RIP Eddie Van Halen

Zod · October 2020

I had read he wasn't doing well a while back. It sucks he's gone.

I got into Van Halen in the 80s. 1984 was my gateway into Van Halen. I love that album so much. Really glad I got the chance to see them in 2007. With all the band infighting it seems liked I might not ever get the chance.

brianlux · October 2020

Like I said on the other thread (two for Eddie VH? Shit yeah), I was stunned when my wife told me the news this afternoon. A really, really big loss. Very sad.

R.I.P. Eddie Van Halen, you rocked.

g under p · October 2020

I'm just finding out about his passing minutes ago. One of a kind inventive guitar player. Another legend has passed on in the very tough year for musicians. I glad I caught them again a few years ago again with DLR.

RIP, your legendary guitar playing well always live on.

Peace

HughFreakingDillon · October 2020

bought a few songs last night. I actually really like Me Wise Magic, the "new" song with Dave from their greatest hits. I have never been a fan of the "guitar god", but obviously recognize the talent and inspiration he gave to literally millions of people, including Mike, and several guitarist friends of mine. I think that's why I've always liked the Sammy era more. Less noodle, more melody. Sure, there's blistering guitar solos, but the riff and the song take center stage during that era.

Listening to Humans Being right now. always really dug that one too. even the strange cadence (for a VH song) of Sammy's vocals during the verses.

Gern Blansten · October 2020

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mg5zzivyOcA

I always loved this song...great riff...amazing solo

HughFreakingDillon · October 2020

just for shits and giggles, listening to Van Halen III right now. first time ever. honestly can't believe it's available to stream.

HesCalledDyer · October 2020

Van Halen was always one of those bands that I liked but never really dove into. And I enjoyed both Roth and Hagar eras. There's nothing that I can say about Eddie that hasn't already been said elsewhere. HUGE influence to modern rock! Shred in peace!!

HughFreakingDillon · October 2020

HesCalledDyer said:

Van Halen was always one of those bands that I liked but never really dove into. And I enjoyed both Roth and Hagar eras. There's nothing that I can say about Eddie that hasn't already been said elsewhere. HUGE influence to modern rock! Shred in peace!!

i was a fan in the 90's with for unlawful carnal knowledge and balance, but interest fell off for me after nirvana and pearl jam appeared.

HughFreakingDillon · October 2020

i'm stunned by how much gary cherone sounds like sammy on this record. wow.

Poncier · October 2020

HughFreakingDillon said:

i'm stunned by how much gary cherone sounds like sammy on this record. wow.

Skip the last song, "How many Say I"

Its not overall too bad a record, and I saw them on that tour and it was quite good, Cherone is a very versatile vocalist so they could draw the set list from the entire catalogue.
But the public just wasn't having it. I've never heard Eddie say anything negative about Gary or vice versa,

HughFreakingDillon · October 2020

Poncier said:

HughFreakingDillon said:

i'm stunned by how much gary cherone sounds like sammy on this record. wow.

Skip the last song, "How many Say I"

Its not overall too bad a record, and I saw them on that tour and it was quite good, Cherone is a very versatile vocalist so they could draw the set list from the entire catalogue.
But the public just wasn't having it. I've never heard Eddie say anything negative about Gary or vice versa,

i read about that a few minutes ago. i'm going to listen to it just out of morbid curiosity's sake.

i honestly thought gary was fired. apparently it was an amicable split after their second record demos kept getting rejected by the record company.

HughFreakingDillon · October 2020

it is a cringeworthy song. oh my god is that awful.

jjflash · October 2020

Very sad news. RIP, EVH.
Van Halen ruled my airwaves in middle and high school, and Eddie was the penultimate of cool on the stage with that big grin, shredding new boundaries on guitar.

EdsonNascimento · October 2020

EVH was the guitar god we "discovered" in our youth (maybe some of you are older and got to discover Jimi, Duane, Eric and Pete and such. Those I was handed by my older brothers. EVH I "discovered" along with them). Gut punch hearing about this. Listened to Jim Ladd's set on XM in tribute and the range of music was unbelievable and the thing that tied it all together was the guitar genius. Then (re)watched live Eruption in his prime on You Tube and wow.

And I had forgotten he's the guitar on Michael Jackson's Beat It. And until yesterday had never read the backstory on how that came about (and that he never got paid for it! Not that he seemed to mind.).

