Tag: Angry Metalhead

Redemption!…Sort Of…: Jerry Cantrell Live at the Wellmont Theater, Montclair, NJ 3/11/23

Posted on by Mike

It’s rare for me to able to see a show in my neck of the woods anymore, even though I live significantly closer to this venue than The Borgata in Atlantic City, which is where I last saw Jerry play. I haven’t been to too many shows lately; but outside of my last time seeing Black Label, most of the shows I’ve been to required me to travel. And keep in mind again, I didn’t attend too many shows between 2019 and now. I also am hesitant about seeing musicians twice on the same tour because I’ve heard stories regarding their inability to change things up. Zakk had that ability, hands down. I saw him live three times in 2005 and each time was DRASTICALLY different!

By the way, we’ll be getting around to him again real soon.

But nevertheless, I just to give this a go. It’s Jerry after all, and this was the final leg of the Brighten tour. My understanding is Alice are to reconvene soon so they can record their follow up to 2018’s Rainier Fog. This time they had a different opening band, an all-female group calling themselves Thuderpussy, not to be confused with Alabama Thunderpussy.

Thunderpussy began their set with guitarist Molly Sides playing a guitar propped up on a stand with a violin bow. I was a tad taken aback by that, as that was EXACTLY how Tyler Bates opened up Jerry’s set and encore in Atlantic City when I saw him previously. So, was this to mean Tyler wouldn’t be doing that tonight or even on this leg of the tour at all? Stay tuned to find out, girls!

The rest of the band walked on stage, and they began to play, their music reminding me of a modern-day Heart if Ann Wilson circa-1976 transcended time somehow. There were undeniable traces of Led Zep and Allman Brothers in their music peppered throughout. As if the violin bow on the guitar didn’t immediately give that away! Whitney Petty can sing her ass off. And she knows how to physically express herself on stage in a way that’s equal parts provocative and elegant.

There was one point that I do have on film, in which Whiteny is on her knees. Molly walks to Whitney and begins to lean over Whitney, Whiteny leaning back for her like they were going to kiss. HOT. Even hotter? Finding out later on that they are in fact a couple, and that the band are ALL lesbians. And I’m not even talking about the K.D. Lang/Indigo Girls style of butch dyke. I’m talking the hot lesbian type – the type I almost forgot existed!

So, between Thunderpussy’s kick ass live show – because their album, while not bad at all, sadly is a gross misrepresentation of the band! – and their physical performance, I’m convinced I want to fuck every member of Thunderpussy. Hard. I’ll fuck one while the three other members scissor each other while waiting their turns! I’ll make it work!

Did I ever mention I love lesbians?

Now for Jerry’s set!

Tyler Bates did in fact open up with the violin bow on the guitar. I guess there’s a theme here. I knew by the fact that he was bowing in the key of F that Jerry was going to open up with “Atone” and I was pretty much right. Before I continue, here’s the set list. All songs are solo songs unless noted otherwise:

Atone

Psychotic Break

Them Bones (Alice In Chains)

Siren Song

Cut You In

My Song

Check My Brain (Alice In Chains)

Black Hearts and Evil Done

Between

Angel Eyes

No Excuses (Alice In Chains)

Lesson Learned (Alice In Chains)

Man In The Box (Alice In Chains)

Would?

Encore

Whale And Wasp (Alice In Chains)

Brighten

Down In A Hole (Alice In Chains)

Rooster (Alice In Chains)

Goodbye (Elton John)

Notice a difference compared to last show, if you read about my last time seeing Jerry? More on that in a minute. The three-song opener was somewhat similar to the previous show, with “Psychotic Break” and “Them Bones” appearing early. One thing I noticed right away was his organ player. This time around, he took Lola Colette, his opener from last year with him as part of the band this time. Lola’s presence was made apparent almost immediately, not “just” because I was sitting in the middle of the building this time, but because Jerry had her playing organ on “Them Bones”. So, this wasn’t a situation where she was going to step back during the Alice tracks, Jerry made sure she’d be part of the show. And I have to say, while I understand Jerry wanted to do something different, organs and Alice In Chains songs go as well together as rock and rap ever did.

