BELIEVE IT OR DON’T DEPT.: Sammy Hagar...

BELIEVE IT OR DON’T DEPT.: Sammy Hagar and Ray (Boom Boom) Mancini. What a fight card, right? Don’t worry--the sometimes pugnacious rocker isn’t going into the ring with Mancini. But they are members of a mutual admiration society. So much so that when Boom Boom visited Hagar in the studio recently, the singer gave him one of his favorite weapons--a red, gold-plated Flying V-style Dean guitar. Mancini returned the favor by presenting Hagar with a robe and pair of boxing shorts he wore during one of his fight victories. As for Hagar’s new album--it’s due out June 23, with Eddie Van Halen handling the production chores and playing bass on the record. The first single--”Give to Live”--will hit the airwaves next week. Other songs include “Boys Night Out,” “Hands and Knees” and “Eagles Fly.” . . . Meanwhile, what have honky-tonk heroes Joe Ely, Butch Hancock, Jimmie Gilmore and Terry Allen been doing in Washington for the past few weeks? Officially, the Texas-bred songwriters are working on the music for a Washington Project for the Arts program called “War and Memory: In the Aftermath of Vietnam.” Less officially, thanks to a government grant, the quartet have been discussing the possibility of rewriting the National Anthem. According to Hancock, a new anthem would have to be “danceable.” According to Ely, anything would be an improvement over the current version. “Lyrically, the anthem doesn’t have much,” he said recently. “To sing it, you have to sort of move over and listen to the next guy, get the words from him.”