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Eddie Van Halen has died

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Re: Eddie Van Halen has died

#131

Post by redis_mlc »

Cheyana wrote: post #21

I wondered what was up a few months ago when I heard he was selling off his car collection. That and the news he had been flying back and forth between the US and Germany for treatment had me concerned. After I heard the first Van Halen album my Kiss records went in the closet, and I got more serious about music. Never did anything with it, but it was a fun journey, listening to him along the way, wondering what he w…

If you look at any of EVH's interviews on Youtube in the past decade, he was in rough shape - either dementia, alcoholism, poor health, or all 3.

Looked like he lived hard and his time was up - very rock and roll!

Most of the classic guitar gods will be gone in the next 5 years, so buy your oldies tickets. There's a nice crop of upcomers, including Tim Henson and Tosin Abasi.

Re: Eddie Van Halen has died

#132

Post by luma »

Timpy wrote: post #123
mc32 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think maybe Randy Rhoads, had he lived longer could have been as much a trailblazer. He was a consummate and eager learner who apparently in his spare time took lessons from varied styles of guitar players.

I studied classical guitar in university, Randy Rhoads was a favorite amongst the metal guys who turned classical because he played classical guitar too. The Van Halen brothers are both multi instrumentalists, both of them took piano lessons from a young age.

Eddie and Alex’s father Jan Van Halen was a hell of a clarinetist and was featured on the dixeland track Big Bad Bill from VH’s Diver Down album. Give it a listen, it’s a treat: https://youtu.be/9RPx6A3gKiA

Re: Eddie Van Halen has died

#133

Post by _qulr »

TrackerFF wrote: post #106

One of the greats, that completely re-defined guitar, and spawned a new class of guitar players, as well as gear. I remember having played guitar for probably a year, when a friend of mine (who had been playing for the same time) threw on Van Halen 1 on a cassette, and we listened to Eruption. It sounded out of this world, like nothing else I had heard. After listening to Eddie play guitar (on/off) for decades, I've…

Yes, though Eddie's solos tend to get the notoriety, his rhythm playing was brilliant, arguably his best side. (I thought his lead guitar was kind of haphazard at times.) For rhythm work, I love the title track from "5150". And of course almost anything from the first album. "Unchained" from "Fair Warning" has one of the all-time great opening riffs.

Re: Eddie Van Halen has died

#134

Post by siltpotato »

gumby wrote: post #6
MrMetlHed wrote: post #3

I saw on Twitter he has a patent for a guitar... "support device" that includes the greatest patent image I've ever seen: https://patents.google.com/patent/US4656917A/en

> "thus allowing the player to create new techniques and sounds previously unknown to any player" Not including players of the pedal steel. But that's the patent system for you. In any case it's all about what you do with it.

To be fair, pedal steels typically have their actions raised so high (deliberately) that tapping isn't possible.

Re: Eddie Van Halen has died

#135

Post by mixmastamyk »

clairity wrote: post #129
mixmastamyk wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eddie had a world-wide following and a patent. He inspired many geeks including this one. Kobe worked hard as well but was mostly an LA phenomenon with limited nerd-overlap. Yes the rules are rather arbitrary, but this particular outcome isn't too hard to understand.

that's your biases talking. basketball has roughly a billion fans worldwide (china is #2 after the US in b-ball fans) and every one of those fans knows who kobe is. van halen probably has in the few millions, mostly americans. and basketball is probably the most popular major sport among nerds (and many other demographics). yes, the outcome isn't too hard to understand--hypocrisy. if you don't care about basketball y…

The Lakers don't have all those fans, that's more than a stretch. The NBA has been declining in popularity for years as well. Finally, knowing who a person is, is rather unimportant in the scheme of things.

Face it, running back and forth throwing a ball, even with excessive style simply doesn't move people the way art does. I do have additional respect for Kareem for that reason, he's shown himself to be a deep thinker outside the court.

Re: Eddie Van Halen has died

#136

Post by siltpotato »

ct-1111 wrote: post #109
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This deeply saddens me, the pool of people I admire is draining faster than it’s replenished Then you need to stop wading in the shallows of the people you admire and get out in the insane expanse that is the rest of the creative world. In terms of just music alone, there's more talent out there now than there ever was before. Two generations or more of musical education where none really existed before, plus an en…

I got the same feeling as brtkdotse when Chris Cornell of Soundgarden died. "They aren't making them like that anymore". And if they are, I haven't found any. Can you give us an example (like a YouTube link) of a modern guitarist (from the past 15 or so years) that approaches Eddie Van Halen's level of talent or innovation? An uplifting thought is that, like Cornell, although we have lost him, we still have his music…

Not in a rude way: if you don't like what's out there, make it yourself. I love vocoders and hate that there are extremely few albums dedicated to them, so I bought one and am making music right now, soon (about a year, depending on the schedules of my band) to have recordings online.

