Eddie Van Halen dead at 65 from metastatic throat cancer

[Justin V]

Thank you for the music, Mr. Van Halen, and rest in peace.

[catesta]

On 10/14/2020 at 4:22 PM, JSngry said:

Why do you think I don't like him? I like lots of VH songs (first one that always comes to mind is "Panama", but a close second is the memory of hearing "You Really Got Me" for the first time on radio while mopping floors at Burger King one night). Always good memories.

But it's poprockrockpop, and not particularly deep rock at that (did VH EVER wade into deeper waters, even on a side project?). Excellently played, even more excellently produced, a product to be proud of and enjoyed, absolutely. But not at all deep or otherwise worthy of serious (i.e. - ongoing, developing) thought. appreciation, yes. Thought? No. If it's there for you good, but, uh....have fun with that, then.

It was hormonal ear-candy for hormone-sensitive peoples. I have been, and sometimes still am, that. The difference between now and then, though, is that I recognize it for what it is and allocate resources accordingly. People mourn the loss of their youth, well, big fucking deal. An adult should mourn the loss of nothing from their youth, they should only appreciate what they have in place of it. Now, if you don't have anything to replace it, that's not my problem.

But I liked him just fine, still do. I can't tell you how hormonal that some of my congratulations were for him marrying Valerie B back in the day, hey, wow. And as far as him being an asshole, hell, most people are, even you and even me.

 

He was a better guitar player than Helen Reddy, for sure. But was he that much more of an "artist"? Well, to a certain degree, sure. But only to a certain degree.

When you say an adult should mourn the loss of nothing from their youth, I assume you're speaking of material items or connections to the past you remember fondly but did not know personally such as a musician, actor or....?

The passing of Eddie Van Halen hit me particularly hard, just like when Neil Peart died. Rush will never play again as a band, and now VH is also finished.  Sure, that's the cycle of life and I can still hear those recordings, watch videos etc., but those guys are now no longer with us. So yeah, it bums me out.

My listening to rock, hard rock and metal has continued through the years, on to the new and the shit got faster, deeper and harder and I love it, but I've also always kept the the old stuff close. So, I can easily say I found a replacement years ago but that does not change my appreciation for and the fact that hearing EVH on a record from 1980 still thrills me. Did he or they ever get deeper beyond the "poprockrockpop"? Of course, go through and listen, all kinds of changes, Eddie continued to grow, especially when Hagar joined.

I also don't believe it is accurate to label VH "poprock" like they were Bon Jovi, Springsteen or mid 80s to current Def Leppard. Van Halen was just Van Halen and sometimes they put something out like "Jump" and it got play on all types of stations, but they were simply a straight ahead rock band that happened to be popular.

I understand the term "artist" is used loosely this days, but like it or not, yes, even Reddy was, probably more so than a lot of the current half ass pop "artists". EVH though? Fuck yeah, and fuck yeah big time, to a degree off the chart, not even questionable and not just because of what he could do to, with and on a guitar, which was ground breaking, but dude also composed, developed, influenced and shaped all kinds of sounds and gear for future players and fans to enjoy.

On youtube there are hundreds of people that makes videos reviewing music or their reactions to hearing something for the first time. I've never paid much attention to them but in recent days I have watched several, and those reactions speak to what Eddie brought to the table artistically.

That's my take on it.

 

[clifford_thornton]

Early Def Leppard were pretty sweet. Though as a kid I became more aware of them from Hysteria, which I bought on cassette when it came out, The first few LPs are actually quite choice (and I still ride for the crazy studio production excesses of Hysteria). When Steve Clark died, even though I wasn't into their music anymore from a deep listening perspective, it was still a major bummer.

the EVH loss is palpable for me on a similar level, though I suppose EVH is a more consummate musician if we're comparing the two. Still, while I haven't been invested in listening to Van Halen in decades, I have a lot of respect for his great accomplishments in the music. As I've gotten older it's become a lot easier for me to appreciate talented players/singers/producers/whatever across genres, even if on a given day my listening is more "weird" on the whole. 

[catesta]

On Through the Night was a solid beginning. The style started to change with Pyromania and they really softened up even more after that, so I think after Hysteria I gave up. I still enjoy hearing tracks off of High 'n' Dry which was their best work but I guess I heard enough of Pyromania and Hysteria back in the day that now, I will usually change the station.

Edited October 16, 2020 by catesta

[Kevin Bresnahan]

Sirius/XM has switched over their "Deep Tracks" channel (channel 27 over the air) to an Eddie Van Halen tribute channel for a few weeks. I've been listening to it a lot lately and truth be told, I had forgotten some of the great tunes these guys made. Sure, there are a few duds in there too, but overall they mostly range from really good to pretty great.

