RIP Eddie Van Halen

stickyfiddle

WiresDreamDisasters said:

Seriously... I never realised, but the guitar work and solo in Michael Jackson's 'Beat It' was pivotal to me as a kid. Amazing. I heard Van Halen much later!

IIRC the riff is Steve Lukather, but the solo is 100% Eddie. And one of the most perfect bits of guitar playing ever recorded.

not_the_dj

Loving going through the isolated tracks that are up on YouTube. 

https://youtu.be/Aplfy9YZcZs

cosmiccarrot

March said:

I've been pretty fortunate to have a friend, Mike, that got to meet and hang with Van Halen a number of times - he got to know them through a friend of his, a certain Mr. Floyd Rose. What is not widely known is that the first few hundred Floyd Rose bridges where made by Mike's then business, Hansen Machine - this was to allow Schaller time to tool up. Mike has told me that he talked Ed and Michael through the manufacturing process, Ed asked all the right questions - a few of those early Floyd Rose's that they manufactured even got into Ed's hands. And yes, he has held Frankie in his own hands.

I recall reading somewhere that Ed and Floyd worked together to develop the finetuners on the early trem.

Ed's passion for developing the guitar and amplifier was quite amazing, how he found the time as well as recording and touring... he must of totally lived and breathed all things guitar and tone.

As well as all the work with Kramer, Ernie Ball, Peavey and his own EVH brand one of the things I thought he did that was a cracking design was the drop D tuner.

What a legacy Mr. EVH

LastMantra

Rocker said:

Like everyone else in the guitar world and beyond, I am shocked at the passing of EVH.  I am not and never was a fan of his music, the only tracks I can listen to without hitting the 'next track' button are: Jump and Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love.

Still, it is sad to read the news of his passing.  RIP EVH

I think I heard "jump" and thought no not for me. 
Couldn't tell you anything about him but he must have been doing something right. 

DrCornelius

In a strange way, I felt I knew pretty much every classic Van Halen song before listening to them.  I had 1984 on vinyl but was only was 16 at the time with a paper round and an expensive girlfriend (now wife) to support so didnt have any more 

Someone bought me a magazine (think it was a Guitar World special issue) which was all Van Halen stories, photos, album reviews and a few tabs.  I gave up trying to play Eruption almost immediately but reread every article over and over so could probably recite the track listings for all the albums at that time without even hearing them.

When I finally got a job I went to Oxford Street and bought every single Van Halen album available on vinyl with my first weekly pay packet and it was a great weekend - my parents were away and I remember 'testing' my Dads new rack hifi by blaring out VH1 so loud that my neighbour (a very calm , rational senior copper) properly lost his sh1t and came round screaming and hammering on the front door.

I think one word to some up his music (certainly the DLR stuff) was 'joyous',  Fair Warning was dark but as a guitar nut you stll break into a massive grin when those riffs kick in

digitalkettle

stickyfiddle said:

WiresDreamDisasters said:

Seriously... I never realised, but the guitar work and solo in Michael Jackson's 'Beat It' was pivotal to me as a kid. Amazing. I heard Van Halen much later!

IIRC the riff is Steve Lukather, but the solo is 100% Eddie. And one of the most perfect bits of guitar playing ever recorded.

Paul Jackson Jr gets a credit also

Blueingreen

LastMantra said:

Rocker said:

Like everyone else in the guitar world and beyond, I am shocked at the passing of EVH.  I am not and never was a fan of his music, the only tracks I can listen to without hitting the 'next track' button are: Jump and Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love.

Still, it is sad to read the news of his passing.  RIP EVH

I think I heard "jump" and thought no not for me. 
Couldn't tell you anything about him but he must have been doing something right. 

I only knew him for Jump and the solo on Beat It.  I did think the solo on Beat It was absolutely wonderful but I love the best of Michael Jackson's music and am not a heavy rock fan so it's all about context.  Apart from that I've sporadically heard bits and pieces without ever thinking I'd enjoy his music.