Re: Eddie Van Halen has died

#137

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

ct-1111 wrote: post #109
PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This deeply saddens me, the pool of people I admire is draining faster than it’s replenished Then you need to stop wading in the shallows of the people you admire and get out in the insane expanse that is the rest of the creative world. In terms of just music alone, there's more talent out there now than there ever was before. Two generations or more of musical education where none really existed before, plus an en…

I got the same feeling as brtkdotse when Chris Cornell of Soundgarden died. "They aren't making them like that anymore". And if they are, I haven't found any. Can you give us an example (like a YouTube link) of a modern guitarist (from the past 15 or so years) that approaches Eddie Van Halen's level of talent or innovation? An uplifting thought is that, like Cornell, although we have lost him, we still have his music…

My immediate go-to answer for that question would be Guthrie Govan. He can shred with anyone, but also can do incredibly delicate picking work, and can play in the context of almost any genre you could name - blues, folk, jazz. His blending of techniques goes way beyond EVH (but undoubtedly bears some debt too). This is probably Govan's most famous single-take solo, but he has oodles of other work at this level (though not necessarily in this style);

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IaH2C2Qe97Y

Before him, Shawn Lane (RIP) was technically far beyond EVH, but ditched the southern speed metal he came up playing and got interested in indian classical music. Lane died young in 2003, but leaves behind an interesting legacy of work for those us interested in something far outside of "rock", but ultimately strongly indebted to it.

You can find old videos of him shredding in the late 1990s when he was often said to be the fastest ever. This is from his work with Jonas Hellborg and two indian percussionists. The first link is to one of his more melodic sections, the second is more virtuosic and microtonal:

https://youtu.be/8gTSCXur8rA?t=68

https://youtu.be/8gTSCXur8rA?t=377

Also, shout out to Tosin Abasi:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTi9y2-VnNY

he's definitely more directly indebted to EVH, but more modern and arguably more technique, technology and maybe just a shade more jazz.

Further, or maybe differently, outside the of "rock" scope, and on acoustic guitar, people like Kaki King have taken the "extended technique" approach of Michael Hedges and run with it. She is off-the scale talented, although to be fair a lot of her music doesn't connect with me.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Os6-0_uYAq8

Re: Eddie Van Halen has died

#138

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

dlivingston wrote: post #119
ct-1111 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I got the same feeling as brtkdotse when Chris Cornell of Soundgarden died. "They aren't making them like that anymore". And if they are, I haven't found any. Can you give us an example (like a YouTube link) of a modern guitarist (from the past 15 or so years) that approaches Eddie Van Halen's level of talent or innovation? An uplifting thought is that, like Cornell, although we have lost him, we still have his music…

My impression is that rock and roll is...well, dead. Genres wax and wane in popularity, and so does the talent in that genre, as talent becomes attracted to other genres (you ask who the modern day Van Halen is: who is the modern day B.B. King? Or Frank Sinatra? Or Mozart? On some level, it's a silly question, because those genres have become somewhat passé). A few years ago, garage band rock n' roll was topping the…

I would encourage listening to Joe Satriani's answer to this question from Rick Beato:

https://youtu.be/AYdmelm9ADM?t=2143

Re: Eddie Van Halen has died

#139

Post by chipotle_coyote »

saghm wrote: post #43
brtkdotse wrote: post #15

This deeply saddens me, the pool of people I admire is draining faster than it’s replenished. It also reminds me that Death just dragged another bead on his abacus and before long my bead will be up. Also, while I respect and admire what Eddie has done to further the art of playing electric guitar, I must confess I much more enjoy Eddie The Songwriter rather than Eddie The Guitarist.

> I must confess I much more enjoy Eddie The Songwriter rather than Eddie The Guitarist I enjoy his guitar playing as well, but I agree with you here! I have the unpopular opinion that the stuff he was doing with the synth in the late Roth and throughout the Hagar era is better than some of the more traditional hard rock stuff. "Right Now" is one of my favorite songs ever, and it's relatively light on the guitar for…

I agree with that, too. I know it's, ah, controversial to say that Van Halen's songs in the Sammy Hagar era were by and large their best, but -- even though I think David Lee Roth was the better singer (Hagar sounds oddly like he's straining all the time) -- I'm just more likely to go back to the "Van Hagar" songs. I know Hagar's suggested they were writing as a group during that period more than the band was previously, but I know he's not exactly an unbiased source there.

Re: Eddie Van Halen has died

#140

Post by nemo44x »

mc32 wrote: post #117
TrackerFF wrote: post #106

One of the greats, that completely re-defined guitar, and spawned a new class of guitar players, as well as gear. I remember having played guitar for probably a year, when a friend of mine (who had been playing for the same time) threw on Van Halen 1 on a cassette, and we listened to Eruption. It sounded out of this world, like nothing else I had heard. After listening to Eddie play guitar (on/off) for decades, I've…

I think maybe Randy Rhoads, had he lived longer could have been as much a trailblazer. He was a consummate and eager learner who apparently in his spare time took lessons from varied styles of guitar players.

His solo in Flying High Again is the best. Compact and efficient but yet expressive. Builds to a climax and explodes back into the rythem.

Not possible without EVH.

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