I assumed I’d take this time to mirror on one of the crucial influential lead guitarists of the final 35 years- Mr. Edward Van Halen. I still bear in mind vividly driving home from my girlfriend’s house one late and rainy night when the DJ introduced a new song by a brand new group known as Van Halen. Actually, it was a new cowl- ‘You Actually Acquired Me’, the outdated Kinks chestnut.
But before it began- the guitar solo ‘Eruption’ exploded over my automotive stereo. My God, I practically had to pull over to the side of the street to absorb what I was listening to! What have been these lightning-fast triplets??? How in the identify of God’s green earth was he doing that? Is he from another planet? And I knew instantly that Eddie was going to change the best way that 1,000,000 different lead guitarists and I approached our fretboards.
And when those first Strat-induced energy chords hit- DA DADA DA DA! DA DADD DA DA! Nicely, suffice it to say, I knew this wasn’t going to be a straight cowl version.
After which something happened. The DJ adopted up with ‘Runnin’ With The Satan’. And I knew proper then and there that these guys, and Eddie Van Halen in particular, had been going to be an absolute phenomenon.
The very subsequent day, I got down to discover the best way to do these ‘hammer-ons’, as they had been called. Luckily, they weren’t terribly laborious for me to master. The trick is making them sound smooth and integrating them with other methods so that you just don’t sound like a one-trick pony or an Eddie Van Halen clone/wannabe. So- I, like many other guitarists on the time, in all probability overused the method, however have since merely made it one among several instruments in our lick bag O’ tricks.
A funny Van Halen anecdote for you all earlier than I go. A fellow bandmate and I went to see Van Halen at a big venue within the American Midwest. I after all wanted to go to worship on the sound of Eddie and his outrageous guitar solos, however secretly and most deviously, I had a PLAN. I had introduced with me a stack of almost a hundred of my bands’ enterprise playing cards that contained our cellphone number (this far precedes web sites and e mail). I was capable of wiggle my method into the entrance row. I waited till the suitable time to make my move. I waited till each Dave and Eddie were far stage right, and the center of the stage was darkish and unlit. And then- I grabbed my stack of business playing cards and threw them onstage like a lot WW2 propaganda. Dave and Eddie then ran from stage right to stage left, kicking through my cards like so many fall leaves blowing on a windy October day. I left the concert, just realizing that I’d be getting a call from Van Halen’s manager, wanting us to open for the band. Hmm. When was that, 1980? I’m still waiting for that call.
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