Rest In Peace, Eddie Van Halen

[KuruPrionz]

65 is too young. Thanks Eddie for the great music!

 

https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/eddie-van-halen-dies-65-193805148.html

[russclan]

Wow.

 

R.I.P. Eddie, you were my biggest influence.

[Larryz]

Rest In Peace Eddie Van Halen...a true guitar icon that inspired so many of us with his innovations and playing ability...he left us much too soon and will be truly missed.

[desertbluesman]

RIP Eddie, he was something else on guitar, all by himself in style and skill.

[BiC]

I just heard... He'll be missed.

[Caevan O’Shite]

Terrible news . It doesn't seem real, like it can't be true.

[KuruPrionz]

In honor of Eddie's memory I'd like to touch on some important ways he influenced so many guitarists.

 

Tapping - EVH was certainly not the first guitarist to tap the fretboard, it is part of classical and flamenco guitar styles and Chet Atkins used it sparingly among others.

Nobody previously had an explosive instrumental hit like Eruption, for quite some time it was a rare visit to the music shop where you didn't hear somebody trying to play it.

Once in a while it still pops up at a Guitar Center or some such place.

 

The Floyd Rose locking vibrato system - Again, while not the first, EVH took the Floyd to new places and it became a required accessory for Top 40 rock guitarists. I was the authorized Floyd Rose installation tech in California's Central Valley and I installed quite few of them even after the Kramer endorsement made it possible to buy a new guitar with a Floyd already installed.

 

The "Frankenstrat". The popularity of screwing your own Strat together out of parts skyrocketed as an aspect of the first Van Halen record being a huge hit and drawing attention to the band.

Even today you can buy homemade replicas of Eddie's original slap together spankin' planks. The idea that you could have just the Strat you wanted with nothing extra and nothing missed changed many guitarists approach to playing and style.

 

The Brown Tone and the fluid, lightning fast style that EVH brought to the music put everybody on notice - shred or go home.

 

My own playing changed for all the reasons above, although I was never a prolific tapper or particularly spectacular at it. I have a project guitar with a non fine tuner Floyd that I need to finish up so I can get back to the crazy dive bomb, motorcycle wrecks and the "kitten in a blender" riffs, I haven't played that style for a long time.

[Anderton]

I never really "got" Eddie Van Halen. But for reasons too obscure to go into here, I ended up at the US Festival, where Van Halen was (IIRC) the closing act for the day. They had a wall of fake amps behind them that looked impressive as hell, but we knew the real story.

 

When Eddie Van Halen played, though, he totally blew me away. What he did simply did not translate to the recordings I had heard. He was melodic, fluid, symphonic, precise, bombastic, dynamic, and he owned the stage. When he played a riff that consisted of a zillion notes, he didn't do it to impress you, he did it because the riff needed a zillion notes.

 

He was a star, yes, but he was also a musician's musician.

[Sharkman]

I heard about Eddie's death this afternoon while listening to the radio. The DJ on WCSX was talking about what a crappy day it was. He then said he had some truly horrible news. That's when he said that he had just learned 40 minutes earlier that Eddie Van Halen died today. Not only do I own all the Van Halen cd's from both the Dave and the Sammy eras, I saw Van Halen when they did the 1984 tour with David Lee Roth and the 5150 tour with Sammy Hagar. Needless to say, Van Halen music had a significant impact on my life. Goodbye Eddie, I'm sorry to hear that you lost your battle with throat cancer.

[skipclone 1]

I was on the way to work this morning and checked on the news.

Total shock is an understatement.

I think the first thing I ever heard from VH was 'You Really Got Me'.

I came running into the next room where my brother-also a guitarist-was.

I said, 'you gotta hear this!

He said, 'Yeah, it's good'. Like he was describing a scrambled egg.

That's when I knew we inhabited two neighboring but entirely different musical solar systems.

RIP Eddie, you tore it up all the way.

[Winston Psmith]

I've always said that if you scratch any Fusion or Prog Guitarist, you'll find a streak of Metal underneath; it's certainly true in my case.

 

A few years back, when my dear wife asked what I'd like for Christmas, I shocked her by asking for what I described as "some classic Metal, like Van Halen." She immediately demanded to know who I was and what I'd done with her husband. Nonetheless, that year, she got me both the 1st Van Halen album, and a Greatest Hits collection that filled all the gaps for me.

 

My personal favorite EVH riff is from "Panama" the slow even part that he drops into at right around 2:28. After giving us a blistering solo, he takes us back, with a sound like water flowing, opening out into a beautiful arpeggiated chord like a Lotus. It's one thing to make a statement with 100 notes, quite another to make such an impact with just a few perfectly placed notes, suspended in time and space.

 

Rest in power, sir, and many thanks.

[BiC]

I heard about Eddie's death this afternoon while listening to the radio. The DJ on WCSX was talking about what a crappy day it was. He then said he had some truly horrible news. That's when he said that he had just learned 40 minutes earlier that Eddie Van Halen died today. Not only do I own all the Van Halen cd's from both the Dave and the Sammy eras, I saw Van Halen when they did the 1984 tour with David Lee Roth and the 5150 tour with Sammy Hagar. Needless to say, Van Halen music had a significant impact on my life. Goodbye Eddie, I'm sorry to hear that you lost your battle with throat cancer.

 

Same here. 1984 was my first real concert. Then I saw them during 5150 & OU812 (Monsters of Rock). Then fast-forward 24 years (2012) to A Different Kind of Truth tour where I enjoyed Van Halen (along with my wife) for the last time.

 

Actual concert:

 

Click

 

I can't believe so much time elapsed between 1988 and 2012 without seeing them, but it is what it is. I am blessed to have been graced by their presence 4x.