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search: VAN HALEN
Eddie Van Halen Has Cancer -- David Lee Roth Leads Nation In Prayer
found here: MSNBC
suggested by 6StringSamurai
posted by Joey (Plastic) on Monday April 30, @12:01PM
"Well, I guess that rock 'n roll lifestyle caught up to ol' Eddie over the years, because Van Halen revealed that he is going through cancer treatment," 6StringSamurai writes. "Van Halen is a recovering alcoholic and a chain smoker, so this shouldn't come as a surprise to any fans out there in Plastic-land. He didn't specify where the cancer originated; however, the original reports stated that the cancerous cells had originated in the tongue area, only reinforcing the possibility that his heavy smoking may have had something to do with it. Condolences also came from former VH frontman David Lee Roth, who wrote to Eddie on his Web site, 'You can beat this, champ.' After putting up with mercurial frontmen such as Roth and Sammy Hagar for so many years, this is probably a walk in the park for Eddie."
The perfect time for DLR to rejoin Van Halen! (Score:1)
by Tim Malieckal on Monday April 30, @02:08PM EST (Comment #13) (Send a private note to Tim Malieckal)
Am I the only guy who can't resist taking a potshot at Eddie?
What would rock and roll have been in the 80s without Eddie and his boiled strings? I am a Halen apologist. I love Lee Roth, had the hots for Burtenelli, and even liked Alex's drum beats (now that's dedication).
Seriously, when's the last time a decent guitarist came out? Other than Vernon Reid? Eddie. So bow your heads.
Though his cancer isn't sadder than others'. Have a heart, plasticians! Don't tell me you weren't hot for teacher.
"Blowin' up the spot since 1974"
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Will The Cancer Effect His Hot Lics? (Score:1)
by zenfascistzero on Monday April 30, @02:30PM EST (Comment #14) (Send a private note to zenfascistzero)
As long as Eddie can still hammer on the whammy and thrill us with his rockin' chops, than the world can rest easy -- not even cancer can stop the onslaught of incredibly bad music.
"I want nothing but peace and goodwill for all... OR ELSE!!!"
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Re:The perfect time for DLR to rejoin Van Halen! (Score:1)
by Saint_Waldo on Monday April 30, @02:31PM EST (Comment #15) (Send a private note to Saint_Waldo)
Am I the only guy who can't resist taking a potshot at Eddie?
I don't see any potshots. At least none like the ones I've fired off.
Seriously, when's the last time a decent guitarist came out?
Paul Leary wipes his ass on Halen. The Reverend Horton Heat shoves a hot poker up the Van's left nostril. Like the double-tapping on "Eruption" was some kind of guitarists second coming, pulease. Technical skill with absolutely no soul. The only thing Halen did for rock was lay the foundation for other solo-wanking assmonkeys like Satriani, Määlmstëën, and Steve Vai.
Saint Waldo - Try to deny, but it's all too true. -- "Don't forget to bring a towel!"
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Getcha college-rock off the couch, boy! (Score:4, Informative)
by Ajax on Monday April 30, @03:10PM EST (Comment #16) (Send a private note to Ajax)
The only thing Halen did for rock was lay the foundation for other solo-wanking assmonkeys like Satriani, Määlmstëën, and Steve Vai.
*whistle* Guitar-god player-hating, 10 yard penalty.
FYI, Satriani taught EVH and Vai everything they know...and they didn't learn most of what he has up his sleeve. He's got chops and emotion to spare. Listen to "Why" or "Always With Me, Always With You" or "Can't Slow Down" and then jabber about how Heat's got better guitar-work. Bollocks, I say.
For my money the only guitarist with indie/fringe cred who can stand up to Satch's talent is Frank Zappa, and sadly, he's gone now. Steve Vai is overrated, yes. Eddie Van Halen is a living tribute to the fact that you can record a different album every year for twenty years and still not get any better as a guitarist. Yngwie's problem is largely cultural (except for the fact that he's an arrogant fuck, too.)
But don't be dissin' on Satch -- he's my boy.
"Creators aren't gods. They make places, which is quite hard. It's men that make gods. This explains a lot." - T.P.
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Re:The perfect time for DLR to rejoin Van Halen! (Score:1)
by 6StringSamurai on Monday April 30, @03:42PM EST (Comment #19) (Send a private note to 6StringSamurai)
Paul Leary wipes his ass on Halen. The Reverend Horton Heat shoves a hot poker up the Van's left nostril.
Like the double-tapping on "Eruption" was some kind of guitarists second coming, pulease. Technical skill with absolutely no soul.
The only thing Halen did for rock was lay the foundation for other solo-wanking assmonkeys like Satriani, Määlmstëën, and Steve Vai.
