Eddie Van Halen RIP

[musket]

One of the most innovative and influential guitarists in the history of rock, imitated by thousands. The coolest thing about Eddie, his chops aside, was that he always seemed to be having a great time on stage. He was entirely free of the bloviating seriousness of too many hard rock virtuosos. He was 65. Gone too soon.

RIP.

 

[RobinZ]

Yep.

 

[stlukesguild]

Van Halen was the favorite band of one of my studio partners. Unfortunately, Eddie passed the day before his birthday. In a profanity-laced rant he asked, "What's next, 2020? A recall on Bacon?!"

RIP

 

[musket]

Eddie didn't invent tapping, but he brought it spectacularly into the mainstream. He wasn't quite as influential as BB King, who pretty much invented string bending and vibrato on the electric guitar, but then, Eddie wasn't a blueser. Countless kids in the 80s imitated him, and then the plethora of big hair rock virtuosos who followed him, until Stevie Ray Vaughan came along. When that happened, every big hair band local guitarist traded in the spandex pants and the Kramer Focus for a serape and a Stratocaster.

 

[Ayin Es]

It's too bad. He was still fairly young. And he was a nice guy too, at least from what I remember from back in the day.

 

[musket]

Oddly enough, considering that he wasn't a blueser, Eddie in his youth was in his own words "a total Clapton freak." He could play the solos from Cream's live Winterland 68 version of Crossroads note for note.

 

[RobinZ]

Time for my David Lee Roth story. True story, at least 25 years ago).

Mom in Ft. Lauderdale (where I grew up) called and told me they had drinks with a very nice guy, that I knew him. David Ross.
Me (scratching my head trying to remember a David Ross from high school). "Who? I don't remember a David Ross".
Mom: "You know him! He plays in a band"
Me: "Dave Ross, David Ross, hmmmmm"
Dad from the livingroom shouts: "David LEE Roth. David LEE Roth, Van Halen!"
Mom: "Oh, David Lee Ross".
Me: "How did you come to have drinks with HIM?"
Mom: "Oh we we met up with your uncle and were talking about how our homemade kielbasa is selling so well down here and he was at the next table and turned around and said how much he missed good old Polish kielbasa, and one thing led to another and he bought us drinks and came over and sat with us for awhile. Very nice boy. Not Polish, though."

 

[musket]

Wow, way cool.

A lot of what Eddie did was empty virtuoso fluff, but he did it with such brio it didn't matter. He had nothing important to say; he was just out for a good time, which made for a very nice break from rock pretentiousness that preceded him (though The Stray Cats were more my kinda thang). And unlike most of his imitators, he had killer tone. The plain truth is that he was never surpassed at the kind of stuff he did.

My favorite Van Halen tune is definitely Hot for Teacher. What a riot.

 

[stlukesguild]

I worked with a young blonde teacher who would always play that song after work on Friday when a bunch of us would hit this bar called "The Recovery Room" across the way from the local hospital. Her best friend and co-teacher would follow that up with "Take This Job and Shove It."

 

[Dave Woody]

We thought Sabbath, Zep, Hendrix were the highest level, as young musicians....
then Van Halen 1 came out and we all went......ahhhh....OK,,,!

 

[musket]

Hendrix was at the highest level. Technical proficiency isn't everything. Eddie was a flabbergastingly proficient and inventive guitar player, and Van Halen was a great party band, but I very much doubt that Eddie himself thought he was in Jimi's league-- because nobody was. Eruption is lots of fun, but The Star Spangled Banner at Woodstock it ain't.

 

[musket]

I worked with a young blonde teacher who would always play that song after work on Friday when a bunch of us would hit this bar called "The Recovery Room" across the way from the local hospital. Her best friend and co-teacher would follow that up with "Take This Job and Shove It."

Miss Pelletier, eighth grade French. Oy gevalt.

 

[stlukesguild]

I had the hots for Mrs. Pearlman, the literature professor in college. She struck me as sexy... but strict... with her leather skirts and knee-high leather boots. She really made Dante come to life. A group of us students were sitting around BS-ing over beer one day when the topic turned to her. It seems I wasn't the only one who found her hot... even at 20+ years older than me. And we all had images of her as the dominatrix swimming through our 20-something-year old minds.