Went looking back to the RS 100 Greatest Guitarist from 2015 and forgot who wrote EVH's snippet. I'm sure this has been posted elsewhere but here it is anyway - Number 8

Eddie Van Halen

When I was 11, I was at my guitar teacher’s place, and he put on “Eruption.” It sounded like it came from another planet. I was just learning basic chords, stuff like AC/DC and Deep Purple; “Eruption” really didn’t make sense to me, but it was glorious, like hearing Mozart for the first time.

Eddie is a master of riffs: “Unchained,” “Take Your Whiskey Home,” the beginning of “Ain’t Talking ‘Bout Love.” He gets sounds that aren’t necessarily guitar sounds – a lot of harmonics, textures that happen just because of how he picks. There’s a part in “Unchained” where it sounds like there’s another instrument in the riff.

A lot of it is in his hands: the way he holds his pick between his thumb and middle finger, which opens things up for his finger-tapping. (When I found out he played that way, I tried it myself, but it was too weird.) But underneath that, Eddie has soul. It’s like Hendrix – you can play the things he’s written, but there’s an X factor that you can’t get.

Eddie still has it. I saw Van Halen on their reunion tour two years ago, and the second he came out, I felt that same thing I did when I was a kid. When you see a master, you know it. By Mike McCready of Pearl Jam

RIP EVH and thanks for the sharing your gift with all of us.

HughFreakingDillon · October 2020

EdsonNascimento said:

EVH was the guitar god we "discovered" in our youth (maybe some of you are older and got to discover Jimi, Duane, Eric and Pete and such. Those I was handed by my older brothers. EVH I "discovered" along with them). Gut punch hearing about this. Listened to Jim Ladd's set on XM in tribute and the range of music was unbelievable and the thing that tied it all together was the guitar genius. Then (re)watched live Eruption in his prime on You Tube and wow.

And I had forgotten he's the guitar on Michael Jackson's Beat It. And until yesterday had never read the backstory on how that came about (and that he never got paid for it! Not that he seemed to mind.).

Went looking back to the RS 100 Greatest Guitarist from 2015 and forgot who wrote EVH's snippet. I'm sure this has been posted elsewhere but here it is anyway - Number 8

Eddie Van Halen
When I was 11, I was at my guitar teacher’s place, and he put on “Eruption.” It sounded like it came from another planet. I was just learning basic chords, stuff like AC/DC and Deep Purple; “Eruption” really didn’t make sense to me, but it was glorious, like hearing Mozart for the first time.
Eddie is a master of riffs: “Unchained,” “Take Your Whiskey Home,” the beginning of “Ain’t Talking ‘Bout Love.” He gets sounds that aren’t necessarily guitar sounds – a lot of harmonics, textures that happen just because of how he picks. There’s a part in “Unchained” where it sounds like there’s another instrument in the riff.
A lot of it is in his hands: the way he holds his pick between his thumb and middle finger, which opens things up for his finger-tapping. (When I found out he played that way, I tried it myself, but it was too weird.) But underneath that, Eddie has soul. It’s like Hendrix – you can play the things he’s written, but there’s an X factor that you can’t get.
Eddie still has it. I saw Van Halen on their reunion tour two years ago, and the second he came out, I felt that same thing I did when I was a kid. When you see a master, you know it. By Mike McCready of Pearl Jam

RIP EVH and thanks for the sharing your gift with all of us.

i didn't know that until i read it this morning! i honestly thought they just hired some wannabe to make it sound like him. crazy.

Poncier · October 2020

HughFreakingDillon said:

it is a cringeworthy song. oh my god is that awful.

You were warned.

HughFreakingDillon · October 2020

Poncier said:

HughFreakingDillon said:

it is a cringeworthy song. oh my god is that awful.

You were warned.

it started off decent enough. I thought "well his voice isn't that bad; kinda reminds me of roger waters" and then the chorus came in. OH DEAR GOD TURN IT OFF. MY FREAKIN' EARS

Poncier · October 2020

HughFreakingDillon said:

EdsonNascimento said:

EVH was the guitar god we "discovered" in our youth (maybe some of you are older and got to discover Jimi, Duane, Eric and Pete and such. Those I was handed by my older brothers. EVH I "discovered" along with them). Gut punch hearing about this. Listened to Jim Ladd's set on XM in tribute and the range of music was unbelievable and the thing that tied it all together was the guitar genius. Then (re)watched live Eruption in his prime on You Tube and wow.

And I had forgotten he's the guitar on Michael Jackson's Beat It. And until yesterday had never read the backstory on how that came about (and that he never got paid for it! Not that he seemed to mind.).