Aside from the Satriani jab (he was doing his thing long before VH and taught Vai, Kirk Hammett (Metallica), and Primus' Larry LaLonde how to do their thing), you're pretty much in the right area. EVH didn't know a note that he didn't want to play in the space of a 12-24 bar solo, and that wasn't a good thing.
Leary and the Rev are much better than EVH in the end because they know when not to play, and that's just as important, if not more so, than knowing when to. Vai, Malmsteen, and VH are crass instrumental masturbators. In my eyes, even Kurt Cobain was a better guitarist because he followed the K.I.S.S. rule when it came to playing solos. You can know all the guitar theory in the world but it doesn't make you a tasteful guitarist.
Don't diss Satriani -- he's been able to adapt his style well to other genres as leader and sideman. A good example is Engines of Creation, where he adjusts his playing to fit into a more electronica-based sound.
Interesting VH bit: Eddie once sent a tape of himself playing on blues pieces to Eric Clapton, who responded by saying that Van Halen's style wasn't the blues. Now, Clapton has been guilty of many blues violations according to purists, but he was right on when it came to this one.
- 6
-- "I've got an electric guitar. I play my stupid songs, I write these stupid words, and I love every one." - Weezer
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Guitar heroes (Score:1)
by areilly on Monday April 30, @03:44PM EST (Comment #20) (Send a private note to areilly)
Seriously, when's the last time a decent guitarist came out? Other than Vernon Reid? Eddie. So bow your heads.
Um... John Petrucci. Michael Romeo. Slash. Kim Thayil. Jerry Cantrell. Tim Reynolds. Buckethead.
All post-EVH, and all more versatile and all more dynamic. What did EVH ever do to advance his playing and style other than switch back to the piano? Yes he's amazing, but he's also one of the great champions of the stagnant guitar school - right up there with Keith Richards and Angus Young.
"Music is the soundtrack to the bad movie that is my life."
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Like Whoa (Score:1)
by Tim Malieckal on Monday April 30, @04:06PM EST (Comment #21) (Send a private note to Tim Malieckal)
OK, OK, I wrote in haste. I guess I should have said guys who have been given any sort of decent airplay / window into mainstream acceptance. And I KNOW that such a consideration does not a guitarist make, but some of the names I'm completely oblivious of . . .
Though I'm terribly ashamed to have forgotten Thayil and Cantrell; I've listened to the Rev. HH a couple of times, but some of the others are way over my head. Thanks for the recs.
As for Satriani, Malmstein, Vai, there's no denying their mind-blowin badness but I'm just too much of a percussion guy to get into music that's solely guitar lix.
But thanks for all the feedback, y'all -
"Blowin' up the spot since 1974"
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Re:The perfect time for the Saint to eat crow (Score:1)
by novjul on Monday April 30, @06:24PM EST (Comment #22) (Send a private note to novjul)
color me Plastic! I am dee-lighted to see more than one esteemed Plastician stand up for Satriani -- the musician's musician if there ever was one. A more worthy Idol to bear the title of Guitar-God would be hard to imagine.
"Now Horace, I warned you about thinking"
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A better guitarist? Or a better musician? (Score:2)
by Ajax on Monday April 30, @07:37PM EST (Comment #23) (Send a private note to Ajax)
I should know better than to get into this argument with 6, but what the hell. :)
Vai, Malmsteen, and VH are crass instrumental masturbators. In my eyes, even Kurt Cobain was a better guitarist because he followed the K.I.S.S. rule when it came to playing solos. You can know all the guitar theory in the world but it doesn't make you a tasteful guitarist.
OK, you're now making the implied point that "best guitarist" and "most tasteful guitarist" are synonymous, if not identical. I disagree.
To my mind, a person who's a "better" guitarist has the chops to play anything you can play and more. By that metric, Kurt Cobain is hard-pressed to keep up even with a semi-talented guitarist of any previous era...even Reb Beach won't have much trouble playing the solo to "Smell Like Teen Spirit". And that definition gives the deserved props to people like Yngwie, Nuno Bettencourt, and George Lynch, all of whom possess phenomenal technical skill which they have worked very hard to maintain.
The key distinction, however, is this: you can be a better guitarist without being a better musician.
The way I see it, there are basically two aesthetic "schools" of rock-n-roll guitar playing.
The "DIY" school, revered by punk and grunge fans, and epitomized by bands like The Ramones, The Sex Pistols, and Nirvana, cherishes the simple and the understated. The appeal of these guys seems to be that they're not pretentious elitists, they're just jumped-up fans with nothing particularly special about them except a love for rock music. And that's great, and a lot of those bands are good and worth a listen even if (or sometimes because) they don't take themselves too seriously.
