E.V.H.

Everyone will say it now, but I've been saying it for years; Eddie Van Halen was the best guitarist on the planet.  That's right.  It's all about me!  No, but I'm serious about Eddie.  He was never underrated.  You could even say that he was rated fairly, so why do I feel as though he didn't receive the credit he deserved?  Probably because he's dead.  It fucking sucks.  When you're already having a cragged, downright unmusical day, you don't need to read that a rock icon succumbed to cancer.

I may be a metalhead first and foremost, but I grew up hearing Van Halen songs ricocheting above me, those smoking leads levitating like phosphorescent phantoms.  My dad was a big VH fan.  We owned the Live Without a Net home video, which I must have watched 546 times.  I remember being disconsolate when our house was burglarized in 1990.  Aside from the obvious trauma, the dickbag filcher managed to swipe our VCR at a time when it contained the VH tape.  Son of a bitch!  Thankfully, Dad bought it again.  It wasn't on YouTube just yet, y'know.

That's a decidedly random memory, but dude, Eddie's solo during that set?  Mind-boggling.  He made guitars do things they weren't supposed to do.  As for the influence he had on other players of the instrument, forget about it.  Technically, he was sitting at the meridian of melody, but most importantly, he knew how to write a goddamn song.  He understood that each note had its place.  The guitar solo on "Can't Stop Lovin' You" is an excellent example.  It isn't particularly long, but it fits.  Yes, I cited a track on Balance.  I'm not staging a Dave/Sammy debate.  That's for a different document (that I won't write).

I have only exalted Eddie Van Halen's merits as a guitar god.  I didn't know him personally, but as with all celebrity deaths, it's important to treat the departed as people.  This discourse is merely coming from the perspective of a fan.  There are those who will miss him much, much more than I will.  Perhaps it goes without saying?  I mean, it should.  I'm driving off-course.  Let me wrap this up by LINKING TO the aforementioned solo from Live Without a Net.

Rest in peace, Ed.