There is one song in particular, "Intruder", that now brings a big smile to my face when I think back to the first time I heard it. This short intro to their overplayed cover of Roy Orbison's "Oh, Pretty Woman" (which was often skipped over by many FM radio stations) was very unique as far as rock and roll tunes went. I remember thinking, "What the hell is this"?. It's like avant garde Van Halen. It's too damn short though.

 

[catesta]

I've been enjoying the Sirius XM tribute channel. In particular I have enjoyed the guest DJ spots and hearing things like isolated EVH guitar tracks. I also caught some of Ian Christie's tribute show last night on Liquid Metal and he played a few tasty covers.

 

 

[JSngry]

2 hours ago, catesta said:

When you say an adult should mourn the loss of nothing from their youth, I assume you're speaking of material items or connections to the past you remember fondly but did not know personally such as a musician, actor or....?

 

No, i mean anything, really. Life goes on. People die. First them, then us, then the new "them", the ones behind us.

Your past-bank empties as you age, so keep it full with new things, lest at some point all you have is things that no longer exist. Even memories, because they're worth about as much as anything and they stand a good chance of getting erased just as much as tangible things do.

Enjoy them, sure, but just know that it's all going to be gone, one way or another, sooner or later, Just let it go.

[clifford_thornton]

sometimes you can have both.

I think my ears are better attuned to the nuances in a lot of the music of my youth (and I'm talking high school or earlier) and I am able to hear and appreciate a lot more of what that music consists of as a result of spending countless hours with jazz, blues, free music, western composers, and so much more. So when I throw on some punk thing I played to death as a teenager, it now resonates with me both nostalgically and musically/culturally.

[Kevin Bresnahan]

As great as some of their tunes were, they really seemed to mock the music video world. Cheesy would be putting it mildly.

I don't feel tardy.

 

[JSngry]

40 minutes ago, clifford_thornton said:

sometimes you can have both.

I think my ears are better attuned to the nuances in a lot of the music of my youth (and I'm talking high school or earlier) and I am able to hear and appreciate a lot more of what that music consists of as a result of spending countless hours with jazz, blues, free music, western composers, and so much more. So when I throw on some punk thing I played to death as a teenager, it now resonates with me both nostalgically and musically/culturally.

Yeah, but after a while, it just sounds old. The fun is fleeting. Real, but fleeting. I find myself losing interest in pursing an increasingly fleeting pleasure.

I didn't die before i got old, but that music sure did!

[Steve Reynolds]

I find the music of my youth sounding terrific but I get bored pretty quickly 

my ears and mind/heart is so tuned into modern improvised music of all sorts - that most everything else except maybe things like The Dead, Can, Pavement, Sonic Youth and some obscure alternate rock things along with great historical jazz / the old favorites fade quickly.

I LOVE The Replacements & Husker Du as two examples but by half a 35 minute album I’m moving on!!

[Eric]

5 minutes ago, Steve Reynolds said:

I find the music of my youth sounding terrific but I get bored pretty quickly 

my ears and mind/heart is so tuned into modern improvised music of all sorts - that most everything else except maybe things like The Dead, Can, Pavement, Sonic Youth and some obscure alternate rock things along with great historical jazz / the old favorites fade quickly.

I LOVE The Replacements & Husker Du as two examples but by half a 35 minute album I’m moving on!!

Funny how that works.  I used to love the Police back in the early 80s ... Sting was even a jazz bassist  ... but now is a bit of a snooze.  The best tie back to that era is stuff with some sort of deep emotional resonance ... which was never the Police!

[Brad]

28 minutes ago, Steve Reynolds said:

I find the music of my youth sounding terrific but I get bored pretty quickly 

my ears and mind/heart is so tuned into modern improvised music of all sorts - that most everything else except maybe things like The Dead, Can, Pavement, Sonic Youth and some obscure alternate rock things along with great historical jazz / the old favorites fade quickly.

I LOVE The Replacements & Husker Du as two examples but by half a 35 minute album I’m moving on!!

I feel completely the opposite. I’ve had a lot of fun and enjoyment relistening  to the music of my youth (mid 60s to mid 70s). As an example, I loved the Doors then and that hasn’t changed.

The modern stuff doesn’t do much for me. 

Edited October 16, 2020 by Brad

[JSngry]

25 minutes ago, Eric said:

 ... Sting was even a jazz bassist  ...

Another "rock truth"!!!

[clifford_thornton]

2 hours ago, Steve Reynolds said:

I LOVE The Replacements & Husker Du as two examples but by half a 35 minute album I’m moving on!!

at least with hardcore and no-wave, most of the best stuff is confined to 7" or 45 rpm 12" formats. Goes by in a flash.

[Kevin Bresnahan]

I still love listening to this kind of rock and I am not going to apologize for it. It brings back memories, good and bad. So what? Memories are not inherently bad and having a good memory certainly helps me at work.

