Who else likes the kings of metal?
H.
I dug Eddie for his inovations, awesome player.. I'll steer away from who was the best lead singer the band had, I have a opinion, which I won't post, not sure if I'd categorize them as Metal personally, but thats another opinion. The only irony now is that tapping became so overdone for a time that its almost a cliche now, but that again is a opinion. Awesome 'brown tone' sound he got though.
Regards,
Lone
His playing was a breath of fresh air when the first album came out. Shortly after, alot of guitarists became annoying to listen to because they copped the tapping and wammy work so blatently. After a while, Eddie stopped doing it as much because others made it a cliche. Some did go past it, and create their own styles, thank god.
Take the wammy bar. Originally, two of the most extreme users were Hendrix and Ritchie Blackmore. By the mid eighties, Blackmore slowed way down on the bar because of all the VH clones doing it to death.
I have no doubt that Eddie could still send everybody back to school if he wanted to, but he doesnt seem to be hungry anymore. Jeff Beck is one of the few masters that still goes into new territory with his playing.
Agreed, Jeff Beck is still my all time fave. Listen to the song on Guitar Shop that he does all the harmonics and bends. In a interview he says he got it listening to some chants. He also was a little frightened of it, because he had to do it live when he promoted that alblum on tour (try remembering and pulling off all those harmonics live, whoa!). Its a beautiful tune with just the right amount of sampled string in the background. He also said until he got the jeff beck strat he couldn't do it because he could'nt wammy enough to pull it off. He's an amazing player and always amazes me, and he's also blindly fast when he wants to be. Anyway, even more off topic, but I just wanted to second the motion for Beck.
Regards,
Lone
i've met EVH,AVH,andMA. they were never a metal band ,just in your face kick ass rock and roll. i prefer the first to albums. then a bit of this and that on their other efforts.
i'd like to see eddie kick ass like he did in the first 5 yrs w/ the band.
time will tell, they're back. lets hope it's the real deal, not a retirement tour.
-tom
:shock: In my mind Van Halen is one of great bands, and a band with a guitar hero.
I remeber one local guitar hero adapted EVH:s idea of just one pickup in a strat style guitar. I dunno if it was his idea (Did Johnny Winter have just one bridge pickup in his Lazer guitar?) but I have thought many times that it works, you can manage quite well with just bridge pickup.
Favorite VH album: Fair Warning.
Worst version of VH: Gary Cherone era.
David Lee Roth vs. Eddie: Why can't they just get along?
Agreed: Van HAlen are not metal. I suppose the bet term is hard rock.
I think Van Halen was their best album, with 1984 or 5150 as second best.
H.
though I don't listen to much VH these days... the first 4 albums were an absolute tour de force... hardly a bad song in there...
and the guitar playing was just SICK.
"-)