Eddie Van Halen is fresh out of rehab and made his first public appearance as a Rock and Roll Hall of Famer at a NASCAR race last weekend.

"The guitar legend 'jumped' into a fire suit and took some hot laps around the track with Kurt Busch." Get it? Jumped!

The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame responded to David Lee Roth's allegations that he is not allowed to perform during this Monday's Induction Ceremony. Rock Hall president and CEO, Joel Peresman, sent an e-mail to the L.A. Times:

"The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is sorry that David Lee Roth will not attend this year's induction of Van Halen. We offered him opportunities to play and sing a Van Halen song of his choice with our House band, including his own guitar player or a song with Velvet Revolver and he refused those opportunities."

Peresman concluded the e-mail with a curt denial that the Hall is somehow the bad guy in all this: "We made every effort and the decision not to come was solely his, not ours."

That obviously differs from David Lee Roth's version of the story.

The Roth camp says that the only offer they had received before Friday was an invitation to perform "You Really Got Me" with Velvet Revolver. Roth balked in part because that song, off Van Halen's first album, was originally recorded by the Kinks and is not a "true" Van Halen song.

Roth wanted to do his trademark tune, "Jump," but that was a curveball for Velvet Revolver, apparently, with rehearsal time limitations. On Friday, according to sources close to the show, event producer Joel Gallen offered Roth a chance to do "Jump" with Paul Schaffer and some players of Roth's picking but, for Roth, that came too late, apparently, to allow travel and needed rehearsal time.

Hall officials, privately, were surprised and wondered if Roth really wanted to perform at all. They also said if he had traveled east to New York to work with the producers on site, everything would have worked out.

It's hard to imagine a scenario where David Lee Roth will pass up a chance to be the center of attention, but sadly it looks like this could be one of those times.

Eddie Van Halen won't be attending the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony on Monday after all. He released a statement today announcing he is going into rehab.

In a note addressed to fans he stated: "I have always and will always feel a responsibility to give you my best. At the moment I do not feel that I can give you my best. That's why I have decided to enter a rehabilitation facility to work on myself, so that in the future I can deliver the 110% that I feel I owe you and want to give you."

Alcohol has been cited as Eddie's addiction.

Meanwhile, David Lee Roth has decided to boycott the event because he is not being allowed to perform. After Eddie and Alex Van Halen chose not to attend, the Rock Hall didn't want David Lee Roth, Michael Anthony and Sammy Hagar to be the only ones performing VH songs, so they brought in Velvet Revolver to do the honors. Roth isn't happy about the situation:

"I don't make speeches for a living; I sing and dance for my dinner," Roth said, adding that the decision to skip the event "rips my heart out."

Roth said he had been preparing since December for the chance to perform for the industry elite and the audience watching on VH1 Classics.

"It's just not an option for me to go and watch some other band — who are only performing because they have some new record coming out — do our music," Roth said. "I have nothing against Velvet Revolver — I'm not familiar with their music — but that was my 3 minutes and 22 seconds up there."

Music industry critic, Bob Lefsetz believes this is the last nail in the coffin for the Rock Hall, "When you don't even let the INDUCTEES perform." He continues, "Let every table at the Waldorf-Astoria be adorned with a bowl of brown M&M’s.  And when it comes time for Van Halen to be inducted, let everybody THROW THEM AT THE DAIS!"

A reunited Van Halen was going to be the highlight of the 2007 ceremony. It's too bad that it probably won't happen now, but who knows -- things could change over the weekend.

A nice article today in the San Francisco Chronicle profiling Sammy Hagar in anticipation of his induction into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame on Monday.

"That's one thing I like about the Hall of Fame. I never expected to be inducted. I really didn't. I knew Van Halen would eventually somehow, someway, but it was still hard for me to imagine Sammy Hagar being part of it. But it is. I'm so honored....

"This is something that is so etched in stone that when you say I'm a Hall of Famer," Hagar says, "you have to live up to it. I think that every time I step up to a microphone from that day on, I have to live up to it. I think I'm going to have to be a f -- Hall of Famer."

And as suspected, Velvet Revolver were not the first choice to induct Van Halen at the ceremony. The Red Hot Chili Peppers were asked to do it, but weren't available because they are playing a show in Oklahoma City on Monday night.

The reunion everyone has been waiting for won't happen at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony. David Lee Roth and the Van Halen brothers have decided not to perform during their induction to the Hall of Fame on March 12th. It's still unclear if they will even attend the ceremony.

