I saw this bizarre face in the bookstore yesterday and for a second I went, holy shit, when did Eddie Van Halen start looking like Neil Young? I swear I will never say another bad thing about Britney after reading about what’s happened to Eddie and the band. First though, self-confessed Van Halen freak here. Mrs. Logo and I saw them countless times – the David Lee version, not Van Hagar thank you very much. Can still draw that stupid little ‘VH’ logo with the wings too.See, you have to understand, (old school knows this all too well), before Eddie, the only name in guitar that made you go ‘wow’ was Jimi. Period. End of story. (Forget Eric. Don’t even get me started there.) Oh sure, you had super groups like Led Zeppelin, Queen and Yes with Jimmy Page, Brian May and Steve Howe respectively. As great as they were though, they didn’t sound like this guy.
Then, along came Bruce Lee with a Strat and everyone was like wtf, how’d he do that?
FF >> 20+ years later to find out Bruce Lee divorced his TV sitcom trophy wife, needed a hip replacement from running into speakers all those years, lost part of his tongue to cancer but recovered by using meth, fired-hired-lather-rinse-repeat about 20 lead singers, scored a porn movie, then fired his original bassist in favor of his 15 year-old son Wolfgang*, and now announces a reunion tour to do the whole thing all over again with the guy he kicked out in the first place.
Even Courtney Love is going wtf. (I realize that’s a lot of wtf-age in this post, but somehow, it fits.) So now, all can do is just wait for EVH to show up trashed at an AARP member concert, fire his son during the concert, then spontaneously combust.
*While getting kicked out of a band comes with the rock territory, this has to qualify as a cap A, numero uno kick in the nuts. Especially when it’s by someone who at one point wasn’t even born yet while you were busy sorting out the brown M&M’s from the groupies on the tour bus.
Tags: Eddie Van Halen, Van Halen
5 comments:
Looks like Katherine Harris
Photo by Ross Halfin, by the way.
Eddie's OK at what he does, if you're into that sort of thing. Personally, it doesn't do much for me. He's what I like to call a Frentic Fretwork Technician, all speed with no soul or funk. Perhaps his best work (to my ear) was in the Hagar era, likely Finish What Ya Started.
I resent the author's ommission of my name from the brief list he supplies, which includes Steve Howe of all people.
Jetpacks is right! And let's not forget Ry Cooder. I mean, just the name makes me smile.
No shit JP? I swear, when you see the cover up close, his head looks photoshopped on.
Joe Perry, dude, you were good, no doubt, but Slash took over your mantle. Although your playing is more soulful, bluesy, I'd also give props to Vai first.
EVH's acoustic shit is as solid anybody’s too. Plus, while you put up with Tyler, he put up with Roth for how long? That’s gotta be worth something man.
Ha ha ha ha!! We've done some guitar work in our agency, so we get that publication in our office. It came in the mail earlier this week - and I swear, there was a crowd gathered around it.
Most common reaction: "Ewwwwww. That's Eddie??" It's worth a trip to the book store just to see the printed version up close.
There's something Frankenstein-ish about that photo.
And, btw, you nailed it: "before Eddie, the only name in guitar that made you go ‘wow’ was Jimi." Yep. You can hang at our office any day.
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