Speaking of memories... I remember seeing Van Halen before they "hit it big" in the relatively empty concert hall (Palace Theatre in Albany, NY maybe?) shortly after their first album came out. One of my fiends had it on 8-track and we played it on a constant loop (literally) in several of our cars. I bet there were less than 1,000 people in the place. It was incredibly mind-blowing to see Van Halen playing guitar like that.

By their next tour after Van Halen II in 1979, the venues & the crowds got bigger. I saw them in Springfield Civic Center in August of that year. The place was packed this time. And I almost died. The floor was "standing room only" (banned at most venues later on after the Who concert fiasco in late 1979 in Cincinnati) so of course I was down there. Me and my friend Teddy managed to push our way to the stage. They had hockey boards in front of the stage and that's where you stopped. Hard. I saw my friend Teddy almost get a drumstick. He caught it but the crowd around him beat him senseless to get it from him. I started getting crushed up against the hockey dasher. I saw a girl pass out next to me. I called over a guard and had him pull her out. I started getting light headed. I called the guy over again and told him I needed to get out or I was going to die there. He said that he'd have to kick me out if he pulled me out of the crowd. I said that I didn't care. He pulled me out and I jumped back into the crowd on the side of the stage before he could kick me out. I think he let me escape, to be honest.

The third and last time I saw them live was in 1980 at the Hartford Civic Center just after the 4th of July and it was absolutely nuts. There were fireworks going off everywhere. There was this (completely drunk) idiot two rows in front of me lighting off bottle-rockets by hand. His aim, understandably, was terrible. Most of the things went off within yards of his seat. Lucky they were only bottle-rockets and not M80s. His aim got worse and one went off real close to his seat. This big guy in the row in front of him stood up and warned him to cut it out. Everyone jumped all over the guy and he sank back in his seat. We thought that was the end of it. Well, Einstein decides to light off another one. It goes out around 10 feet, pulls a 180, and shoots straight at the big guy in front of him, blowing up just under his seat. The big guy jumped up, turned around and knocked the idiot out.

At one point, I saw a large firecracker (M80 or M100?) go off down by the floor seats, followed by a young girl stumbling away from that area with blood coming out of her ears. It was insane. My girlfriend was with me and she wanted to leave before the show even started.

The lights went down and the show started but it didn't go well. In the middle of the second tune, David Lee Roth brought the band to a stumbling halt and demanded the lights be brought up. He went on this diatribe about people throwing money at the stage and finished up with, "Alright you motherfucker... now we got the lights on! Throw the money now and when you people see who it is, throw him up on stage and we're gonna beat the shit out of him!" He then demanded that whoever was throwing money at them to "throw it now". After a few seconds without anything happening, he started screaming, "C'mon you pussy! Throw money at us now and we're going to beat the shit out of you". Nothing. "Throw money at us now you pussy!!" That did it. Money started raining down on them after this demand of the crowd. You could hear the coins bouncing off their heads, clanging off the mic stands, the speakers and the drum kit. Pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters could be seen bouncing all over the stage. It was insane. It was literally raining coins. Roth screamed, "Aww, fuck you all", and the band stormed off the stage. After a half hour of the crowd chanting and screaming and more crazy fireworks, they finally came out and played one more song. Then they stormed off without a word and the house lights came on. The crowd didn't know what was going on and kept clapping and screaming. After all, they only played for about 15 minutes. They wouldn't come back out. The crowd went nuts. Nobody would leave. The place was about to riot. They sent in the police. An announcement was made that there would be no refunds. At the box office, people were lined up 20-30 people deep, all demanding their money back. They never refunded a penny.

BTW, I never bought tickets to another Van Halen show again, not that it mattered to them.

[jlhoots]

30 minutes ago, bresna said:

I still love listening to this kind of rock and I am not going to apologize for it. It brings back memories, good and bad. So what? Memories are not inherently bad and having a good memory certainly helps me at work.

Speaking of memories... I remember seeing Van Halen before they "hit it big" in the relatively empty concert hall (Palace Theatre in Albany, NY maybe?) shortly after their first album came out. One of my fiends had it on 8-track and we played it on a constant loop (literally) in several of our cars. I bet there were less than 1,000 people in the place. It was incredibly mind-blowing to see Van Halen playing guitar like that.

By their next tour after Van Halen II in 1979, the venues & the crowds got bigger. I saw them in Springfield Civic Center in August of that year. The place was packed this time. And I almost died. The floor was "standing room only" (banned at most venues later on after the Who concert fiasco in late 1979 in Cincinnati) so of course I was down there. Me and my friend Teddy managed to push our way to the stage. They had hockey boards in front of the stage and that's where you stopped. Hard. I saw my friend Teddy almost get a drumstick. He caught it but the crowd around him beat him senseless to get it from him. I started getting crushed up against the hockey dasher. I saw a girl pass out next to me. I called over a guard and had him pull her out. I started getting light headed. I called the guy over again and told him I needed to get out or I was going to die there. He said that he'd have to kick me out if he pulled me out of the crowd. I said that I didn't care. He pulled me out and I jumped back into the crowd on the side of the stage before he could kick me out. I think he let me escape, to be honest.

