Track #31 - “Mean Street” by Van Halen (1981)

From the album Fair Warning

Music & lyrics Michael Anthony, David Lee Roth, Alex Van Halen and Edward Van Halen

Performed by:

David Lee Roth – lead vocals

Eddie Van Halen – guitar, backing vocals

Michael Anthony – bass, backing vocals

Alex Van Halen – drums  

At night I walk this stinkin’ street past the crazies on my block

And I see the same old faces and I hear that same old talk

And I’m searching for the latest thing, a break in this routine

I’m talkin’ some new kicks, ones like you ain’t never seen

This is home, this is Mean Street

(This is) yes-ah home, the only one I know

When I started choosing the songs that would be on the 50 At 50, I knew that there would be a Van Halen song. In fact, when the playlist was just song titles scribbled in a notebook, there was a point when I had no less than six Van Halen songs I was considering. Apart from Pearl Jam, of all the rock bands I listened to growing up, Van Halen was, and still is, the only band I instantly liked, from the first time I heard them. I didn’t need convincing, I didn’t ask a million questions about them, and I certainly never had thoughts of “Maybe this band is not for me” like I did with Metallica or the Cure. No…it was clear from the first time I saw the video for “Unchained” on MTV back in 1982 that this music made sense to me, and that Van Halen was not a band that needed over analyzing. They had an acrobatic frontman who didn’t sing well, doing split jumps off the drum riser; a bassist who wore a mechanic’s jumpsuit and bowling shoes, and slapped his instrument and never stopped smiling while he did it; and a drummer who wore a white headband and played behind a wall of drums anchored by four kickdrums. At the conclusion of the song, he smashed a flaming gong behind him, with a giant mallet that was also on fire. But all due respect to those guys, they were but the supporting cast to the guy to the right of the stage; also perpetually smiling, he was shirtless, wearing white pants, red and white striped socks up to his knees, and beat up white sneakers, his long hair bouncing along as he played. And he made sounds with his guitar that seemed impossible; it crunched, and it sang, and it whistled, and the notes literally traveled throughout the song, directionless almost, because while the guy was keeping time, he was also improvising, filling every possible gap in the song, while making sure it all stayed together. Yes, Van Halen as a band was a spectacle onstage, but the man playing the guitar was a show onto himself. Call him what you want: icon, legend, virtuoso, or God, no one has ever played the guitar like Eddie Van Halen. Granted, there have been other amazing guitar legends who have reinvented the way the guitar is played and who have influenced generations of players (including Eddie Van Halen himself), and we can argue over who is better all day. But no one has innovated the guitar and perfected ways of playing more than he did. Eddie Van Halen’s explosive playing is what gave his band its sound and personality, and with the help of his supporting cast, turned every one of his band’s shows into a party. Objectively, it might be tough for some to associate a hard rock band with a party, but Van Halen’s reputation as a “party band” quickly grew when they were first starting out in southern California in the mid-70’s. I’d be hard-pressed to remember a party I was at in high school where early Van Halen was not playing in the background. However by that time, Van Halen was a different band, their acrobatic singer replaced and their sound changing; they continued to sell records, but some fans longed for the old days. And when I knew I had to choose a Van Halen song for this playlist, because I knew there had to be one, in the end I didn’t over analyze it: the best Van Halen song from the best Van Halen album, end of story; the one that made my jaw drop. Then fast forward to October 6, 2020, at the height of the COVID lockdown, and the news comes that morning that Eddie Van Halen had died at the age of 65, and I began to wonder if I really did choose the best Van Halen song. After listening to the Van Halen catalog on repeat that day, and hearing those iconic riffs over and over, I asked myself if I was paying proper respect to the greatest guitar player ever. That day I also threw my hands up in surrender; 2020 had finally got me. The death of one of my idols, Rush drummer Neil Peart in January of that year set the stage (MUCH more on this down the road), then COVID-19, and lockdowns and uncertainty, and now another musical idol from my youth, gone. At least my wife and I were at our favorite place on Earth when I heard the news of Eddie Van Halen’s death. What am I talking about? And was it worth over analyzing the band I loved from day one now?? But I am getting way ahead of myself. This all begins in Indonesia, when multi-instrumentalist Jan Van Halen met his future wife, Eugenia Beers, in the early 1950s.