But this is a minor complaint.

The good news was that I was able to hear the entire band this time. The bad news is that I was able to hear Greg Puciato this time. I said it. Fuck, what was Jerry thinking to take Gil Sharone’s advice?? Greg was so pitchy, and so fucking WHINY! Greg, please, stick to sacrificing your body jumping off balconies. But the important part of this show was that this time around Jerry played a LOT more solo material than he did last year. Unfortunately, this doesn’t mean he did a deep dive of his previous two albums. He in fact performed the exact same tracks for those two records that he performed last time. But when I heard “Siren Song”, which I’ve dubbed “Breaks My Back Pt.2”, I was pleasantly optimistic. I also thought it would’ve been one hell of an opportune time to break out “Breaks My Back”! He did preform about 90% of Brighten, however. That alone was a major step up because any time Jerry plays solo is a rare privilege. I might be wrong, but I feel like he toured for this album longer than he did for Degradation Trip back in 2002.

The energy in the place also was MILES ahead of the crowd at the Borgata. I didn’t need to be told it would be, as Montclair, being in northern New Jersey, is essentially in the shadow of New York Shitty. Therefore, there was definitely a mixed, yet equally rowdy crowd. I even bumped into someone I hadn’t seen in almost a decade, while walking to the back of the line. Jerry himself even commented that we were “the best crowd on the tour so far!”.

That energy was made apparent when, for the start of the encore, Jerry had broken into “Whale and Wasp”, the gorgeously depressing instrumental off of Alice’s 1994 EP, Jar of Flies. No one could’ve expected that. I know he performed it in 2019 in Seattle, before he even announced he was even writing a solo record, but that was a completely different situation. So this was a treat! When he broke out “Down In A Hole”, one of Alice’s greatest songs of ALL TIME, the entire crowd, minus a few, joined in one big singalong. The only thing that damaged the moment was Greg’s WHINY bitch vocals. I will never forgive Greg Puciato for that or for even having any kind of a career.

Upon leaving after Jerry’s final performance of the classic Elton John track “Goodbye”, I walked out of there feeling like he might’ve actually listened. The biggest complaint of the tour’s previous leg was addressed – he played more solo shit this time instead of turning his band into an Alice cover band! Fuck yes! I just wish he performed more material from the previous solo records. They could’ve proven to be an interesting challenge for the rest of the band, and even for Jerry. We’re talking tracks that, before 2019, he hadn’t performed for the better part of two decades!

So, with Jerry poised to record with Alice again, the question remains: will he ever record or even perform solo material again? I guess only time will tell…

There Is Only One Batman

Posted on by Mike

This is one of those passings that many of us, not just me, could say did not see coming. I’d received a text on Friday, November 11th from my ex, simply reading “Kevin Conroy”. I asked why she brought him up and you don’t want to know my reaction to her response. Celebrity deaths mean shit to me. But this was not the usual celebrity death.

Kevin Conroy wasn’t an ordinary celebrity with longevity. No one voice actor in history since Casey Kasem as Shaggy in the Scooby Doo cartoons has EVER had the distinction of being a generational representation of a nationally recognized character the way Kevin was in regard to his affiliation with Batman, and the way he should sound. It’s rare for anyone to have that uniqueness, that natural ability, but Kevin was IT, in the same way that Mark Hamill, who before 1992 was just known as Luke Skywalker from those gay ass Star Wars movies, would be considered to be the single greatest Joker of ALL TIME.

It was 1992 when, on the heels of the release of Batman Returns, FOX premiered Batman: The Animated Series. It was infinitely darker in tone, making this supposed kid’s show appear to have more in common with Batman Returns than the campy Adam West show I just watched two years earlier, or even the old Batman cartoon from the late 60’s featuring Olan Soule as Batman and Casey Kasem as Robin. The show premiered on a Saturday. The episode was titled The Cat and The Claw, Pt. 1. Click here and skip to the 1:51 mark to see and hear for yourself why you’d be absolutely deaf if you didn’t shit yourself the moment you heard Kevin Conroy say “So… our new cat burglar’s a woman.”

