This band, that was put together for Diamond Dave's first full solo effort is the only band that could have pulled it off. Take any of the ingredients out of the mix, and it would have probably been just an average album. But with Steve Vai, Billy Sheehan, and Gregg Bissonette surrounding Dave, they pulled off a pretty big coup: Dave made the right choice in leaving Van Halen (at least for the time being, before everyone defected, leaving him all alone...to buy reefer for 10 bucks from an undercover cop. But that's another story).

As for the album, it's perfect from top to bottom. "Ladies Nite In Buffalo" still has one of the all time kickiest grooves ever. "Tobacco Road" is all little Stevie to the max. "Yankee Rose" is just an awesome song, which showcased everything that is great about the album.  And of course there is "Big Trouble", which  is still an amazing song to this day.

Amazing debut for a man clearly needing to make a statement to the rock world that he could do it on his own. That is till he became a paramedic...but that too is another story. As much as this album was a statement for Diamond Dave, it was also a coming-out party for Steve Vai who more or less upstaged Dave on his own album. And Steve's partner in crime was Billy Sheehan, which was the beginning of a long lasting collaboration between the two.

Great cover art to the Album. Iconic and the the best of his career. Some clarification about the back cover here. I have the vinyl for this and what's depicted here is a little misleading given that I couldn't find scans that matched up. The original back cover to the vinyl is the one with Dave screaming as seen in the below shot for the Spanish version. For whatever reason, the CD used the back of the Inner Sleeve (Side B) of the Dancing chick as seen above. Go figure. I don't know what goes through the minds of those in marketing.


Have to point out that they also put out a Spanish version of the entire album to capitalize on the Mexican market. It failed miserably. So all ideas about doing this for his future releases were scraped. Sonrisa Salvaje translates to "Wild Smile", which is the Spanish version of Eat 'Em and Smile. The music is intact. The vocals were the only things redone. ¿Comprende?