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Eddie Van Halen passes at 65.
WeedLordVegeta
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
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2020 fucking blows
edit:
2020 can suck my dick.
I had no idea that Van Halen did the solo on Beat It, damn
Fuckity fuck.
One of my clearest memories is sitting at boy scout camp in '83(?), with a couple guys I just met and one said "Listen to this!" as he put his headphones over my ears. "Somebody Get Me a Doctor"--DLR's howl just before the band kicks into the main riff.
I had an epiphany at that moment, and have never been the same.
Aw fuck, this is so good
Eddie didn't even bother getting payed for recording that solo because it was only 20 minutes out of his day.
Even more impressive, is he did it in like 3 or 4 takes after a coke-fueled all-nighter. While I personally prefer the changes Jennifer Batten made to it when she was MJ's main guitarist, EVH's fingerprints were always there.
I think I'll see how much I remember of the solo to Light Up the Sky and rock that out when I get home:
~ Buckaroo Banzai
I hope Eddie enjoys rock heaven
Holy fuck
and he basically did it behind MJ's back on the chance he'd like it.
wasn't it him who adapted that spanish-type classical finger tapping stuff into rocknroll?
hitting hot metal with hammers
For this brief moment I choose to believe God and heaven are real and Eddie van Halen just showed up, challenged God to a Rock Off, schooled his ass and is now in charge.
I actually just said this at work. Van Halens music has never been my thing, but Eddies contributions to rock were huge.
Fuck cancer.
He popularized it and was the first to really master it in a rock context. Earliest guy to do it on electric was Les Paul and his wife Mary Ford in the mid-late 50's. Dick Dale and Chet Atkins would do harmonics that way way as well. In the 70s prog rock started featuring it some, with Steve Hackett from Genesis and Uli Jon Roth of the Scorpions using it a fair amount.
In 76-78, Eddie took it, started doing it faster and a lot more complex than anyone before. Throwing in lots of chromatics and multiple scales and modes. He also i think never got enough credit for growing as a musician through his career. After becoming the most famous and imitated guitarist of his generation he decided to throw himself into learning piano/synths and it really opened up his songwriting. He was using piano based chord inversions on guitar before Radiohead made it all the rage.
A titan is gone, but his music and innovation will live on.
~ Buckaroo Banzai
They never quite took themselves too seriously. They probably weren't humble per say but their earlier stuff especially is just so fun. Every song kinda feels like hanging out with the boys and getting weird. Just nonstop goofin with sweet guitar licks and cool pants.
In my extremely late teens some friends of mine and I went to a really kickass show at this auditorium at the Kitsap county fairgrounds, which was about an hour or so (probably more) drive from our humble origins of West Seattle. The lineup was:
The Toadies
The Supersuckers
The Butthole Surfers
I at one point believed the The Reverend Horton Heat was also playing, but that's not important. Okay the Rev is always important, but I digress.
The show kicked a whole lot of ass, and was one of the last times I had so much fun at a show without the availability of alcohol. We were all long time high school friends, aside from a last minute tag along by the name of Elliot. Elliot looked like your average early 90s metalhead from Seattle. He was skinny as fuck, wore a lot of denim, and had a flannel shirt tied around his waist that he never wore as a shirt, supplemented by a half shirt of whatever metal band. Anyway, who cares? Elliot is a few years younger than the rest of us, and of course is decidedly annoying because he is trying to impress us and fit in which is fine until the drive home.
Running With the Devil comes on the radio and all he can do is holler the chorus at the top of his lungs, which is hilarious at first. After the song is over, given the initial reaction of laughter, he continues to do this at random intervals. Mind you, there was absolutely no alcohol involved in this evening whatsoever, not before, after, or during the event itself. Over an hour of this poor kid repeating the same schtick that he thought was endearing, but just made us want to open the side door of that Plymouth Voyager and throw him out. Even after screaming at him to please just shut the fuck up, he kept it up.
Every time I hear that song I, for a moment, think about Elliot.
I hope he's out there somewhere, running with the devil.
~ Buckaroo Banzai
coke
Hmm...him being completely snowblind to pain does make sense for that time frame of Van Halen.
Dave was one of the luckiest front men ever, when it came to axmen behind him (much like Ozzy). In a 7 year span in the 80's and early 90's he went from EVH, to Steve Vai, to Jason Becker.
~ Buckaroo Banzai