I'm not somebody who thinks if I don't like something it can't be good.  He wouldn't have the reputation he's got if he weren't an extraordinary talent.  But the music is not for me.

Danny1969

Although some people might not have heard him directly they certainly heard him in every other rock player in the eighties. He basically invented the superstrat, helped develop the locking trem and his huge array of tricks found their way into hundreds of other players through the eighties and nineties. 
Oddly enough although VH were never that heavy compared to modern metal I don't I've ever heard anyone else sound so aggressive in their playing, some of those harmonics and vibrato were just so wild and fat sounding. 

viz

Danny1969 said:

Although some people might not have heard him directly they certainly heard him in every other rock player in the eighties. He basically invented the superstrat, helped develop the locking trem and his huge array of tricks found their way into hundreds of other players through the eighties and nineties. 
Oddly enough although VH were never that heavy compared to modern metal I don't I've ever heard anyone else sound so aggressive in their playing, some of those harmonics and vibrato were just so wild and fat sounding. 

Spot on. 

yocky

Thoroughly enjoyed this cheesey but heartfelt tribute, RIP Eddie

sm55onl

So long, bold lad !

Tributes are times for memories - i don’t have any of rock, historical importance, just personal and and a bit of hearsay.

First got into Van Halen from a friend at high school - Women and Children first album era. The jade green and silver cover with the four of them in arch-bending rock poses...what an image, it just oozed rawwwk !

The John Menzies, next to the old bus station in town, upstairs, was selling the Women and Children album and they had the posed cover in a four-foot cardboard cut-out display.
After a few weeks of advertising the next big album was pushed forward and the cut-out was for the bin. Said friend snaffled it....jealous as fcuk !

I even bought a ‘frankenstein’ strat off of The Bay - it looked the spit of Eddie’s. The guitar was up for sale in Rhythm House (Hanley) for quite a while when i was selling my own guitars due to attendant illness at the time. It eventually sold via my mate, Pat. I would love it back but, whoever has it, no worries...just enjoy it !

I also remember hearing of the time Eddie was in Stoke and running around with a guitar shop owner trying to buy old MXR (?) pedals from folk that the owner knew had some.

So, anyway, back to that album - rocking (have you seen junior’s grades), sassy (no, no, a little more to the right), funny, eclectic mix of songs...Alex’s power drums, MA’s pinging bass, DLR’s showmanship and, of course, Eddie’s searing lead lines and rhythm power chords.

Could this be magic ?
It certainly was, Edward...it most certainly was !

Kebabkid

digitalkettle said:

stickyfiddle said:

WiresDreamDisasters said:

Seriously... I never realised, but the guitar work and solo in Michael Jackson's 'Beat It' was pivotal to me as a kid. Amazing. I heard Van Halen much later!

IIRC the riff is Steve Lukather, but the solo is 100% Eddie. And one of the most perfect bits of guitar playing ever recorded.

Paul Jackson Jr gets a credit also

I think Lukather played the bass on it, too and had to 'fix the track' when it was sent to him by Quincy Jones - I'm sure I read that in Luke's book

EricTheWeary

Kebabkid said:

digitalkettle said:

stickyfiddle said:

WiresDreamDisasters said:

Seriously... I never realised, but the guitar work and solo in Michael Jackson's 'Beat It' was pivotal to me as a kid. Amazing. I heard Van Halen much later!

IIRC the riff is Steve Lukather, but the solo is 100% Eddie. And one of the most perfect bits of guitar playing ever recorded.

Paul Jackson Jr gets a credit also

I think Lukather played the bass on it, too and had to 'fix the track' when it was sent to him by Quincy Jones - I'm sure I read that in Luke's book

I might not have this word perfect but after Eddie recorded the solo Michael Jackson said 'thank you Eddie, I really like the high bits.'

Few years later Eddie meets Slash somewhere and mentions that they've both recorded with MJ. Eddie asks what Michael said to him:
' thank you Slash, I really like the high bits.' 

The point, in some ways, about that solo is that black artists weren't getting played on MTV ( first rap artists on MTV? Blondie) and by creating a song with a rock solo MJ could get on there. But is a flown in solo that then becomes hard to imagine the song without. 

