Van Halen!

I just told one of my daughters that when I saw the Van Halen reunion tour some dude turned to me and said that one day I will be telling my kids I saw Van Halen. And she turned to me and said, well, he was right.

No joke, just a few days ago she told me, Dad, I don't like most of your music, but I don't mind Van Halen.

I’m sure I’ve heard songs by Van Halen but I can’t think of a single one offhand. I need to check out that first album, at least.

Have you heard of a little song called Jump?

Van Halen's technical chops were phenomenal. His tremolo picking, tapping and use of harmonics along with the vibrato (whammy) bar are all just lightyear jumps in rock guitar vocabulary.

But if there is one thing that really sets his playing above nearly all other rock guitar players, and the reason SO many of the YouTube videos are just wrong, despite getting every single note right, is the phrasing. His phrasing was unbelievable. His ability to bend the beat of the song around and land on a dime before flying off in a completely different direction just as tastefully and beautifully phrased is unmatched.

As much as everyone knows that solo from Beat It, it is utterly mind-blowing and just so ... cool.

RIP, wild man. I hope you have found your rest.

Shred in peace. Van Halen overall was not my bag, but 1984 is an absolute masterpiece and EVH was obviously a genius player

Nope, Josh, it’s a quasi total blind spot for me and much of my generation, I suspect. Growing up VH was basically the most uncool band ever, and I never questioned that doxa.

"Eruption" is what "Daft Punk" was going for with Aerodynamic right? never put that together until revisiting VH now.

This is a bummer though. we should eventually do a singles poll or something. they had some jams for sure.

personal favorite:

https://youtu.be/-sKxFrTHwhI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-sKxFrTHwhI&feature=share&fbclid=IwAR1AHf7XcZSPZa5dJhaawyDZ7t-kH5bvVbl4tQUT9M8ECUblCVU92D23-q0

Drop Dead Legs is the example I thought of re: his phrasing. Just fooling around with the blues like a cat with a mouse.

yeah i fucking love "drop dead legs"

Also cool how few guitar overdubs are going on on those first few albums at least. When he shifts from rhythm to lead, there's no net. Just the rhythm section pounding away, and him speeding through his stuff with no room for error.

always looked like he was having the time of his life playing.

Yeah, I just wrote a little thing on FB about this, how all his chops and innovations always seemed to be at the service of joy. He loved playing guitar.

Henry Rollins on seeing Van Halen open for and blow Ted Nugent off the stage

http://www.vhnd.com/2011/03/02/henry-rollins-on-classic-van-halen/

a tale of EVH (1/2 dutch-indo, 1/2 dutch) as related by Pat Smear (1/2 black, 1/2 cherokee):

Pat: Can I tell you my Eddie Van Halen story? I actually met him. He was backstage at the final Nirvana concert at the Forum, which for me, was
like,"Oh my God, I'm playing on the SAME stage as [Queen's] Brian May!" I was dying. Anyway, Eddie Van Halen comes backstage drunk out of his fucking mind, and he started begging Kurt to let him play with us. It was so disgusting. He was like, "I'm all washed up; you are what's happening now." It was horrible! He was a horrible racist pig!

Jeff: I heard he was running Mennen Speed Stick deodorant all over his face. Is that true?

Pat: Yeah [laughs]. Kurt had this deodorant, and he sniffed it or something like that, and it got on his face. It looked like he had cocaine under his nose.

Jennifer: I heard he was asking Kurt to let him come on stage and play "Eruption," but Kurt said, "no," and Eddie said, "C'mon, let me play the Mexican's guitar," referring to you.

Pat: I told Krist [Novoselic], I thought we should let him play with us. But he said no because we'd never get him off the stage. When I walked up to Eddie, he was talking to Krist. I just saw the back of his head so I didn't know who he was. And Krist goes, "Oh Eddie, you haven't met Pat. He's our new guitar player." Eddie turns around and sees me, but he doesn't say hello or anything. He just say's, "Oh no, not a dark one."