Jan Van Halen and his wife Eugenia would settle in the Netherlands in the late 1950’s after the birth of their two sons: Alexander in 1953, and Edward in 1955. Jan had a jazz and classical music background and was proficient at piano, clarinet, and saxophone, and he supported the family with odd jobs and local music gigs. The marriage was maligned at the time for being mixed-race; Jan was Dutch and Eugenia was Eurasian, a native of what is now Indonesia. They would eventually relocate to Pasadena, California in 1962. Eddie and Alex, now 7 and 9, gravitated towards music as they struggled to learn English and adjust to a new school. Eddie proved to be proficient at piano despite never learning how to read music. He would tell Rolling Stone many years later that he would just watch his teacher’s fingers, and then play the piece. Jan and Eugenia hoped their boys would study classical music, but influenced by the Beatles and the Dave Clark Five, the brothers began to play rock music. Alex bought a guitar, and Eddie acquired a drum kit; eventually they would switch instruments, and Eddie would spend hours walking around the house with the guitar strapped on, practicing the instrument all day. After forming various bands in the late 1960’s, Eddie and Alex formed Mammoth in 1972, with Eddie on vocals and guitar, and friend Mark Stone on bass. (Note: they originally called themselves Genesis, but soon realized that name was already in use by Peter Gabriel and a familiar band from the UK). They rented a sound system for $10 per night for their gigs from Pasadena native David Lee Roth, who was fronting an R&B band at the time. Roth was impressed with the Van Halen brothers, and after much prodding and convincing, they finally hired Roth as their singer in 1973. Born in 1954 in Bloomington, Indiana, Roth was a hyperactive child, with interests in martial arts, gymnastics, and dance, as well as music. He was confident and bombastic to a fault, but he had the swagger needed to front the band, as well as be a counterpoint to Eddie’s fireworks on guitar. Roth sang just good enough, but it was his dynamic stage presence and endless energy that would make Van Halen a live spectacle and help give the band its identity. It was also during this time that the band officially changed its name, at Roth’s suggestion, to Van Halen. They began to build a following in Southern California, playing backyard parties, festivals, and clubs, handling all their own promotion. In 1974, Mark Stone was replaced on bass with Michael Anthony, a friend of Eddie’s. Anthony was a solid bassist, letting Roth and Eddie Van Halen do their thing on stage, while providing the vocal harmonies that would become a trademark of the band’s sound. Van Halen began to play the club circuit on the Sunset Strip, and they quickly became one of the most popular bands in Los Angeles, and Eddie began to get noticed for his revolutionary guitar wizardry. Gene Simmons of KISS would see Van Halen perform in 1977, and he decided to finance the band’s first demo, going so far as to draw up a contract so they could be managed by KISS’ management. However, depending on whose story you believe, Simmons would end up walking away. Either Paul Stanley of KISS would not agree to have their management also manage Van Halen (to protect KISS), or they simply felt Van Halen would never make it. But it wouldn’t matter because shortly after, at Simmons’ recommendation, Mo Ostin and Ted Templeman of Warner Brothers Records would sign the band and produce their debut album. Released in February 1978, the 35-minute Van Halen (sometimes called Van Halen I by fans), was recorded mostly live, and although received negatively at first by critics, it's now considered one of the greatest debut albums of all time. It was also the first time the rest of the world heard Eddie’s “finger tapping” technique on the instrumental song, “Eruption”. The album has sold 10 million copies in the US and peaked at number 19 on the Billboard Album chart when it was released. It is without a doubt one of the most electrifying and rawest albums you will ever hear. Over the course of the next four years, Van Halen’s fan base would continue to grow as they toured the world relentlessly, and they continued to release albums, almost one per year. And Eddie’s legend and stature also grew with each release, as his riffs became more complex, his solos became more explosive, and he began to influence generations of new guitarists. But creative tensions within Van Halen were also festering. Eddie wanted to write darker material and incorporate keyboards, while singer Roth was more in favor of pop covers and a focus on showmanship. The result of that tension was 1981’s Fair Warning, by far Van Halen’s grittiest record, featuring some of their bleakest lyrics and best songwriting. It would set the stage for the next two years, and the in-fighting that followed: Roth would get his way on the cover-laden Diver Down, and keyboards would feature heavily on 1984. Roth would quit after the 1984 tour, causing Van Halen to recruit singer Sammy Hagar, and sending the band in a completely different direction. But all that would come after a certain 12-year-old saw the video for “Unchained”, and the magic that was Van Halen, and through meeting the right kid in 7th grade art class and the Columbia House Record & Tape Club, would find the Fair Warning album and the greatest Van Halen song ever.