I've been listening to a few Van Halen things this week ( I'm not at home and don't have internet access every day so it's a bit limited) and I think Eddie as a guitarist and the band as a whole were just much more experimental than people imagine. I think it's Dirty Movies which has this sort of Avant Garde noise guitar before the riff starts ( and has a spoken word part which seems like sexist nonsense but flips it around at the end, surprisingly smart). And the harmonics at the start of Top Jimmy are such a delicate sound. Just the tip of the iceberg of what he/ they did really. 

Danny1969

I'm pretty sure the solo on Beat it is a compilation of various takes stitched together, like Comfortably numb was. Bruce Swedien gave some accounts of the recording and mixing process of that album when he guested on Gear Slutz .. they generally comped everything. He said  he wasn't in the room when that solo was recorded as he didn't want to subject his ears to that kind of volume. It was stupidly loud by all accounts.  

mudslide73

I don't usually listen to 1984 much because I'm such a Fair Warning devotee but listened to it objectively this week. There's so much going on it's insane.. some of the lead playing could almost be Holdsworth. He managed to sneak all the innovative original bits into the mainstream inside that party band trojan horse. I'd forgotten how out there Girl Gone Bad and House of Pain are too. Amazing.

TTBZ

WiresDreamDisasters said:

Seriously... I never realised, but the guitar work and solo in Michael Jackson's 'Beat It' was pivotal to me as a kid. Amazing. I heard Van Halen much later!

Me too - I still remember having the cassette of that album and kept rewinding it to listen to the guitar solo over and over got told off at school for using their tape players to listen to that instead of the educational stuff haha. I think that's my earliest memory of hearing guitar and thinking how cool it sounded.  

Such a big loss to the guitar world, 65 is so young too.

exocet

Danny1969 said:

I'm pretty sure the solo on Beat it is a compilation of various takes stitched together, like Comfortably numb was. Bruce Swedien gave some accounts of the recording and mixing process of that album when he guested on Gear Slutz .. they generally comped everything. He said  he wasn't in the room when that solo was recorded as he didn't want to subject his ears to that kind of volume. It was stupidly loud by all accounts.  

This is what I recall as well. I can remember a Van Halen interview where Eddie said that the first time he heard someone play that solo (as it was on the record) it was Jennifer Batten when she was playing on tour with Michael Jackson.

Aidanspaghetti

mudslide73 said:

 I'd forgotten how out there Girl Gone Bad and House of Pain are too. Amazing.

This  +1000. Two amazing songs. Foe pure joy though  it's got to be Little guitars. The finger grab chords right at the end with that amp about to explode. Magic ..

DrCornelius

Aidanspaghetti said:

mudslide73 said:

 I'd forgotten how out there Girl Gone Bad and House of Pain are too. Amazing.

This  +1000. Two amazing songs. Foe pure joy though  it's got to be Little guitars. The finger grab chords right at the end with that amp about to explode. Magic ..

I’ve been playing Diver Down a lot in my car recently as it’s the only VH album DD can stand on the school run. Little Guitars is a brilliant tune as is Secrets. Its a shame the two poor cover versions of Where Have All The Good Times Gone and Pretty Woman weren’t replaced in favour of a couple of solid originals as it would elevate it to a very good album imho.

axisus

mudslide73 said:

I don't usually listen to 1984 much because I'm such a Fair Warning devotee but listened to it objectively this week. There's so much going on it's insane.. some of the lead playing could almost be Holdsworth. He managed to sneak all the innovative original bits into the mainstream inside that party band trojan horse. I'd forgotten how out there Girl Gone Bad and House of Pain are too. Amazing.

I remember buying 1984 on release, I was living in halls of residence at college and all my mates also bought it. We were all blown away that at this point in their career they had thrown out such an amazing album. There is no doubt that it completely reinvigourated their standing in the rock world. Even now all these years later I think that Hot for teacher is one of the greatest ever song/video combinations. It is arguably their finest album (although we all have an opinion on that!)