At first I thought he was kidding. But he kept asking me, "What are you? Are you like a Raji or something? Are you Mexican?" Then he kept saying to Kurt," C'mon let me play the Mexican's guitar." I was horrified!

Jeff: Is he the El Duce of Metal?

Pat: [Laughs] Eddie Van Halen is the perfect example for me of not wanting to meet your heroes 'cause you'll be disappointed. I hear he's sober now. I blame that incident totally on the alcohol. I've done a lot of bad things when I was drunk, too.

Jeff: I don't think you're coming from a judgmental place at all.

Pat: I was just shocked. I was thinking, "God, Eddie Van Halen hates me."

______________________________________________________________________

Dave Markey's take:

The difference between sobriety and intoxication was never more clearly illustrated than on December 30, when Nirvana played a show at the Great Western Forum near Los Angeles. Filmmaker Dave Markey was videotaping that night and observed a display of inebriation so extreme, he turned his camera off in pity. And it wasn't Kurt who was a mess - it was Eddie Van Halen. The famed guitar player was backstage on his knees drunk, begging Krist to let him jam. Kurt arrived only to see his one-time hero collapsing toward him with his lips puckered, like a toasted Dean Martin in a bad Rat-Pack skit. "No, you can't play with us", Kurt flatly announced, "we don't have any extra guitars."

Van Halen didn't grasp this obvious lie and pointed to Pat Smear (Nirvana's then-rhythm guitarist), shouting, "Well, then let me play the Mexican's guitar. What is he, is he mexican? is he black?" Kurt couldn't believe his ears. "Eddie went into this racist, homophobic banter, typical redneck," observed Dave Markey. "It was surreal." Kurt was furious, but finally came up with a worthy verbal response:
"Actually you can jam" he promised. "You can go onstage after our encore. Just go up there and solo by yourself!" Kurt stormed off

The world mourns

I changed my twitter trending topics to Japanese as so not to have piffle showing and click on it and get furious. The only thing I understand on there right now is 'Van Halen'.

— Ian Wade (@WadeyWade) October 6, 2020

Imagine having a frontman as great as David Lee Roth but the guitarist is so original that the band gets named after him instead?

— 3 Feet High and Crying™ (@TimDuffy) October 6, 2020

The guy practically lived on cigarettes and alcohol, but I'd heard so many tales of his struggles with the latter that I never considered the toll the former was taking on him, even when he first started fighting off cancer. I don't know if Alex or Michael or even Dave have said anything yet, but Sammy posted something sweet. And yet Sammy's take on EVH in his book was very unflattering.

As I mentioned on Twitter, I had a weird thought while listening to EVH's isolated guitar from "Panama": the way he winds around the riff, changing it up constantly and seemingly falling in and out of time, bending pitches to get someplace new, reminds me of Ornette Coleman. Michael Anthony and Alex Van Halen were a pretty locked-down rhythm section, but he still managed to head off in all kinds of weird directions. I wonder what he might have done with a more fluid bassist, like Geezer Butler, and a looser drummer. VH could have become even more of a bizarre jazz-fusion/power-pop/metal amalgam than they already were...

Casual fan who counts "Dance the Night Away" as one of the great singles of the late '70s, and the "Panama" video as just about the dumbest, most perfect video ever made. Glad I'm out teaching tomorrow; I will try to explain them to a room full of 12-year-olds.

Van Halen's songs were pretty tight, and Eddie never seemed terribly interested in improvisation or jamming. It's telling that as a guitar hero god among men, there is very little, if any, footage of him sitting in or jamming with anyone. There was that one "Van Halen Shreds" video that shows him with Tony Levin and Jan Hammer and Jerry Marotta and I thought, huh, I wonder what the original song they were doing was? And it's just this sort of run of the mill boogie. But there is video out there of him sitting in with Letterman's band, that was another exception.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Obe1jCYwzw8

I told my wife last week she should play VH's "Dance the Night Away" at my funeral. How's that for a legacy?

