Eddie Van Halen has died

https://www.npr.org/2020/10/06/834995224/eddie-van-halen-guitar-hero-dies-at-65

by psim1 • 6 years ago

612 190 6 years ago

vondur• 6 years ago

Sad news, he was one of the best rock guitar players of all time. So many good songs covering 4 decades. RIP.

MrMetlHed• 6 years ago

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

gumby3• 6 years ago

"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.

oxymoran• 6 years ago

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.

uberdru• 6 years ago

That would be Junior Brown's patent. . .

sosborn• 6 years ago

To be pedantic, Pedal Steels are supported by legs like a table. You are probably thinking of lap steels. When played standing up, they are usually supported just by repositioning the strap.

adrianmonk• 6 years ago

Or you can just sit in a chair and stick a regular guitar in your lap, like lots of people have done.

For example, Jeff Healey: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwgOUzodS6E&t=2m25s

(Not trying to turn this into a competition, by the way. His style definitely seems like it was influenced by Van Halen.)

beaugunderson4• 6 years ago

Eddie was a tapper, which is why this is innovative (not having to use your thumb to stabilize the neck opens up greater range of motion for tapping with the fingers). Very different method than pedal steel, which is always barred.

major5052• 6 years ago

very neat. Kind of turn the guitar into an a Pedal Steel guitar

klodolph• 6 years ago

The shoes Michael Jackson used for Smooth Criminal were patented as well.

(And if we’re gonna talk about cool patents by entertainers, nothing’s gonna beat Hedy Lamarr’s work on spread spectrum communications.)

rodolphoarruda• 6 years ago

What strikes me: the one who draw the guitarist could have done it adding a neutral facial expression (e.g. a jazz musician) but, hell no!, the choice was for a shredding-guitar-solo rock expression. Nice.

tomcam• 6 years ago

A twist on that is that when Eddie played he had a beatific smile, and never the twisted-face shredder guitar look.

m4632• 6 years ago

he could have made the 142 line ... different too.

Uehreka• 6 years ago

Also a great example of “Patent Hands”: https://5by5.tv/hypercritical/68

(I’d link to the Flickr album with similar patent drawings involving hands, but it appears to be down)

ghostpepper3• 6 years ago

Does anyone else find it strange that Van is actually a middle name, thus rendering his name as HALEN EDWARD VAN

guidedlight• 6 years ago

“Van” is part of the surname. It means “of” or “from” in Dutch. It’s similar to “De” prefixed to Spanish surnames.

mc323• 6 years ago

His middle name was ‘Lodewijk’, ‘Van’ is just part of a compound last name like Von Richthofen or Fitz Patrick, O’Leary, Di Chirico, etc.

chaostheory• 6 years ago

yeah he sells guitars that he's designed

https://www.evhgear.com/

sali0• 6 years ago

2020 strikes again.

andrewinardeer• 6 years ago

Just wait until you see what 2021 has in store.

jakeva• 6 years ago

Only 65. I grew up listening to Van Halen and spent a crazy amount of time trying to play guitar like Eddie. I think their first album was released when he was only 22. What a legend. What a life. Taken too soon. :(

seattletech• 6 years ago

Two bouts of cancer, tongue and then now throat...

murat124• 6 years ago

He was a GOAT guitarist and a nice fella. RIP

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yb26D8bBZB8

ckastner• 6 years ago

The man was an absolute God with the guitar. The skill he demonstrated in this solo should be evident to anyone.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9r-NxuYszg

lsllc3• 6 years ago

The start of this, 3/16 is one of Eddie's most poignant pieces, it was named for the birth of his son Wolfgang:

https://www.vhnd.com/2019/03/16/story-behind-van-halens-most...

vr46• 6 years ago

Ah man, their debut album stands out sonically to this day, it just blew a hole in the scene. RIP Eddie.

PaulDavisThe1st9• 6 years ago

i was never much of a fan of EVH, but i am a huge fan of a bunch of guitarists who would either not have existed (as guitarists) or who would have sounded very different if EVH had not done his thing. so thanks for that, EVH.

brtkdotse• 6 years ago

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.

PaulDavisThe1st9• 6 years ago

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 entire generation that saw making a living as a musician as a possibility (whether or not that was true) has led to a situation where almost every town of 50k people or more has musicians in it who are as almost as good or better than any who ever lived.