The "technical" school, revered by prog-rock and heavy-metal fans, and epitomized by bands like Rush, Dream Theater, and Metallica (pre-1990s Metallica, that is), favors the baroque and the complex. The appeal of these guys is that they possess phenomenal physical gifts, which they use to test both their own creative limits and that of their instruments. The results aren't always friendly to the "untrained" ear, but they always send those who actually play the instruments back to the woodshed, and often lend a genre that was pioneered by DIYers new legitimacy in the eyes of serious music critics/etc.
From a "DIY" perspective, these "technical" guys may look like show-offs or pretentious pud-pounding pedants (Ooo, alliteration!) but that doesn't change the fact that this musical aesthetic always finds its way back to the fore when the listening public grows tired of listening to the lesser efforts of the "DIY" trend...when the freshness and right-place/right-time vibe of Nirvana and Pearl Jam gives way to the we've-got-nothing-to-say-AND-we-can't-play-guitar vibe of Bush and Third Eye Blind.
(Therein lies the problem with DIY as a musical aesthetic -- although the attitude that it doesn't matter if it sounds sloppy if it's got soul leads to a lot of good sounds, it also leads to a lot of shit that sounds sloppy and soulless, sharing enough of the superficial characteristics of "grunge" to get overplayed relentlessly on the radio by Industry Tools, without any of the deeper qualities that make DIY-style music worth listening to.)
Both schools have their strengths and weaknesses. For every sloppy-ass, can't-sing, out-of-tune punk atrocity out there, you'll find an equally odious look-I-just-learned-how-to-play-a-64th-note soloer fronting a bored bassist and an indifferent drummer -- often opening for the lousy punk band, oddly enough. :)
You don't have to be a good guitarist to be a good musician, but it's (IMHO) a mistake to judge Kurt Cobain's skill with his instrument on the same scale as Eddie Van Halen's. There's no question that EVH could outplay Kurt when it came right down to choppin' wood -- and Kurt, for all his jaded-angst, who-gives-a-fuck DIY cred, will never be mentioned in the same breath as The Original, Greatest Of All Time Rock-n-Roll Guitar God, The Man Himself, Jimi Hendrix.
But I'll still put Bleach or Mondo Bizarro up against anything in the Van Halen catalog after 1984...or anything out of Steve Vai's oevure to date. :)
"Creators aren't gods. They make places, which is quite hard. It's men that make gods. This explains a lot." - T.P.
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Re:A better guitarist? Or a better musician? (Score:1)
by 6StringSamurai on Monday April 30, @07:51PM EST (Comment #24) (Send a private note to 6StringSamurai)
You made very good points in that whole bit. It was nice to read.
I personally prefer better musicians. I'm impressed with chops (and am consistenly trying to improve mine on the ol' Strat every day), but there's something to be said for the DIY aesthetic at least when you know that there's something smart being said over the guitar (bands like 3EB notwithstanding; I kind of like Bush). Occassionally I forget how to differentiate between the two, because I like to think that chops are there for you to use, but you're not supposed to use everything within a five-fret radius in a 24-bar solo. (Shit, I'm getting WAY too technical for most Plastiques.) I admire guitarists with skill on their instrument, but I hate the ones who don't know when to stop picking and interact a little more musically with the rhythm section.
Jimi Hendrix was the wonderful collision of both schools in my mind. He never studied music formally, but he spent days at a time attached to the instrument. I've heard all the records, watched live footages, and heard live albums and I don't think he ever played a note out of place.
Certainly Cobain will never be up there in the ranks of guitar heroes, but you have to admit that he has his shred moments on Bleach.
- 6
-- "I've got an electric guitar. I play my stupid songs, I write these stupid words, and I love every one." - Weezer
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Re:A better guitarist? Or a better musician? (Score:2)
by Ajax on Monday April 30, @08:35PM EST (Comment #25) (Send a private note to Ajax)
I like to think that chops are there for you to use, but you're not supposed to use everything within a five-fret radius in a 24-bar solo. (Shit, I'm getting WAY too technical for most Plastiques.) I admire guitarists with skill on their instrument, but I hate the ones who don't know when to stop picking and interact a little more musically with the rhythm section.
This is true...but also, let's not compare apples and oranges. A guitarist who is primarily a "sideman" has very different responsibilities from one who plays up front -- you cited Satch as being excellent at navigating between the two, and I have to agree. When you're the songwriter and the person carrying the melody and the soloist, you're going to get used to working a little harder on stage, and that kind of weight tends to sit on your shoulders more heavily than you realize at first. :)
This isn't intended as a defense of Vai et al, who should be better at finding the happy medium between grandstanding and using their skills appropriately by now. But they play a different kind of music from Rev. Horton Heat or The Edge or Gary "U.S." Bonds, and a different role on stage as well. If Stevie had a Bruce Springsteen or a Bono to front for him, he probably wouldn't feel the need to fill every silence with an arpeggio. :)
"Creators aren't gods. They make places, which is quite hard. It's men that make gods. This explains a lot." - T.P.
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