As LQ reported last week, Van Halen is said to be making a big announcement at this year's Grammys in February.

We've been hearing that the new album with David Lee Roth is done. So perhaps it's release date and title will be released, perhaps we'll hear a new song, perhaps the band will perform live and announce that they'll "see us in the spring!".

Or maybe Edward in the coming weeks will leak a tweet or something that the band never authorized the Grammys' to announce anything or that the band cannot attend due to scheduling conflicts or that there is no band named Van Halen and there never was: got no idea what you're talking about.

***BRIEF RANT MOMENT***: WTF is it with these classic rock acts? I understand posturing, PR and keeping your name out there and relevant. But must it ALWAYS be through rumour and innuendo? First there's a year's worth of Van Halen recording and touring whispers. Then maybe Axl and what's left of Guns N' Roses - wait, he is all that's left - may tour but of course won't get on stage until midnight or later.  Then there was months of Aerosmith drama. Now even today,Keith Richards announces that he, Charlie Watts and Ronnie Wood are getting together - sans Mick - in London to just jam, work off some rust. No mention of the rumoured Rolling Stones 50th anniversary tour. Mick's already said that isn't happening.

Can't just once the band's leader gets up in front of reporters and just spread his arms and say "Okay, ya got us!

"We've tried writing and recording but still hate each other. Stuff turned out to be garbage. No, no tour planned. Not gonna happen. We're all rich enough so we don't have to do anything anyway. Sorry to be so blunt but we don't want to lead our fans on. They've suffered enough".

Sigh. I digress...

The last we heard regarding a new VH record is that Eddie is dissatisfied with the end product: namely Roth's vocals. Roth and his "people" say the vocals are just fine and have no intention of re recording them.

Again, the album may be done and an effin' masterpiece and the band could be happily in love with one another and on the verge of rocking us to our core with a series of live shows that will go down in history.

Or the album and the band itself may not exists at all for all we know.

Recently, ousted band members Sammy Hagar and Michael Anthony have spoken out regarding their turbulent exits from the group (not that anyone would listen, but you wonder what one Gary Cherone might say).

And now, Sammy and Michael's Chickenfoot bandmate is dishing about what he's heard.

Chickenfoot drummer Kenny Aronoff has told VH1 that he has in fact heard one of the new VH tracks "and it was good".

But, alluding to previously mentioned rumours, he added  "I was hearing all kinds of stories . . . my buddy (producer John Shanks) finally was told to leave, the producer, and he heard about how people would get fired and he was like, 'It happened to me, too!' And then the engineer would deliver the mixes. There was the David Lee Roth camp and there was the brothers' camp."

Aronoff joined Chickenfoot earlier this year for touring purposes, after drummer Chad Smith had to step down to return to the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

Bottom line: it's not 1982, it's 2011, and if we want to at all experience anything whatsoever resembling the astonishing days of yesteryear, we'll have to both endure and swallow whatever acts like Van Halen hand us.

Let's just hope it's something tolerable.

And that it happens at all.

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