I am fairly confident that the same thing is true of writing, painting, photography, dance: the pool of talent is out there. If you're as old as you semi-suggest, it gets harder and harder to encounter it. I'm 57 and I have to work quite hard to ensure that I keep exposing myself to new artists and creatives - the natural tendency is to just look back on all the people I discovered between 17 and 27 and then lament them dying. Don't do it! YouTube is a miracle in this respect. There's so much incredible talent and invention out there. Every generation has people in it for you to respect, and they too will die and become the "legends of old".

[* edited "wallowing" => "wading"; did not mean to sound so harsh ]

reaperducer• 6 years ago

Then you need to stop wallowing in the shallows of the people you admire and get out in the insane expanse that is the rest of the creative world.

Don't be a jerk. A guy is dead. He's mourning the loss. Let him.

ct-11112• 6 years ago

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.

Another "hacker's guitarist" is Tom Sholz of Boston. If the younger generation has never heard of him, his story is amazing too (an MIT trained engineer; rock star; built his own gear; wrote, played, recorded and produced his own work):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Scholz

While his style is a little different than EVH, he has a similar innovative spirit.

TheCondor• 6 years ago

There is a lot more talent out there today but I think it's the combination of the talent combined with the fame and recognition that makes the hero. Eddie was very good, as are many other folks, but he was also a guitar hero and most really good players are not. The world of "guitar heroes" got one smaller and I don't know who is filling it up going forward. It was the CEO of Fender that not long ago lamented that John Mayer (maybe one of the best contemporary guitar players around, he is very talented) doesn't sell guitars the same way as youth aren't trying to emulate him like they did some of those other guys like Van Halen. That and someone had to sort of do that stuff "first." It's going to be hard to reinvent tapping or impress the world by touching a drill to the strings again, I don't see it happening any time soon.

Maybe I'm wrong and a whole new world of of guitar techniques will be discovered running it though a DJ turntable and scratching and cutting or something. I don't know. Maybe it's also just a quality of our time, hardcore blues fans have sort of lamented the dying off of the greats for a long time.

jariel3• 6 years ago

"there's more talent out there now than there ever was before. "

No there isn't really - totally the opposite.

The number of professional musicians has dropped dramatically over the decades.

In the 1920s-1950s 'musician' was a 'job'. Then the phonograph became big, the number dropped by 90% then over a few more decades another 90%.

It's no longer an occupation, it's just a hobby.

There are tons of people who take 'fine arts' at Uni etc. but they're not necessarily that good, and very few of them will be able to work in the field and develop careers.

'Orchestral' even on big albums is all fake, it's just to easy to do and too expensive otherwise.

'Creative' yes, a lot of that, but have a look at the Billboard 100. It's 'audible creativity' but all made by algorithms, it's more 'art' than it is 'music' in some sense.

The other issue is that the bar to entry is lower as well, so for every 'extra genius' we get out of that 'open process' there are also 1000x more posers, fakers, people just making arbitrary sounds and it's harder to wade the the noise. 'The system' used to do that for us i.e. the musical community would 'find' the talent generally. There is no 'system' now, just YouTube.

Thanks for they Polyphia link though.

anjc• 6 years ago

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.

saghm• 6 years ago

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 a Van Halen song.

chipotle_coyote• 6 years ago

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.

phkahler• 6 years ago

Have listen to the whole "Fair Warning" album if you haven't before. It's got some very different styles.

scns3• 6 years ago

I like I'll wait from 1984 a lot

pupdogg• 6 years ago

So sad to hear! For what it's worth, the Van Halen cassette scene in "Back to Future" was my first introduction to this legend: https://youtu.be/BaYADHcpdng?t=17 RIP

lmedinas2• 6 years ago

iconic scene... this piece was never popular it seems it was used for another score at the time[1]. I guess for me was also my introduction to Eddie Van Halen excellent guitar playing and style.

1- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zmc6f2kCyLU

major5052• 6 years ago

Yup.

