RIP Edward Lodewijk Van Halen

They started treating him like dirt years before that, taking away his partner share of the band's profits and forcing him to become in essence a salaried employee. It cost him millions. EVH also allegedly tried to replace MA with the bassist from a now-forgotten group that opened for them in the early 80s.

 

VH was the first rock band in my lifetime that looked like they were having fun onstage.

Not like those sullen British pricks.

 

I think the band was Talas and the bass player was a mediocre talent named Billy Sheehan.

BTW, Talas was a trio and they did not suck. Go to 42:05 and listen to a live performance of "The Farandole."

 

he asked for and got a case of beer for his trouble.
There’s an incredibly amusing story floating around that has EVH at a tower records and beat it comes on and some dude starts complaining that the guitarist is doing an imitation and EVH taps him on the shoulder and is like nope, that’s me.

 

I saw Van Hagar in 1986 at Kemper Arena.

Much like with Weezer with the Blue album and Pinkerton, there are people who swear allegiance to the pre-1984 Van Halen and hate the 1984 and post-‘84 version. And vice versa.

 

You could take the first third and last third out of every Van Halen song ever made, just played the chorus and the bridge, and even if you never heard one of their songs, you could tell a huge difference.

 

"Running With the Devil," the book written by VH's former manager recounts that whole deal. All three of the other bandmates had been trying to get rid of him for years, and eventually got him to sign that agreement giving up a full partnership, even though the manager himself told him not to do it. And I don't understand either what they had against him; from all I've seen, Anthony seems to be a great guy and bandmate, and he contributed a lot to that band even if he didn't do any songwriting.

And, yeah, I think it's well-known that Eddie was not the greatest of people to work with. I remember when DLR left, and I just assumed that it was Roth having a big ego and being pretty flaky. But then, years later came the breakup with Hagar, and then I read some other things about the band dynamic, and I realized Eddie was probably the problem in those relationships.

So, yeah, he wasn't perfect, but he was still a freakin' genius with the guitar and gave me a lot of enjoyment through that.

 

I loved the Roth era. I loved the Hagar era. Looking back, much of the Roth era, including huge chunks of their second through fifth albums, was really not very good. The debut and 1984 were great start to finish. In between was a lot of schlock. The Hagar albums, while poppier and more keyboard-oriented and so on, stand up much better to me. I'm sure plenty will disagree.

 

Dude couldn't even hang onto Valerie Fucking Bertinelli.

 

So, where did the EVH death get placed in everyone's local papers? The daily where I used to work had it on A2, their state news page, but had a top page teaser to it on A1.

 

Roth era was pioneering and reached peaks that Hagar era could only vaguely see through the clouds. Those peaks excused the dreck that was mixed in.

Hagar era was consistently good, not really breaking new ground but hitting on a formula that worked for more people, more of the time.

 

Van Hagar wasn't very subtle. I enjoyed the concert, but, then again, I was 17, so what the fuck did I know?

OU812

For
Unlawful
Carnal
Knowledge