It’s never occurred to me how impactful my first year of junior high was until I began thinking about that time and writing about it, but here we are, about to re-visit the fall of 1982 once again. And PS, it won’t be the last time either; guess I should have kept a journal back then, it would have made recalling these memories much easier. But for now, we’re going back to 7th grade Art class, one of the 10-week “quad” classes I had to take in junior high school. Everyone was required to take Industrial Arts (Shop), Art, Home Economics, and Music, each for ten weeks. I had made it through Shop unscathed, constructing a wooden desk organizer, complete with pencil holder, which ended up sitting on my dresser for almost ten years. How they let twelve-year-olds use a drill press and power saw back then is something I will never understand, but like I said, I escaped with all my fingers and was proud of my finished project. So, Art was next, ten weeks of paints and other media which would no doubt expose my greatest weakness: I cannot draw, like, at all. Sure, I can sketch a house, or a fish, or a very rudimentary bird or car, but in general I am just bad at rendering anything on paper that requires even lines and curves. And forget perspective and shading to make it look more real; I think I colored outside the lines until I was eleven. This would be a challenge, but I was up for it, and Art was one of those classes in school where there was usually one kid who was great and everybody else was extremely average, so I’d probably fit in just fine. I recognized a few faces that first day from my Shop class, but there was one kid I had not met; either that or he was new or transferred into our quad group. His name was Stu, and he seemed to know everyone, so as the first week progressed, I started talking to him, something I didn’t normally do just out of the blue. Stu was short and smaller than the rest of the boys in seventh grade, and he wore a different black rock t-shirt every day, jeans and white leather Pumas. He seemed friendly enough and smiled and laughed a lot, and once we started talking, I realized he knew a lot about music. By now I was into Def Leppard, and AC/DC, and had heard Judas Priest, and I was listening much less to Hall & Oates and a lot of the pop music I was into in sixth grade. I had also just seen the video for Van Halen’s “Unchained”, and another song from the same album, “So This Is Love”, another live performance video from what looked like the same concert, and their controversial video for their cover of Roy Orbison’s “Pretty Woman”; that video would eventually be banned from MTV for its racy and offensive content. Stu loved Van Halen, it turned out. We talked about David Lee Roth’s stage leaping, and Eddie Van Halen’s finger tapping, and just how cool they were. And we talked about that kooky “Pretty Woman” video, and how weird it was, and how we really didn’t understand it. Stu mentioned that he had the Diver Down album that contained “Pretty Woman”, and he asked if I wanted to borrow it. I couldn’t believe he offered up one of the albums from his collection to someone he had just met, but of course I took him up on the offer, and the following Monday he brought in his copy of Diver Down. I told him I would have it back to him by the end of the week; I was nervous to be responsible for what I knew was a relatively new album that belonged to someone else, and I didn’t want to have it longer than necessary. But how could I refuse? I was curious after all, so that Monday after school, I went straight to my stereo with the intention of listening from beginning to end. When I removed the inner sleeve from the cover, the first thing I noticed, right at the bottom of the full band photo, was the owner’s name scrawled in pen: “Stu F.” Wow, this kid really valued his record collection; I would need to be extra careful. Holding the album by the edges, I placed it on my turntable, and let the automatic arm and needle do the rest.  The first song, a cover of the Kinks’ “Where Have All the Good Times Gone!”, would end up becoming one of my favorite Van Halen songs ever; the rest of the album was pretty good, but I would later learn that most of the songs on it were in fact, cover songs. So, that first exposure to a full Van Halen album was not really the best introduction, but I liked it enough, and appreciated Stu lending it to me. I ended up getting in a few more listens before I returned the album to Stu that Friday. I almost wanted him to take it out of the sleeve and inspect it so that he knew I took extra care of his Diver Down album, but we talked about the music instead. I told him I thought it was pretty good, but I wanted “Unchained”, and more songs like that. “You gotta get Fair Warning! That’s their best album, besides their first one. I can lend it to you!” Man, who was this kid, just lending out albums?? Dude, keep ‘em in your house where they’re safe! “Thanks, but I think I’m gonna get my own copy! Maybe I can get the tape with my allowance this weekend.” Stu seemed good with that, and my attention turned to getting my hands on Fair Warning, and maybe the first Van Halen album too, while I was at it.