I also love the scene in Mission To Mars where they play Dance the Nigth Away in the space ship. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMZCmgYITgQ&ab_channel=Beeza...

sgt101• 6 years ago

Don’t waste your time, Leuconoé, living in fear and hope of the imprevisable future; forget the horoscope. Accept whatever happens. Whether the gods allow us fifty winters more or drop us at this one now which flings the high Tyrrhenian waves on the stone piers, decant your wine: the days are more fun than the years which pass us by while we discuss them. Act with zest one day at a time, and never mind the rest.

–Derek Mahon, The Hunt by Night (1982)

golemotron• 6 years ago

On 1 October 2020, Mahon died in Cork after a short illness, aged 78 - wikipedia

Poignant. Thank you.

crocktucker• 6 years ago

Ask not ('tis forbidden knowledge), what our destined term of years, Mine and yours; nor scan the tables of your Babylonish seers. Better far to bear the future, my Leuconoe, like the past, Whether Jove has many winters yet to give, or this our last; This, that makes the Tyrrhene billows spend their strength against the shore. Strain your wine and prove your wisdom; life is short; should hope be more? In the moment of our talking, envious time has ebb'd away. Seize the present; trust tomorrow e'en as little as you may.

Horace. The Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace. John Conington. trans. London. George Bell and Sons. 1882. [http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%...]

(Wikipedia: It was commissioned by the Roman emperor Augustus in 17 BC.)

artur_makly• 6 years ago

The fact that his isnt the #1 post.. breaks my heart. Rock in Peace Eddie!!

Cheyana• 6 years ago

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 would do next. A true rock guitar hacker.

lmedinas2• 6 years ago

RIP Eddie

Huge talent and very innovative guitar player. Known for his guitar playing style, dive bombs, tapping, usage of Floyd Rose, custom guitars (Frankenstrat), brown sound, solos, instrumentals, heavy sound and huge music hits.

I cannot think of many influential Rock guitar players as Eddie.

woodpanel6• 6 years ago

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 and Quincy left it in.

anonAndOn• 6 years ago

IIRC, the solo is also completely improvised and totally off-script.

woodpanel6• 6 years ago

Yes! And he was neither credited nor payed for it!

PaulDavisThe1st9• 6 years ago

He wanted no credit for it - he didn't want other Van Halen members to know about it because they agreed to never do side projects. He wanted no payment for it except a case of beer and Michael teaching him to dance "sometime".

woodpanel6• 6 years ago

And according to VH, he may in the end have bought the six pack of beer himself [1]

[1] http://www.vhnd.com/2012/11/30/eddie-van-halen-deconstructs-...

anthonygore• 6 years ago

I find that weird, his style is so distinct any fan would immediately recognize it

AdmiralAsshat• 6 years ago

Wikipedia disputes this story, although it does not cite any sources on the "real" story:

Right before Van Halen's guitar solo begins, a noise is heard that sounds like somebody knocking at a door. It is reported that the knock was a person walking into Eddie's recording studio. Another story has claimed that the sound was simply the musician knocking on his own guitar.[25] The sound, however, is that of Jackson knocking on a drum case, as he is credited in the album's liner notes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beat_It#Eddie_Van_Halen's_guit...

So I suppose if you've actually got a source from Van Halen's mouth, that's probably more authoritative.

I also enjoyed this tidbit:

The engineers were shocked during the recording of Van Halen's solo to discover that the sound of his guitar had caused the monitor speaker in the control room to catch fire, causing one to exclaim, "This must be really good!"[26]

woodpanel6• 6 years ago

So I suppose if you've actually got a source from Van Halen's mouth, that's probably more authoritative.

Yes, that's exactly why I was searching for that transcript. Maybe Howard Stern will re-air it or re-publish the interview in his app (I don't live in the US, so I don't have proper access to the show's content sadly). Thats why I added the IIRC. But whatever VH said in that interview clarified were that knocking came from.

fireattack• 6 years ago

The source is supposed to be the album's liner notes, which list MJ as "drum case beater" (see below).

So if anyone have the physical copy, they should be able to confirm.