― Tōne Locatelli Romano (PBKR), Monday, July 20, 2020 9:01 PM (two months ago) bookmarkflaglink

Mr Veg always talks about how that first album sounded like NOTHING else in 1978 and how it so perfectly sounds like “summer” to him even now

I agree and also my favorite opening is Little Dreamer forever and ever amen

what a fucking gifted genius freak of a weirdo he was. Rip EVH

No joke, I was driving around and the classic rock station, in the middle of its Van Halen tribute rock block, played "Why Can't This Be Love" and my first reaction was ugh, this is so tacky, this is supposed to be a tribute to Eddie Van Halen, why are they playing this shit? And then a second later remembered, oh yeah, this is still him.

I have a quick thread about an important thing.

So, just a short thread of appreciation, but another reason why Van Halen represented SoCal so well. They just WERE SoCal. It has to do with a guy from Sweden who ended up in LA called Carl Strom and an artist named Vaughn Kaufman. (1/x)

— Ned Raggett (@NedRaggett) October 6, 2020

ha that letterman clip is gold—with Carson in the studio!

Ned, your comment at the top of this thread, "At one point, some sorta California party dude genius apotheosis of something or other. "Jamie's Cryin'" and "Ain't Talkin' Bout Love" alone -- the Minutemen had no problem covering the latter, neither should anyone else!", would be a top ten ILX post of all time for me.

Hahah, thank you. One of my tweets today was about that very Minutemen cover.

Eddie never seemed terribly interested in improvisation or jamming. It's telling that as a guitar hero god among men, there is very little, if any, footage of him sitting in or jamming with anyone.

Never mind, of course I know ‘Jump’.

yeah it goes

I'll take you down, I'll take you down
Where no one's ever gone before
And if you want more
If you want more, more, more
Then jump

Jump up jump up and get down

Pom, do you at least know Tim Hecker's My Love Is Rotten to the Core album?

definitely a high school fav and I got the ones I missed in HS later in life. few people sounded like them, good pop instincts with flashy guitar whenever you wanted it, sleaze but they weren't glam rock.

I always loved Eddie's "Hot for Teacher" opening tapping lick, or "Baluchitherium" from Balance (killer instrumental piece), the main verse lick to "I'm the One".

also enjoyed his honesty in admitting he "cheated" (his words) on "Little Guitars" and that he can't actually fingerpick.

I do and I guess my experience of it is mostly context-free.

xp

I was an intern at Musician, starting during the aftermath of that article… the writer was one of my best friends for many years… this was 1991, right as the band was gearing up for For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge…

The implication was that not only could he not hang in a jam context —in this case, which was at a NAMM event, he didn't have the Chet Atkins vocabulary at his beck and call, as Lee and Morse did and do— but that he never challenged himself whatsoever. He never played in other contexts other than Van Halen, never tried to do anything different than to play hard rock in a band with his brother…Brian May star fleet or the odd cameo on a friend's record… or the softcore porno soundtrack notwithstanding.

The writer was a product of the guitar mag milieu of which Musician was of, but was also above… Guitar World and Guitar Player would never dare suggest that the man upon which their entire raison detre resided was not beyond reproach, but Musician could make such a claim. As a result, Ed Leffler the VH manager at the time threatened the writer, and the writer —who otherwise is an intimate friend of every single living elite guitar player (I'm not exaggerating when I say that) — was persona non grata in the VH fold afterwards. 10/6/20 is a moment of existential import for GP and GW.

According to Greg Renoff's book Van Halen Rising (which is excellent), EVH was a scholar of 70s hard rock and elite guitar playing. But when he became the apotheosis of the guitar, he quickly lost the desire to keep up with music… he would say for many years that the last record he bought and cared about was Gabriel's So …a parallel would be Michael Jackson, teenage kid/prodigies who were venerated by everyone around them and who were worshipped globally from like 1978 to 1991 for their unparalleled talent and innovation… therefore, when 1991 rolls around, FUCK and Dangerous are big budget blockbusters that show out of touch both were… and then Balance and VHIII as well as HisStory are even more misbegotten…

I've only ever written about Van Halen once, and it was a 20th anniversary piece on Van Halen III.