Went looking back to the RS 100 Greatest Guitarist from 2015 and forgot who wrote EVH's snippet. I'm sure this has been posted elsewhere but here it is anyway - Number 8

Eddie Van Halen
When I was 11, I was at my guitar teacher’s place, and he put on “Eruption.” It sounded like it came from another planet. I was just learning basic chords, stuff like AC/DC and Deep Purple; “Eruption” really didn’t make sense to me, but it was glorious, like hearing Mozart for the first time.
Eddie is a master of riffs: “Unchained,” “Take Your Whiskey Home,” the beginning of “Ain’t Talking ‘Bout Love.” He gets sounds that aren’t necessarily guitar sounds – a lot of harmonics, textures that happen just because of how he picks. There’s a part in “Unchained” where it sounds like there’s another instrument in the riff.
A lot of it is in his hands: the way he holds his pick between his thumb and middle finger, which opens things up for his finger-tapping. (When I found out he played that way, I tried it myself, but it was too weird.) But underneath that, Eddie has soul. It’s like Hendrix – you can play the things he’s written, but there’s an X factor that you can’t get.
Eddie still has it. I saw Van Halen on their reunion tour two years ago, and the second he came out, I felt that same thing I did when I was a kid. When you see a master, you know it. By Mike McCready of Pearl Jam

RIP EVH and thanks for the sharing your gift with all of us.

i didn't know that until i read it this morning! i honestly thought they just hired some wannabe to make it sound like him. crazy.

There's a great story from Eddie in an interview about Beat It where he was at a record store in California buying some stuff and Beat It is playing and he's in line. He says there were some teenagers in line in front of him remarking "listen to this guy trying to sound like Eddie Van Halen", so he taps them on the shoulder and says, "no that is me". Those kids must have freaked.

HughFreakingDillon · October 2020

Poncier said:

HughFreakingDillon said:

EdsonNascimento said:

EVH was the guitar god we "discovered" in our youth (maybe some of you are older and got to discover Jimi, Duane, Eric and Pete and such. Those I was handed by my older brothers. EVH I "discovered" along with them). Gut punch hearing about this. Listened to Jim Ladd's set on XM in tribute and the range of music was unbelievable and the thing that tied it all together was the guitar genius. Then (re)watched live Eruption in his prime on You Tube and wow.

And I had forgotten he's the guitar on Michael Jackson's Beat It. And until yesterday had never read the backstory on how that came about (and that he never got paid for it! Not that he seemed to mind.).

Went looking back to the RS 100 Greatest Guitarist from 2015 and forgot who wrote EVH's snippet. I'm sure this has been posted elsewhere but here it is anyway - Number 8

Eddie Van Halen
When I was 11, I was at my guitar teacher’s place, and he put on “Eruption.” It sounded like it came from another planet. I was just learning basic chords, stuff like AC/DC and Deep Purple; “Eruption” really didn’t make sense to me, but it was glorious, like hearing Mozart for the first time.
Eddie is a master of riffs: “Unchained,” “Take Your Whiskey Home,” the beginning of “Ain’t Talking ‘Bout Love.” He gets sounds that aren’t necessarily guitar sounds – a lot of harmonics, textures that happen just because of how he picks. There’s a part in “Unchained” where it sounds like there’s another instrument in the riff.
A lot of it is in his hands: the way he holds his pick between his thumb and middle finger, which opens things up for his finger-tapping. (When I found out he played that way, I tried it myself, but it was too weird.) But underneath that, Eddie has soul. It’s like Hendrix – you can play the things he’s written, but there’s an X factor that you can’t get.
Eddie still has it. I saw Van Halen on their reunion tour two years ago, and the second he came out, I felt that same thing I did when I was a kid. When you see a master, you know it. By Mike McCready of Pearl Jam

RIP EVH and thanks for the sharing your gift with all of us.

i didn't know that until i read it this morning! i honestly thought they just hired some wannabe to make it sound like him. crazy.

There's a great story from Eddie in an interview about Beat It where he was at a record store in California buying some stuff and Beat It is playing and he's in line. He says there were some teenagers in line in front of him remarking "listen to this guy trying to sound like Eddie Van Halen", so he taps them on the shoulder and says, "no that is me". Those kids must have freaked.

that would be some story to tell your friends, for sure.

Loujoe · October 2020

He made it ok for rockers to admit to liking m jackson. I remember cranking 'little guitars' often. Sad to see another layer of rock history pass away. have diver down and women and children first. Will give them some attention later. Got to be blown away by Aint talkin bout love in the hands of pj and all the LOUD fans in Hartford. Woah. Maybe when pj starts touring again, they'll jam it a few more times.
"Shred" in peace. (I like that)

RIP Eddie Van Halen

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