But I'm not sure if it's sufficient to say that noise id done by MJ beating drum case, though.

strictnein• 6 years ago

For the curious, the knocking is at ~3:05 in the music video:

https://youtu.be/oRdxUFDoQe0?t=185

xdrone• 6 years ago

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.

vict00ms2• 6 years ago

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

michaelmarion• 6 years ago

He didn't just contribute the solo—he rearranged part of the song! [1]

Michael [Jackson] left to go across the hall to do some children's speaking record. I think it was "E.T." or something. So I asked Quincy [Jones], "What do you want me to do?" And he goes, "Whatever you want to do." And I go, "Be careful when you say that. If you know anything about me, be careful when you say, "Do anything you want!"
I listened to the song, and I immediately go, "Can I change some parts?" I turned to the engineer and I go, "OK, from the breakdown, chop in this part, go to this piece, pre-chorus, to the chorus, out." Took him maybe 10 minutes to put it together. And I proceeded to improvise two solos over it. I was just finishing the second solo when Michael walked in.
And you know artists are kind of crazy people. We're all a little bit strange. I didn't know how he would react to what I was doing. So I warned him before he listened. I said, "Look, I changed the middle section of your song."
Now in my mind, he's either going to have his bodyguards kick me out for butchering his song, or he's going to like it. And so he gave it a listen, and he turned to me and went, "Wow, thank you so much for having the passion to not just come in and blaze a solo, but to actually care about the song, and make it better."

I can't think of a more innovative and imaginative musician in history.

[1] https://www.cnn.com/2012/11/30/showbiz/music/van-halen-jacks...

trey-jones• 6 years ago

I love his music, and this kind of story makes me think very highly of this approach to life.

woodpanel6• 6 years ago

I've read the same article, but as a non native speaker wasn't sure, whether he just rearranged his part or the whole song. It did read like the latter, but, after all, this was not just a random song from some random musician, but from Micheal Jackson and Quincy Jones. Amazing.

m4632• 6 years ago

Wow, awesome peeks behind the scenes at how stuff is really done.

It's also really interesting when really talented people - who are usually isolated by the law of numbers - get together.

A fascinating movie about music from way before van halen/michael jackson era I watched recently:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wrecking_Crew_(2008_film)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wrecking_Crew_(music)

MrGando• 6 years ago

Steve Lukather from Toto actually played the whole album and he's alive. Please do check him out as well, brilliant player that played at least a riff in every single important album produced in LA during the late 70s and 80s ;).

Eddie was the man though, sad times.

olivermarks• 6 years ago

https://youtu.be/-mMHCNTAsTQ

scns3• 6 years ago

I heard that Eddy was asked to to play on Beat It and thought to himself "Nobody will notice". His Bandmates were pissed because VH were on No 1 before Beat It came out. The MJ bought it and the VH fans too.

swamy_g• 6 years ago

The Beat it solo is one of the most unique solos out there.

smitty1e• 6 years ago

Lives on in the hearts of millions.

clairity9• 6 years ago

why should eddie van halen be discussed and memorialized here when kobe bryant’s death was relentlessly flagged and censored from discussion?

Lol_80005• 6 years ago

Nerds don't like sportball, but programming nerds like abstract creators. Eddie was a mind bending genere pushing creative force. His impact was bigger than sportball. Often other obituaries are noted here. Sportsball not so much, unless it's statistical sportsball. Van Halen is probably a stretch tbh, so I don't want to defend it too much either. This site is still better than twitter.

clairity9• 6 years ago

so no value judgment there, huh? nerds who like sports are just not the right kind, right? certain creativity like plucking strings in various patterns is just inherently better than others? and how was his impact greater? how is one kind of entertainer better than another?

startup founders could learn a lot from kobe, from focus and discipline to creativity and tenacity. he also invested in startups.

leptons2• 6 years ago

I often do a "Van Halen day" where I put on my headphones, crank it to 11, and play all the important Van Halen albums for about 5 or 6 hours (basically all of them up to 1984) - and I get shit done. It's amazing what switching from electronic "beats" to Van Halen for a day does for my programming.

psim1• 6 years ago

Van Halen was a musical pioneer, an inventor, and as you can see from other comments, part of HN constituents' culture.

blueline• 6 years ago

you don't think one of the most prolific athletes in modern human history ticks a few peoples' "culture" boxes here?

xbar2• 6 years ago

Rest in peace, John Lewis.

clairity9• 6 years ago

yes, an actual leader and statesman of the civil rights movement, who deserves mourning and reflection, moreso than any entertainer.

cosmicac2• 6 years ago

Agreed. Sadly, there's no defense or explanation of this, other than that moderators are arbitrarily (and in a very exclusionary way) defining what constitutes "hacker culture".

krapp3• 6 years ago

It isn't the moderators, it's the users. More people here care about Eddie Van Halen than did Kobe Bryant. I won't theorize about the rationale behind that but the decision about which celebrity obituaries stay up and which don't seems to be entirely up to the zeitgeist. If people have nostalgia for the work of someone who died, they won't flag the thread. If they don't care about the person, or other biases are at work, they will. No greater explanation is necessary than the dice roll as they do.