Most people born after Generation X do not recall what it was like to have an actual newspaper delivered to your house. When I was growing up, and well into young adulthood, the Long Island newspaper, Newsday, was dutifully delivered every day, and on Sundays we got New York’s Daily News as well. My grandfather, who lived with my grandmother in their own apartment in our house back then would read the papers first, then leave them on the stair landing for our family to read. I loved the Sunday papers, with all its different sections; the magazine, sports, entertainment, and of course, the comics. That’s where I went first until I got to high school and immediately devoured the sports section before anything else. But in 7th grade, I was still all about Peanuts, Blondie, and Garfield. The comics were often wrapped around the ads, which I would sometimes leaf through, mostly half-interested. But what always caught my eye were the inserts for the Columbia House Record & Tape Club. It was usually full-page, with a tear-away postcard at the bottom that you could send away to get 12 records or tapes (and later CD’s) for a penny. That’s right folks, 12 for a penny. There was even a little circle on the postcard to tape your penny onto. Seems too good to be true, right? There must be a catch, I can hear you saying. Well, yes, there IS a catch; it’s a “club” after all, and once you joined, there was only one way out. Yes, they will send you 12 tapes for one penny, but then you usually had to buy six more over the course of two or three years, at full price, which was about 17 bucks, plus shipping. It was a great way to build your collection quickly, but then you had to fulfill the club requirements, or they would send you a big bill at the end of the two or three years. So, you have to picture twelve-year-old me, looking at these inserts like it was Christmas, and salivating over all the musical choices, making selections and then fantasizing about the box of twelve cassettes showing up on my doorstep. I did get an allowance so I could conceivably pay for the required six additional cassettes over two years; I would just need my parents to write the check. And I’m pretty sure I had a penny lying around. There were some titles listed on this insert on this particular Sunday that I wanted, including Van Halen’s first album, and the one I really wanted, Fair Warning. I was doing this; I had to do this. So, I went to my parents with the insert that Sunday and told them I wanted to join the club. The response was something like, “Johnny, those clubs are a scam. They rope you in with the penny, then you have to keep buying from them!” I begged, I pleaded, and promised to pay for whatever I had to pay for with my allowance and do extra chores if I had to. My father promised that if I didn’t pay, that he would garnish whatever money I made until I moved out, and beyond. Well, he probably didn’t say exactly that, but you get the idea. I carefully filled out the postcard, making the two Van Halen tapes my first two selections. I even added Diver Down; why not? I still had nine more I could pick! I couldn’t tell you now what else I ordered back then, but that was seriously one of the best days of my young life. I taped the penny to the postcard, and I dropped the card in our mailbox the next day. Now all I had to do was wait for the box of cassettes to arrive, which probably only took a few weeks, but seemed like months to me back then. When it finally did come to the house, I tore it open and almost couldn’t believe there were twelve cassettes in the box, and they were all mine. There was even a letter in there: “Dear John, welcome to the Columbia House Record & Tape Club!” I sorted through the cassettes; all the titles I ordered were there, but I knew which one I would listen to first. I ripped the cellophane off the Fair Warning tape and put it in the Sony Walkman I had received for my birthday that summer. “Unchained” and “So This is Love” were on side two; should I rewind to side two and listen to the songs I knew? I decided that would waste precious battery life, so I pressed play on side one, and I was greeted with the fade in tapping of random notes being played on the neck of a guitar; random in the sense that it reminded me of rain falling on a roof, but I’m sure Eddie Van Halen had planned out every single note he was tapping out on that guitar. Then the tapping faded into a whine, then there was pause, and then the opening riff, somewhat slower than “Unchained”, but just as big, and it sounded like an announcement of the song, of the whole album in fact. Then the opening drum fill and bass filled the headphones, then David Lee Roth begins: “At night I watch this stinkin’ street, past the crazies on my block, And I see the same old faces and I hear that same old talk…” I sat there on my bed, my head thumping, and Eddie’s guitar in my left ear, then the breakdown and the blistering solo, and finally things quiet down; “…and somebody said fair warning, lord strike that poor boy down…” Eddie plays the outro like it’s another solo, and the song finally fades out…wow. And this is just the first track? I decided at that moment, that this is what rock and roll is supposed to sound like. “Mean Street” was a perfect song, and the rest of Fair Warning is about as perfect as an album gets. And hearing the studio versions of “Unchained” and “So This is Love” was just a bonus. I would eventually progress to their debut, Van Halen, and for several months I rotated both albums, practically wearing out the cassettes. All those iconic songs were on that first album: “Eruption”, “Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Love”, “Runnin’ with the Devil”, and another Kinks cover, “You Really Got Me”. But “Mean Street” was a revelation, and it still is to me. There wouldn’t be another Van Halen album until January 1984, when the world went crazy for 1984, and the synth-driven #1 hit “Jump”. Things changed for Van Halen after that; fans became divided when they got themselves a new singer, but they still sold records and concert tickets, and Eddie was still a guitar god. But some of the excitement was gone; the “party” was different somehow. Of course, I still bought the records, mostly out of curiosity, but also because I just didn’t want to stop being a fan. And when Eddie Van Halen died in October of 2020, I listened to those first six Van Halen albums on repeat that day and thought about replacing “Mean Street” with another Van Halen song on my playlist. Why was I overanalyzing Van Halen so late in the game? Maybe it was all that fresh air after being cooped up in Covid lockdown that was scrambling my judgement.