The third and last time I saw them live was in 1980 at the Hartford Civic Center just after the 4th of July and it was absolutely nuts. There were fireworks going off everywhere. There was this (completely drunk) idiot two rows in front of me lighting off bottle-rockets by hand. His aim, understandably, was terrible. Most of the things went off within yards of his seat. Lucky they were only bottle-rockets and not M80s. His aim got worse and one went off real close to his seat. This big guy in the row in front of him stood up and warned him to cut it out. Everyone jumped all over the guy and he sank back in his seat. We thought that was the end of it. Well, Einstein decides to light off another one. It goes out around 10 feet, pulls a 180, and shoots straight at the big guy in front of him, blowing up just under his seat. The big guy jumped up, turned around and knocked the idiot out.

At one point, I saw a large firecracker (M80 or M100?) go off down by the floor seats, followed by a young girl stumbling away from that area with blood coming out of her ears. It was insane. My girlfriend was with me and she wanted to leave before the show even started.

The lights went down and the show started but it didn't go well. In the middle of the second tune, David Lee Roth brought the band to a stumbling halt and demanded the lights be brought up. He went on this diatribe about people throwing money at the stage and finished up with, "Alright you motherfucker... now we got the lights on! Throw the money now and when you people see who it is, throw him up on stage and we're gonna beat the shit out of him!" He then demanded that whoever was throwing money at them to "throw it now". After a few seconds without anything happening, he started screaming, "C'mon you pussy! Throw money at us now and we're going to beat the shit out of you". Nothing. "Throw money at us now you pussy!!" That did it. Money started raining down on them after this demand of the crowd. You could hear the coins bouncing off their heads, clanging off the mic stands, the speakers and the drum kit. Pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters could be seen bouncing all over the stage. It was insane. It was literally raining coins. Roth screamed, "Aww, fuck you all", and the band stormed off the stage. After a half hour of the crowd chanting and screaming and more crazy fireworks, they finally came out and played one more song. Then they stormed off without a word and the house lights came on. The crowd didn't know what was going on and kept clapping and screaming. After all, they only played for about 15 minutes. They wouldn't come back out. The crowd went nuts. Nobody would leave. The place was about to riot. They sent in the police. An announcement was made that there would be no refunds. At the box office, people were lined up 20-30 people deep, all demanding their money back. They never refunded a penny.

BTW, I never bought tickets to another Van Halen show again, not that it mattered to them.

Great story. Glad I wasn't at any of it. 

[Brad]

2 hours ago, jlhoots said:

Great story. Glad I wasn't at any of it. 

Glad I never went to any of those kind of concerts. Wouldn’t have wanted to give those people any of my money. 

[clifford_thornton]

14 hours ago, jlhoots said:

Great story. Glad I wasn't at any of it. 

ditto. I went to my share of packed rock/punk shows, all in smaller venues, but that takes the cake.

[catesta]

I hope SiriusXM goes at least another week with VH on Deep Tracks or moves the tribute to another channel.

[sambrasa]

On 6.10.2020 at 7:46 AM, JSngry said:

Eddie van Halen was the first player I ever heard favorably compared to Jan Hammer in terms of stylistic similarities.

Jan Hammer was a monster when in right situation. The album he did with Jerry Goodman, Like Children, is wonderful. He also plays some killer drums on it. Also those albums he did with John Abercrombie for ECM, Timeless and Night, wonderful. Robert Fripp interviewing John McLaughlin in early 80s, McLaughlin said something like "Jan's a big rock'n roll lover," must be nicest things he ever said of Hammer after Mahavishnu Mk1 broke up. I guess that he has in common with Eddie van Halen, r.i.p. big rock'n roll lover.

[JSngry]

The guy I heard make the comparison was a guitarist who was a few years younger than me, who came into jazz via fusion, from Duane Allman etc. He meant it as a compliment to Van Halen, and I took it as one. The guy was a good player with a natural curiosity about music, so...not where I was at, but that was what I liked about the college environment, exposure to a lot of different perspectives from a lot of different people. You had to respect anybody who could represent their POV with intelligence and not just hormonal fandom, hormoneless intellect, guts AND brains.

As for Jan Hammer, I had a listen to Oh Yeah? The other day and had fun with it. Some for real playing going on.

[Kevin Bresnahan]

[Dan Gould]

33 minutes ago, bresna said:

Amusing, but makes me glad I live on 10 acres and not in the townhouse we used to live in.

[Kevin Bresnahan]

I'm not usually a fan of these isolation tracks, but I thought this one was interesting.