The culture is the culture. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

dang2• 6 years ago

Few things are more horrible than angry internet arguments about whose life was worth more. Please don't go there here, even if you think a past story should have had more attention on Hacker News.

The answer to a lot of these questions, btw, is randomness. Even when it's not the whole answer, it's usually part of the answer, and another part of the answer is judgment calls which may not look so different from randomness. If you're expecting consistency in moderation, that's your problem right there!

clairity9• 6 years ago

the flagging of the dozens of posts about kobe's death over many hours certainly wasn't simply random. randomness would posit the likeliness of at least one of those stories escaping flag-death, as happened with this particular story (a number of van halen stories didn't make it to discussion, only this one).

mixmastamyk7• 6 years ago

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.

clairity9• 6 years ago

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 you just ignore the posts about it. it takes willful malice to actively flag dozens of posts about the death of a singular athletic talent like kobe. he also has an oscar, a much rarer achievement than a patent.

xbar2• 6 years ago

Rest in peace, Eddie.

neurotech1• 6 years ago

Eddie Van Halen's famous rider(contract) has a useful lesson for tech companies.[0][1]

"It's one of those rock 'n' roll legends that turns out to be true: In the 1980s, the party-rock superstars in Van Halen demanded, via a clause embedded in their tour rider, that no brown-colored M&Ms be allowed backstage at their concerts."[0]

The reason was that if they included brown M&Ms, it was a strong indication they hadn't read the contract, which included intricate but important technical details.

[0] https://www.npr.org/sections/therecord/2012/02/14/146880432/...

[1] https://www.businessinsider.com/van-halen-brown-m-ms-contrac...

YeGoblynQueenne3• 6 years ago

His music wasn't really my style, but I remember the Heavy Metal effect pedal from Boss that my cousin owned had a booklet in it with the setups of various professional musicians - to show off how they used Boss pedals in different combinations. Everybody had complicated setups with multiple pedals. Van Hallen's "setup" went something like this:

  Heavy Metal --> cable --> jack --> amp

fratajcz• 6 years ago

I think that was just a way of the manual showing you how to have a sound "inspired by" Van Halen, since he famously got his distortion sound not from a pedal, but from a Marshall amp that he ran at a low voltage using a variac (as an aside, the boss heavy metal was famously used by Swedish death metal bands turning all the dials up, not really a Van Halen sound).

He also used multiple pedals, such as the Echoplex, MXR phase 90 (Eruption), flanger (Unchained) and wah pedal. He later started his own signature EVH range of pedals in a partnership with MXR.

scns3• 6 years ago

The phaser is an essential part of the main riff from unchained

YeGoblynQueenne3• 6 years ago

Well, you seem to know this better than I do. I was always more into the kind of music you got out of turning all the dials up, like you say. My (older) cousin fancied himself a more sophisticated rocker.

The booklet stuck in my mind because Van Halen was the only musician in there that was anywhere near a Metal musician. The others were all people I had never heard from bands I didn't know that probably played jazz or pop or stuff. Van Halen's simple setup, inaccurate as it may have been, somehow served to justify and enforce my preference for the simple, uncomplicated, no-fuss kind of pleasures I always looked for -and found- in Metal.

skee0083• 6 years ago

I know this has nothing to do with eddie dying. rip. but i just wanted to say. i think Hagar was the better singer. I just prefer the 80s synth rock sound. Not to say roth wasn't good. he was great. i just prefer hagar.

TrackerFF• 6 years ago

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 come to love his dynamics and touch, as well as his rhythm playing. He mastered the the technique of blending lead and rhythm into one, in a tight yet loose-feeling way.

