I'm listening to the Classic Rock station as DJ Rox spins tracks from Van Halen's 1981 album, "Fair Warning." It's vinyl Thursday and every hour on the hour, Roxanne is playing select cuts and sometimes an entire album side of the legendary band (I mean, they were a monster band in those days) from Van Halen I through their final album, "Balance." I'm hearing songs I haven't heard since the '80s.
"Just a boy who painted his guitar red with white stripes because he wanted to be different," I heard her say in my car radio Tuesday evening as I drove the old school Hwy 81, the main road into Wichita 70 years ago. "That was Eddie Van Halen. That's classic rock."
Yet it wasn't until I got home, opened a beer & (dammit, must stop) scrolled Facebook, the social satan, and learned from one of my friend's posts - I think it was Shanline out in Pennsylvania - that Eddie Van Halen died. I'd heard that he had cancer. But still -- dead. Unreal. Eddie Van Halen can't die. But that's what our parents said about Elvis. It didn't matter how many pictures The National Enquirer carried of The King looking fat and drugged out on stage in those final days, I'm sure it was a shock to that generation that grew up with Elvis when he actually died. I know how they felt now.
For my generation, it's hard to fathom Michael Jackson, Prince or Eddie Van Halen dying. They were constants for all - or most - of our lives. You didn't even have to be a fan (although I was a fan of early Van Halen) to feel loss and emptiness. It's a reminder that someday we're going to die. One of these days, we'll all be gone. Christians believe in immortality in Heaven, which is nice. I'd like to see my mom again. But then I've read about the Buddhist concept of impermanence, which is also interesting. We'll only know when we get there if we even do then. Of course such existential probings about mortality weren't to be found in my head
---- in 1982. I was just a bonehead junior high kid at my locker in between classes, singing too loudly for comfort or propriety, "She was sea-side sittin, just a smokin' and a drinkin' on ringside on top of the world, oh yeah." I brought Van Halen's Women and Children First album to music class for Record Day in Mr. Crane's music class. Poor Mr. Crane. The students were merciless and every day, Mr. Crane was sending someone to the office. I remember we were singing "My Country tis of Thee." My friend, Troy, sang, "My (loudly, without decorum) CUNT-(normal volume again) ry tis..." "Troy, go to the office!" Mr. Crane said and Troy walked out with a smile on his face like it was a big joke. Somewhere around this time, there was a controversy over some future inmate juvenile hoodlum sneaking AC/DC's "Big Balls" by on Record Day. Poor Mr. Crane. Jesus, we had to sing a song called "Rainbow Runner." I can still hear John Thompson's angelic soprano voice exclaiming "Craneblow, Craneblow cummer." A person is never before, nor will ever be again, as unabashedly vulgar as one is in 7th and 8th grade.
Into this world, my version of it, Eddie Van Halen lived. Like AC/DC and Ozzy, he was a god. He was of our time.
I remember the summer of '83 when I went to weightlifting at the high school and stayed after with a group of sweaty guys and girls to dance aerobics. Michael Jackson had recently scored this huge hit with "Billie Jean" and dancing aerobically, I heard for the first time, his thrilling follow-up "Beat It." It was an unusual song. Pure Top 40 pop, but taken off by Eddie Van Halen's unmistakable solo.
My senior year of high school, I was trying to get right the opening to "Hot For Teacher." I'm still an amateur, but I've heard some extraordinary guitarists who only picked up an axe because of Eddie Van Halen. As kids had done before after Hendrix. As a million garage bands popped up after The Beatles, who themselves, were born out of Elvis, Chuck Berry and Little Richard.
Years later, there was a rumor that Van Halen was going to be playing in Wichita and -- DAVID LEE ROTH was back! -- and the concert would be on September, 17 -- my birthday. My then wife said she'd buy us tickets to celebrate. But it wasn't to be. It fell through. The concert was never to be.
Over the years as I've hung out with my friends, playing pool, drinking beer we'd remember the times. It's a recurring, never old, topic of conversation. Pop culture when we were children in the '70s and teens in the '80s.
"I think Van Halen started going too commercial when they did ersatz remakes of Roy Orbison and Motown songs," I told my friend, Adam, during a long night of drinking.
"Wait a minute," he said. "So you think the sell-out happened before "Jump," before 1984?
"Yes, I do. And when Sammy Hagar took over, that sealed the deal. That was the shark jump."
But if I was no longer a fan, I could still respect Eddie Van Halen's musicianship somewhere in between all of Hagar's piss-flavored voice.
For obvious reasons, 2020 has been a year of shit. Hell, I've hardly touched my blog this year. She must feel rejected. Back in January before COVID turned into such a bitch, Neil Peart of Rush died. He was a masterful, intellectual drummer as Eddie Van Halen was a guitarist. I remember the first time I heard "Tom Sawyer." I suspect it might be comparable to that moment when a generation preceding me heard "Purple Haze." Well I was listening to Rox earlier today, playing Van Halen, Rush and Eddie Money, consecutively, for no specific reason other than their being on the play list. But Eddie Money died this year. Or was it last year?
one of these days we'll all be gone
I'll leave you with the song I played for Record Day years ago. Women and Children First. Bought that album for $5.83 at Walmart. The new albums were about $7.99, but this was 1982 or 3 and that album had come out in 1980. It was old.
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