I cannot claim to have been a huge Van Halen fan, but I had a couple of VH phases that were HUGE for me.
Van Halen I was my first hard rock album, and it really shaped my musical interests for probably the rest of my entire life. I've told parts of this story before, but: The first album I ever bought was a cassette of Queen's The Game from the music store (as in, musical
instrument store) around the corner. My next musical "purchase" was a huge album dump in the form of Columbia House's "13 albums for a penny" deal. I forget exactly how the initial offer worked, but I think you picked your first album for $2.99, and then 13 for a penny. As I was running down the list of albums to choose from, most of it was more "pop." But I had a friend who had a few Black Sabbath, Aerosmith, and Van Halen tapes that I had heard a bit of from time to time, and I was curious about this heavier music. I wanted to get Ozzy's debut album, but was terrified that my parents (primarily, my mom) would completely freak out. So I chose Van Halen I instead.
I remember when the box arrived. I opened it up and remember some of those tapes including Mean At Work, Journey, Fleetwood Mac, Toni Basil...and, of course, Van Halen. We were going to my great grandmother's house, so I grabbed a couple of tapes to bring along, in hopes I could listen. I remember that at some point, I came outside by myself and popped VHI into the cassette player in my dad's Volvo. I don't believe I listened to the whole album--I think it was just most or all of side 1. But I remember those first three songs just blowing my mind. I had never heard anything so heavy. And the guitars! This was a life-changing moment. I liked all those other albums I bought. But from that moment forward, guitar-based hard rock was my go-to.
Another story from years ago that I heard from the guys in Y&T: I don't remember now whether this was something Dave Meniketti shared on his forum or whether I heard this directly from Joey Alves (Y&T's original rhythm guitar player) the couple of times I spent with him in person. Anyhow, this goes back to the first show where this little unsigned band called Van Halen was slotted to open for Y&T. I think this may have been the show after which VH got signed, but I don't know for sure. Anyhow, Joey had been watching Eddie warming up and was struck with how amazing a player he was. He immediately came back to the dressing room and told the guys about his Van Halen kid. They kind of laughed it off, questioned how good this kid with a funny name could be, and went about their business. So Joey brought Eddie back to the dressing room and had him play something, and it silenced everyone in the room. They watched VH's opening set and were blown away. And that kicked off many years of a long (mostly) friendly rivalry between the two bands.
For me, as I said, that first album really set a standard for me and helped shape my musical identity. But I have to say that their other albums were hit and miss for me, and other than 5150 being in CONSTANT rotation back when it came out, I drafted away from this band and moved on to others. But I cannot deny how much Eddie's innovating playing and his songwriting brought me to the vast majority of music I have loved through the years.
Tangent: Did any of you happen to catch Mangini's post about Eddie and 5150 Studios?
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Topic: Eddie Van Halen has passed away (Read 13741 times)
