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Eddie Van Halen has died

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191–200 of 214 posts

Re: Eddie Van Halen has died

#191

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.

> 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…

You and everybody replying to you are making the same baffling mistake, i.e., assuming that technical/song writing ability/education = star. If you want technical ability, there are 8 year olds on YouTube with better chops than EVH. Possibly every 8 year old has better chops than Kurt Cobain. But technical ability does NOT make you a rock star. Same applies to the other fields you mention, painting etc.

I'm sure young rock stars (in the same vein as EVH, Axl, Hendrix, Cobain, Morrison) would still exist as the personalities and talent are still there, but rock is not mainstream anymore, so they can't exist. The closest thing to real rock stars now are the likes of Justin Bieber.

You should re-listen to the Beato/Satriani clip you told someone else to listen to, because he essentially says this. The artists you suggest are irrelevant and can not be compared to EVH in any way whatsoever. Guthrie Govan?! Van Halen drove mainstream culture. Nobody outside of guitar forums know Guthrie Govan. The other suggestions in this thread of comparators to EVH and Chris Cornell (Tosin Abasi, Petrucci, Belamy) are just embarrassing.

Re: Eddie Van Halen has died

#192
I have no real knowledge or affinity towards him or his band but I do realize he is a member of a dying breed of rock stars. People who could pack a whole stadium and control the crowd with one gesture. Am I just out of touch or one of the side effects of balkanization of entertainment into small fandoms is death of the rock start?

Re: Eddie Van Halen has died

#193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

finding new (to me) bands that sound like the old bands I like is much easier given tools like everynoise.com, which I highly recommend (though it works best if you also have a Spotify account because of the playlists). my current heavy rotation playlist of EVH-style guitar shredding is here, if anyone is interested: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6iCImsdr0rrYHStbFpOi2h?si=... vastly different sound but the techni…

Allow me to chip in my guitar riff playlist as well

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5q2zcb4xCWviTlAPfk0M8z?si=...

Re: Eddie Van Halen has died

#194
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "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.

That’s like comparing a turn table used for DJ’ing to a record player used to just listen to records. Completely different application, accessories, and technique.

I don’t think that’s true at all. The standard DJ turntable (SL-1200/1210) has no specific features for DJing. I use the exact same ones for “just listen[ing] to records”.

Can’t speak to guitars or pedal steel, though.

Re: Eddie Van Halen has died

#195

I have no real knowledge or affinity towards him or his band but I do realize he is a member of a dying breed of rock stars. People who could pack a whole stadium and control the crowd with one gesture. Am I just out of touch or one of the side effects of balkanization of entertainment into small fandoms is death of the rock start?

Beyonce filled a stadium with capacity for 100k people a couple of years ago. Not sure if you'll count that or you refer specifically to rock as a genre; if it's the second I'd say it's natural for the mainstream popularity of particular genres to rise and fall, but there still a mainstream for sure.

Re: Eddie Van Halen has died

#196
When I was a Sophomore in college (1978) me and some buddies got tickets to see Black Sabbath with Van Halen opening. We were driving up the freeway to go see the show and had 4 of us in our buddy's Mom's Datsun Station wagon he borrowed from her. We were smoking weed to get ready for the concert and had the windows rolled down part way to try to keep from reeking out the car. An ember flew into the back of the wagon and we didn't notice it but the car just kept getting more and more smoky so we kept rolling the windows down more and more which just fanned the flames. The next thing you know the car was in flames in the back. We pulled over and stood by the side of the freeway and watched our buddy's Mom's car burn up.

The cops and fire department came and put it out eventually. The Cop asked us where we were going and if we needed a ride or to call someone. We told him we were going to see Black Sabbath and Van Halen and he said oh wow, you can't miss that I will drive you there. Our buddy said OK he could call his Mom when we got there and arrange rides for after the show.

When we got there our high was blown so we toked out more. When I got in there and the show started, I will never forget Eddie sliding out on the stage on his knees hammering out Eruption. I don't know if it was the weed or the music or both but I swear I had an out of body experience. I had never heard it like that, live was just a whole 'nother level.

Re: Eddie Van Halen has died

#197
post #47
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. The patent just takes the guitar and stabilizes it in a horizontal position, instead of a vertical position, allowing you to do something different with the same instrument. Nothing about the guitar itself changes whatsoever, but the orientation provides for the guitar to be used differently. The better analogy would be, say, if you took an SL-1200 (a turntable manufactured for DJ'ing) and it rotated it "…

I’m not a fan of battle style but is it really fundamentally different? Eddie’s patent is more like rotating the deck about the z axis and holding it like a guitar. Which would be pretty cool and ridiculous come to think of it :-)

It is possible to scratch the sl-1200/sl-1210 at 90 degree angle and at 180 degree angle, by Dj Marky:

https://youtu.be/wA5b_AOjrI8 https://youtu.be/6z63irhX6Qs

Re: Eddie Van Halen has died

#198

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…

That fellow from Animals as Leaders is pretty insane and cutting edge. I’m not really a fan of the music but he is undeniably a beast. And thoughtful. See his interview on Rick Beato

Re: Eddie Van Halen has died

#199
post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps, but modern decks have lots of features that record players don't have like effects and EQ. In this case the patented device is basically played in the same way (or can be) just in a different place. It's intended to be for tapping but that's a common pedal steel technique

This is really pedantic, but even in a modern DJ setup the effects and EQ are part of the mixer, not the turntable. The mixer is separate from the turntables, it's the thing with the knobs and faders usually between two turntables. Even modern DJ turntables are still very, very basic: https://www.technics.com/us/products/dj-series/direct-drive-... They are just more rugged than your everyday home listening record pla…

Your pedantry is outdated: there are Serato-compatible decks that have MIDI pads built into them, not everything is trying to mimic the SL-1200s aesthetic these days.

Re: Eddie Van Halen has died

#200
post #46

Never knew until recently, that the amazing guitar solo on Michael Jacksons Beat it was played by him. I can't find any transcripts, but in an interview on the Howard Stern show, van Halen said (if I remember correctly) that the infamous knocking at the beginning of his solo was him knocking on his guitar, like a professional who is giving his workhorse a friendly tap before the race - and that he was amazed Michael…

There's David Lee Roth interview (maybe on joe rogan) where he explains some tricks they used to write solos. They'd record multiple different solos, then switch between the tracks to come up with unexpected progressions. Clever idea.

Gilmour used to do the same: record multiple solos, pick the best parts, re-record.
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