Scott Weiland and Slash from Velvet Revolver have been selected to induct Van Halen. Velvet Revolver will then perform a selection of Van Halen songs during the ceremony, similar to how Metallica performed in place of Black Sabbath in 2006. Sammy Hagar had openly lobbied for his friends in the Red Hot Chili Peppers to be the ones to induct Van Halen, but apparently his voice doesn't carry much weight with Eddie and Alex Van Halen these days.

The long rumored, but recently confirmed Van Halen reunion tour with David Lee Roth has been "indefinitely postponed." Whether or not Van Halen will still perform together on stage March 12th at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony remains to be seen.

This shouldn't be a surprise to anyone familiar with the various reunion attempts over the years, because they all end the same way -- a Van Halen without David Lee Roth.

Eddie Van Halen is going to need a larger trophy case. On the heels of his induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, EVH just won an Adult Video News Award for "Best Music." As we reported here in July, Eddie Van Halen wrote music for a porn movie called "Sacred Sin," and apparently it was the best porn music of the year. Maybe he will play a portion of the award-winning music during the 2007 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony if he can't convince David Lee Roth or Sammy Hagar to sing their old hits with him.

Eddie Van Halen has announced that his 15 year-old son, Wolfgang, will be joining Van Halen as the new bassist, replacing original member Michael Anthony. Van Halen has yet to officially name their lead singer, but it has been rumored for months that David Lee Roth will be rejoining the band for a reunion tour in 2007.

"Wolfie" has already been jamming in the studio with his father and uncle (drummer, Alex Van Halen), rehearsing for the tour. Wolfgang certainly has the musical genes to make a great bassist, but will he be able to fill-in for Michael Anthony's key harmonies? Maybe if he hasn't hit puberty yet.

This has all the makings for a fantastic Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony on March 12th, if Van Halen gets inducted. Imagine the tension in the room when an estranged Michael Anthony (and also Sammy Hagar?) make their acceptance speeches, then have to sit in the audience to watch a teenager perform with their old bandmates. All of this -- plus -- David Lee Roth's ego. Amazing.

It's looking like our prediction of a Van Halen reunion on stage at the 2007 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is close to becoming a reality. Last week, just before Van Halen was nominated for the Rock Hall, there was this rumor from MelodicRock.com:

I have information from a highly placed source that Van Halen will likely tour in 2007 with David Lee Roth as frontman.

Negotiations are currently underway to re-unite Van Halen with their original frontman for a tour in 2007 that will take in Amercia and possibly other territories. While nothing in the world of Van Halen is set until the band walk out on stage, I can confirm that negotiations between all parties have been underway for some time, trying to put together a big 2007 re-union tour.

One would presume the tour will feature classic VH era songs only. What I do not yet know is whether this plan includes exiled bass player Michael Anthony.

Next year would be an ideal time for Van Halen to reunite for a tour to take advantage of the publicity surrounding their likely induction into the Rock Hall. As Aerosmith and Mötley Crüe have shown with their tour this year, there is a lot of money to be made by appealing to 80's hard rock fans.

No, Eddie didn't just pick up some girly mags from Pleasure Island, he actually wrote a couple new songs for a porn movie called "Sacred Sin".

Is this the career move that's going to put Van Halen over the top and into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame? Although rock stars have (perhaps inadvertently) appeared in adult films -- Tommy Lee, Fred Durst, Bret Michaels -- there isn't precedent in the Rock Hall for an established artist composing music for a porn. Maybe Eddie has been listening to Sex-O-Rama, and wants to get in on that action.

Check out a trailer for the movie below featuring Eddie and his legendary guitar (only PG-13 content):

Now that David Lee Roth has been fired from morning radio, he's free to predict Van Halen reunions every chance he gets.

One of the more glaring omissions in the Rock Hall inductions in recent years has been Van Halen. After the album 1984 was released, there was no bigger band on the planet. The breakup with David Lee Roth shortly thereafter only put a small dent in their popularity, and they continued to be one of the biggest bands in hard rock / heavy metal with Sammy Hagar at the helm. In 1988, Van Halen even headlined the Monsters of Rock stadium tour with the Scorpions, Dokken, Metallica and Kingdom Come.

The stars are beginning to align for a triumphant Van Halen reunion on stage at the 2007 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony. Count on it.

Eddie Van Halen influenced a generation of guitarists, though by the looks of this photo, it looks like he's influenced 5 or 6 generations. With Eddie's descent into Mr. Burns territory, combined with the David Lee Roth radio horror show, it doesn't look good for a Van Halen induction anytime soon.