In July of 2020, my wife came to me with an idea. It had been four months since we’d done anything besides go hiking in upstate Connecticut and New York; no restaurants, no bars, no gatherings with family or friends, and our planned trip to the Grand Canyon that year was obviously cancelled. We were both ready to get out of the house, and if we could, maybe risk a vacation of sorts if we could find the right accommodations. So, that summer day, Christine let me know that she found an Airbnb in Southwest Harbor in Maine, just a few miles from Acadia National Park. We had been to Acadia several times over the years and proclaimed it “our favorite place on Earth.” The mountains in Acadia might not be as high as the ones in Yellowstone or Yosemite, but their proximity to the Atlantic Ocean and to the beaches make for spectacular views and rewarding hiking. The plan would be to go for three weeks in late September and early October, take the first week off and then work remotely for the remaining two, but we’d have the weekends to take advantage of the park and the adjoining town of Bar Harbor. It sounded amazing. I didn’t even have to think about it. “Just book it,” I told her. “Do you even want to see it? The house?” was the reply. “Send me the link, sure, but if it’s available just reserve it before someone else does.” So that was that; aggressive for sure, but it sounded too good to be true, and all I could think of was three weeks in Maine, up the block from Acadia National Park, and a change of scenery. In late September, we loaded the Tahoe with groceries and our biggest suitcases, and headed north. After making a stop in Freeport and LL Bean to grab some new gear, we finally made it to what would be our home for the next three weeks. And the house was charming. It was just old enough to have creaky stairs and floors but updated enough to be comfortable. There was even fast wi-fi and a brand-new grill on the back porch. It was perfect.  It was also literally right up the street from a dock where there was a spectacular view of the sunrise every morning. This would be the best three weeks of 2020, for sure. That first week we were there it only rained once; the weather was literally perfect, and the leaves were nearing peak. We both felt our sanity returning after being trapped in the house for most of the year. We even ate at restaurants in Bar Harbor and sat in pubs and drank Allagash beer from pint glasses. After that first week, the weather turned; a lot of grey days, and one stretch where it was rainy and foggy for three days straight and we could barely see the boats docked up the street, let alone a sunrise. By our third week, our last at the house, we were feeling down about leaving, and just hoping for better weather for our final weekend. October 6th was one of those grey soggy days. I carried my coffee over to where my laptop was and prepared to log on for the day when I received the news push on my phone; Eddie Van Halen had died that morning. I had to read it twice. I had heard he was battling cancer on and off but didn’t realize he had not played live since 2015, on Van Halen’s final tour. I caught myself staring at my phone in disbelief, and then I stared at the ceiling for a minute. Was I going to cry over this? I got myself together and just shook my head, trying to grasp that another one of my musical idols was gone. The past five years or so had been rough: George Michael, Prince, Aretha Franklin, David Bowie, Tom Petty, Dolores O’Riordan, and Rush drummer Neil Peart earlier in 2020, all gone. As I got older, all the rock stars I grew up with got older, so it was inevitable I suppose. I launched iTunes and put the first six Van Halen albums on shuffle all day, and just listened to all those amazing riffs, all that finger tapping and all that early Van Halen swagger and sass, and I listened to the party. And all day, I kept asking myself what about this song or that song, overanalyzing whether “Mean Street” was the most important Van Halen song to me. But in the end, that day almost 40 years after I first heard it, “Mean Street” still made my jaw drop like it did back in my room when I was in 7th grade. The best Van Halen song, from the best Van Halen album. So, of course, I left it alone. As the tributes poured in, I read what other musicians Slash, Tom Morello, Flea, and his former bandmates David Lee Roth and Sammy Hagar wrote about him. Even the guys who discovered them, Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley of KISS, wrote about seeing Eddie and the band for the first time. And it dawned on me that all these musicians were getting older and what that meant; and I pushed the thought from my mind because I didn’t want to picture a world without all these musicians in it.