There are, and have been, many much more advanced guitar players since Eddie started - but few are as fun to listen to as Eddie, and most of them (in hard-rock and metal) stand on the shoulders of greats like Eddie, either through his playing and style, or gear used. He made 80's superstrats what they are today, he made hot-rodded/modified Marshalls what the are today, hell, he even made the Peavey 5150 what it is today - which in turn spawned a whole slew of metal amps.

It's been a tough year so far, as far as my heroes dying goes. I've been lucky enough to not have lost too many idols in the past, but with the passing of Neil Peart and Eddie - two of my top 5 musicians and music idols of all time, it's been a real blow.

It's been no secret that Eddie has suffered from cancer for years now, but still, you kind of forget about that, until the day comes.

mc323• 6 years ago

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.

Timpy• 6 years ago

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.

nemo44x2• 6 years ago

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.

_qulr2• 6 years ago

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.

mixmastamyk7• 6 years ago

He was also a contest winning pianist as a youth, often forgotten.

Optimal_Persona• 6 years ago

Yeah, EVH was majestic and a true sonic innovator! Unlike 99% of other shredders he had a tremendous grasp of pop songcraft, natural showmanship and a sense of musical humor...plus you'd see as many females as dudes at a VH concert! So many Eddie solos are chock full of "Sounds great, ooh where the hell did that left turn come from?! Even better!!" moments. And of course - brilliant rhythm playing with that rich, aggressive tone. RIP Maestro!

mixmastamyk7• 6 years ago

(Trying to think of something new to add to this discussion, not already mentioned.)

Well, one of the requirements of being a popular hard rock band of the day was to have a triumphant logo, and VH had one of the best. I even drew it once or twice in drafting class. :-)

  `8888888888888888,   `88888888888888888'\ ,888888'\   ,88888888888888888'
    8888888888888888,   `888888888888888'  ,888888' /  ,88888888888888888
    \            `888,    \________,888'  ,888'\__\/  ,888'            /
    `88888888888888888,           ,888'  ,888' /     ,88888888888888888'
     `88888888888888888,         ,888'  ,888' /     ,88888888888888888'
       \            `888,       ,888'  ,888' /     ,888'            /
       `88888888888888888,     ,888'  ,888' /     ,88888888888888888'
        `88888888888888888,   ,888'  ,88888888888888888888888888888'
          \____________`888, ,888'  ,888888888888888'\ __________/
                        `888.888'  ,888'  /    ,888'  /
                         `88888'  ,888'  /    ,888'  /
                          `888'  ,888'  /    ,888'  /
                           `8'  ,888'  /    ,888'  /
                             \ ,888'  /    ,888'  /
                              ,888'  /    ,888'  /
                              `88'  /    ,888'  /
                               `'  /    ,888'  /
                                 `/    ,888'  /
                                      ,888'  /
                                     ,888'  /
                                     `88'  /
                                      `'  /
                                        `/

butterisgood• 6 years ago

lots of 8s... OU812 is a pretty good album :-)

batt4good• 6 years ago

Probably because he smoked a metric ton of cigarettes / did lots of coke.

RIP

electrondood• 6 years ago

I used to go to sleep when I was 12 listening to Eruption, Mean Streets, Take Your Whiskey Home, etc. fantasizing about being the guy playing those riffs and solos.

They should re-issue those "Who the f*ck is Eddive Van Halen?" shirts right about now.

nemo44x2• 6 years ago

His style was so far ahead of its time. He was playing this way over 45 years ago! Zep was just hitting their peak. The Beatles had only released Sgt Pepper 7 years before.

The original shredder (who played a nice rhythm too).

temporallobe• 6 years ago

I never really got into Van Halen until I was an adult. As a teen in the early 90s a lot of the kids in my circle would make fun of anyone who listened to them because it wasn’t “cool” any more, especially when grunge became popular. Later in my adult years I began to really appreciate EVH’s technique and spent endless hours trying to replicate his style (and mostly failing, as I could never get my stubby fingers to move that fast). A few things I did learn and absolutely loved was his use of pinch harmonics and other right-hand techniques like palm muting and tapping — he of course didn’t invent those things but he elevated to a new level. I also don’t hear this often from fellow fans, but he had a unique “swing” that so many guitarists just didn’t have.

Cool story: I read somewhere that when EVH first started performing in public, he would often play with his back to the audience, as he didn’t want to people to see his techniques and possibly steal them!

