth and Eddie Van Halen had gotten into a food fight.  Eddie threw a bowl of peanuts at Dave.  Dave threw guacamole at Eddie but he missed his target and, instead, ended up hitting the lead singer of Journey, Steve Perry.  Monk says that he found Perry in his dressing room, softly crying and trying to get the guacamole off of his leather jacket.  Monk compared Dave and Eddie to “heartless mean children,” picking on the smart kid in the middle school cafeteria.

Steve Perry deserved better.

(He deserved better than the Separate Ways video, too.)

Today’s music video, Journey’s party anthem Any Way You Want It, was selected in honor of Steve Perry.

Ever since I first saw Caddyshack (not to mention the episode of The Simpsons were Rodney Dangerfield played Mr. Burns’ son), Any Way You Want It has always been my favorite Journey song.  The video is also Journey at its best, simple, without pretension, and rocking!