Honestly, it's not fair to ask anybody to hang with Steve Morris or Albert Lee, both virtuosos but neither in the sui generis, self-taught style that Van Halen is. It's like, dunno, someone like Lindsay Buckingham as well. He's an immensely gifted, easily identifiable guitarist, possibly a virtuoso, certainly some sort of genius, but also self taught and also someone you never see jamming with anybody else.

an immensely gifted, easily identifiable guitarist, possibly a virtuoso, certainly some sort of genius

This is all that matters. Carlos Santana and Derek Bailey: both brilliant guitarists. Would I want to hear them playing "together"? Fuck no.

I would.

I do and I guess my experience of it is mostly context-free.

"Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love" is the main source material for the first track so it might be a good starting point.

I remember picking up a used copy of the first VH album at Cheap Thrills when G4ry (who was used to me buying improv or new music) told me the upcoming Tim Hecker album would be based on samples of the album I was buying, haha.

Xp So would I.

"they could improvise on chord changes, while all Eddie could do was repeat his bag of tricks (the “elephant” etc.).

I've heard this charge repeated often, usually in comparison to someone like Steve Vai. I think it's true that he has a limited range, but within that range he explores all the hidden nooks, teases out colors that didn't exist before. "Bag of tricks" might work as a descriptor of his more gimmicky techniques, but doesn't do justice to the way he uses them imo.

There's this really exciting chaos against or within the very controlled framework. I like that a lot of his solos and licks aren't really in any particular key. But I suspect the distance between his soloing and the song foundation is pretty important to that end- idk how effectively it would work against a looser backing.

a tale of EVH (1/2 dutch-indo, 1/2 dutch) as related by Pat Smear (1/2 black, 1/2 cherokee):

That's sad. As an Iranian immigrant with Iraqi parents I think my own childhood Van Halen obsession was a way of asserting my Americanness, distancing myself from the old culture and my own foreignness. It makes perfect sense to me that immigrants made this music.

The Mac Dad'll make ya.

"Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love" is the main source material for the first track so it might be a good starting point.

It's also my OPO tbh.

EVH was indeed a virtuoso at his own style, which to me is the ultimate compliment. He was really good at doing the EVH.

And his sense of melody is something that few virtuosos possess. Many, many instantly memorable riffs.

It's also my OPO tbh.

Noted. I'll check out the debut in its entirety.

Part of the appeal of VH at a time when I wanted to like actual heavy metal but didn't... was energizing metal, taking a lot of the sludge out. Their music wasn't actually heavy. They were, yeah, basically like a power pop band with this veneer of metal.

he didn't have the Chet Atkins vocabulary at his beck and call, as Lee and Morse did and do— but that he never challenged himself whatsoever. He never played in other contexts other than Van Halen, never tried to do anything different than to play hard rock in a band with his brother

sounds rad to me.

As I understand it I think they had to redo a lot of Beat It, with Lukather rearranging bits, but that was partly because Van Halen nailed the solo so well they had to rearrange the song around it.

He pretty much did it all himself as Quincy Jones and Michael Jackson let him to do whatever he thought was best. His interview on what happened.

I'm a casual fan myself who owns the first LP and made a personal best of from the Diamond Dave years. That's all I really listen to from Van Halen, but I also like it a hell of a lot.

It's also my OPO tbh.

otm

Some of the things above - not things said by ILXers directly but things others have said that are repeated above - remind me of when I was reading the letter section of some guitar magazine. In it someone wrote a pissy-sounding letter that said EVH was a hack and how if he tried to do his tapping with the fat gauge strings that (insert some old guard guitar player who evidently used fat strings) he would break his fingers. Even when I read this (and I was really young at the time - the magazine was in my school library) I was thinking, man, what a boring old fart.