RIP Eddie - may you enjoy your time in heaven among the guitar gods. Or is it supposed to be hell? After all you did run with the devil.

anta40• 6 years ago

RIP Eddie. I used to listen to him a lot, during sleepless days at campus lab while working on my undergraduate thesis.

Previously we missed Neil Peart and Rocco Prestia. Now EVH. Not an exciting year for music world :(

disparate_dan• 6 years ago

VH1 was the first rock album I ever bought, back in 1979, and I’ve spend 41 years loving it. I know the band has had their ups and downs but I think that Eddie’s playing on their last album was just as fresh, vibrant and exciting as it ever was. Impossible to overstate the impact this man had on my life, as well as the entire music genre. RIP.

KingFelix2• 6 years ago

I don't fully understand hacker news I think, I am curious as to why this is still on the front page but the Nobel prize that was announced today has been on page 2 all day (unless I missed its original front page landing)

also, RIP Eddie!

lsllc3• 6 years ago

EVH was a classically trained, incredibly talented and highly creative musician. He was also a founding member of an amazingly successful band that was very popular right around the time many of your average HN readers were growing up. His death is impactful to a lot of these people -- events like this just seem to have resonance. Sorry, that's the best explanation I can come up with.

KingFelix2• 6 years ago

Thank you, I have only recently been on HN and I love it. Its amazing, I have been on reddit forever and was just curious as to how it was on the front page for awhile. This is a pretty good explanation, I don't know why I got down voted, honestly curious about the Hacker news process of what makes it to the front page vs other things. I was stoked to hear about Penrose winning the Nobel and shocked it was on the second page vs this story. And now an article Penrose has co-authored is on the top spot! Thanks for the solid response! And RIP to EVH too, I saw VH with my pops years ago, he saw VH open for Black Sabbath back in the day and said they destroyed Black Sabbath! Madness!

ofrzeta• 6 years ago

Eddie van Halen was a guitar hacker. Not only did he "hack" the playing technique he also hacked the guitar hardware:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frankenstrat

wmij• 6 years ago

One aspect of Eddie's playing that rarely gets mentioned was his rhythm and chord playing. His chordal phrasings and how he could make a song sound huge for just a single guitarist was amazing. AND The first few early albums were mixed with the main guitar track panned hard left.

valusr2• 6 years ago

He's the most famous alumnus from my high school. RIP Eddie.

tkgally• 6 years ago

We were cross-town rivals, then. David Lee Roth attended my high school (John Muir, also in Pasadena) three years ahead of me.

Here's my Van Halen story. In my last year of high school, one of my friends was a budding rock guitarist. He often talked about the local band Van Halen and what a great guitarist Eddie was. Van Halen was scheduled to play a show in the Pasadena Civic Auditorium on January 25, 1975—thank you for the date, Wikipedia [0]—and my friend and I went together to the Berry & Grassmueck music store on Colorado Boulevard to buy tickets. At the counter, my friend said something like "I’m really psyched! We're going to get to see Van Halen! He’s great!,” and a fellow standing nearby perked up. After we left the store, my friend told me, “That was Eddie Van Halen!” Just hanging out in the local music store, apparently.

My main recollection of the show is that it was extremely loud: several stacks of Marshall amps in a concrete-lined exhibition hall and only a couple hundred people scattered around the floor to absorb the sound. I wore earplugs, but my ears still rang afterwards.

I see now that the next day was Eddie's twentieth birthday [1].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_Van_Halen_concert_tours

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddie_Van_Halen

valusr2• 6 years ago

Yup. And Eddie was, at least back then, surprisingly shy in a one-on-one setting.

jariel3• 6 years ago

Never a huge fan of 'Stadium Rock' I saw him live with Van Halen on free tickets and it was just immense. Only then did I understand what 'Stadium Rock' even meant. All talent, zero gimmicks, just raw genius filling up an entire stadium.

newswasboring• 6 years ago

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?

torben-friis• 6 years ago

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.

zw123456• 6 years ago

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.

colanderman• 6 years ago

Fun tidbit for fans of music theory: EVH tuned the B string on his guitar slightly flat, to form a just-intoned interval with the G string. This allowed him to play distorted major chords without the associated discordant beating. [1]

[1] https://www.petersontuners.com/inTune/Eddie-van-Halen

Eddie Van Halen has died

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