Much like “Master of Puppets”, there is no official video for “Mean Street”. It’s actually considered a deep cut, if you can believe it. Here is the best version of the song I could find; it’s Van Halen recorded live in Brazil. It’s not the best version, but it’s better than some of the “live” lip-sync versions that are out there. But I encourage you to just listen to the album version because it will blow your mind. 😊

Thank you again for being here and checking things out! Sign up for email updates to get weekly posts delivered to your inbox and if you’re enjoying the posts, please feel free to share the link with your friends!

Next time…before they imploded, everyone thought they would be the next Rolling Stones. Their debut is one of the greatest albums ever, but their most quiet song makes the playlist.

P.S.

Sammy Hagar was hired to replace David Lee Roth in 1985, and Van Halen released their first album with Hagar, 5150, in the spring of 1986. Your host bought the album the week it came out while on spring break in 10th grade. I knew it would sound different, but I was not prepared for how different. The keyboards were prominent, the drums sounded electronic, and Eddie’s guitar sounded richer somehow, and it was more musical and less raw than earlier Van Halen records. Hagar could play guitar well, was a better singer and could sing in a completely different key than Roth, so that allowed Eddie to go in a different direction with his playing, so of course, they were going to sound different. Were they a better band? I’m still not sure, but if I had to pick eras, I would choose the David Lee Roth era every time. To me, that’s Van Halen, and always will be. That’s not a knock on Sammy Hagar, who seems like one of the coolest people alive, and who I would agree is more talented than David Lee Roth, but it’s just not the same. Van Halen would release four studio albums with Hagar; all were #1 Billboard albums, something they never accomplished with Roth as their singer, and they scored nine #1 mainstream rock hit singles as well. However, in terms of album sales, the Roth era outsells the Hagar era, 36 million to 16 million. Hagar was fired (or he quit) in 1996; after that, things get a bit messy. Van Halen Best Of, Vol 1 was released in October of 1996, and contained two new songs with David Lee Roth. The band was planning on recording with Roth, but the old tensions between singer and guitarist arose again, and the project was scrapped; the band hired Extreme singer Gary Cherone and they recorded Van Halen III in 1998. I have never heard that album and I will probably never listen to it, and most fans consider it a blip. In 2004, The Best of Both Worlds double album was released containing hits from both the Roth and Hagar eras and three new songs with Hagar, who had reunited with them for a tour. Eddie, who had struggled with alcoholism most of his life, relapsed during this time, and the band finished the tour under strain, and plans for an album fell apart. In 2007, Roth once again reunited with Van Halen; Michael Anthony was replaced on bass by Eddie’s son, Wolfgang. In 2012, they released A Different Kind of Truth, the first album to feature Roth on vocals since 1984, and the last Van Halen studio album they would ever record. After Eddie’s death in 2020, Wolfgang appeared on Howard Stern, and said the band “doesn’t exist anymore.”

It would seem that each player in the Van Halen story has his own version, so if you’re curious, you should check out the following books: Red: My Uncensored Life in Rock by Sammy Hagar; Unchained: The Eddie Van Halen Story by Paul Brannigan; and Crazy From the Heat by David Lee Roth.

Eddie Van Halen repeatedly said during his life that he did not invent the finger-tapping technique of playing guitar, but rather perfected it and made it his signature style. To be sure, many jazz, classical and rock guitarists have employed the technique, and Eddie drew inspiration from some of them, most notably, guitar legend Jimmy Page. Eddie saw Led Zeppelin playing live and realized Page was still squeezing notes from the guitar using just the fret hand, and it made him experiment with the harmonics of just the fretboard, and not strumming. He also mentions how when he and Alex were first starting out that he could not afford effects pedals, so he used his fingers to fill in as much musical space as he could. The guitar sounds made on songs like “Mean Street” and “Eruption” had never been heard in that way before, so Eddie Van Halen revolutionized the technique, and brought it to everyone’s attention. Like I said earlier, we can argue all day about who the best guitar player was, or is; at the end of the day, if you listen to enough rock music, you can hear the greats influencing each other. Here’s a great clip of Eddie Van Halen explaining how he discovered and perfected the finger tapping technique.

I would be lying to you if I said I didn’t like any of the music from Van Halen’s Sammy Hagar era; in fact, there are certain songs, and one album I like very much (For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge). And that version of Van Halen the only one I’ve seen perform live, in 1993 at Jones Beach Theatre. It’s a great setlist, and from what I remember, it was worth the two plus hours I stood in line for tickets. Yes, that’s how we did it back then, kids. I passed up the chance to see the reunions with David Lee Roth because I figured a lot of that early 80s energy wouldn’t be there, so I have no regrets. For what it’s worth here are my five favorite Hagar-era songs; I recommend giving them a listen:

1.      “Poundcake”

2.      “Black and Blue”

3.       “Right Now”

4.       “Don’t Tell Me”

5.       “Finish What Ya Started”

Finally, here is a playlist of my top 20 Van Halen songs, all from the Roth era. I challenged myself to stay at 20, but if a song has an intro, I didn’t count it as a track per se, so I guess I cheated. They are in album release order, with the exception of “Mean Street” which kicks it off. The best thing about Van Halen is that probably no two fans have the same top songs. My friend Kevin, who I’ve known since 8th grade was a huge Van Halen back then, and we would talk about 1984 all the time. He says “depending on the day” his favorite is either Fair Warning or Van Halen I. And my buddy Adam, another music fanatic, sent me a playlist heavy on Van Halen II recently. In fact, we were texting around the time of Eddie Van Halen’s death and he urged me to give the album another listen…which I did, hence three songs from that one. Did I miss any of your VH favorites? Let me know in the Comments!

Oh yeah, and Happy 2024!

See you next time…

JS

1/18/2024