With that one simplistic line, it was made clear that this Batman would be far more serious than what my eight-year-old self was accustomed to. It was darker, it was huskier, as Kevin himself said several times, and it was drenched in all things intimidating. The strangest part is that, even in 1992, I just knew that I was going to read every Batman related comic I’d go on to buy in Kevin’s voice. I also expected to hear his voice in any other Batman cartoon that would be released after Batman: The Animated Series. I don’t need to be told that I wasn’t that only one, and we were all right.

Over the next three decades, we’d be fortunate enough to hear Kevin resume his role as Batman in several incarnations of Batman: The Animated Series, including two absolutely stellar Justice League based shows, multiple straight to DVD releases, and subsequently, the CLASSIC Arkham video game trilogy. Neither of those three games, Batman: Arkham City in particular, would be the same without Kevin’s dark, brooding Batman. Only Kevin could properly articulate the process of Batman slowly losing his mind within three increasingly intense stories.

Anyone else could have tried to put their own spin on it. At this point Kevin’s voice was considered THE gold standard in which all other Batman voices were supposed to amount to. But it’s never the same and, for the purpose of this trilogy, authenticity WOULD have been examined and NO ONE could NATURALLY make Batman feel authentic the way Kevin Conroy could. This is something that’s been going in and out of my fucking brain as I’ve been watching playthroughs of all three Arkham games ever since the news of his passing was released.

But that’s why there will always be one Batman. That’s no one’s fault. Of anyone who’s portrayed him in live action movies and those who portrayed him in animated films, there’s only one man who had this natural ability draw from the memories of his rather shitty childhood, which I will not discuss here, and combine that with his Julliard training to relate to the tortured soul that is Batman. It’s Kevin after all, who came up with the idea the Bruce Wayne is the disguise and Batman is the real person, not the other way around. I caught that immediately in ’92 when I’d see a scene in which Bruce would talk to his colleagues in a rather high voice, but when he was alone again with Alfred, that voice would just DROP a whole two octaves because he no longer had to pretend.

It’s the total opposite of Clark Kent and Superman, or any other Superhero. It’s probably an accurate representation, as well, of how most people feel on a day-to-day basis. That’s why it worked. Some will say Michael Keaton started it in his first Batman movie. But what he was doing was mixing a standard talking voice as Bruce Wayne with a whisper when he was Batman, probably to conceal his true voice so no one could ever identify him. But it’s not the same as Kevin’s groundbreaking approach. Kevin’s approach evoked far more emotion regardless of the tone of any episode of any show or movie he appeared in over thirty years.

I’m going to end this by thanking Kevin. This isn’t just another piece of my childhood being taken away from me; this man defined a major portion of my fucking life as a whole. That’s not an everyday occurrence.

Municipal Waste – Electrified Brain

Posted on by Mike

So, I’m guessing that, minus the band’s 2019 EP, The Last Rager, Municipal Waste have come to the conclusion that the best way to continue to make quality music for the long term is to release new albums every five years. It’s been five years since the release of their second masterpiece, 2017’s Slime And Punishment, and before that it’d been five years since the release of 2012’s Nuclear Blast debut, The Fatal Feast. And with each release there’s some sort of subtle shift in the band’s sound.

The Fatal Feast sounded to me like a traditional Crossover record, which is probably why I wasn’t a fan of it. I’d actually kind of written the band off with that one. Slime… came off as a major breath of fresh air. The songs were short, fast, intense and even introduced a new member – along with guitar solos – for a different dimension. That brings us to Electrified Brain. I just read that, according to guitarist Ryan Waste, his goal this time around was to write a dynamics-based record. I wasn’t sure what he meant by that because you CAN have MORE than enough dynamics in any song regardless of style, length, etc. But now I get it. However, I found Electrified Brain to be more of an album of musical diversity than anything else.

If Electrified Brain really is produced by the band, then they sure did a hell of a job making the record sound unusually slick. I’m talking the head room and reverb found on 95% of everything you’ve ever heard in the 80’s. You hear it in the punch of Dave Witte’s drums right away on the opening title track which comes out the gate like a rampaging fucking bull! It’s fast and HOT until the two-minute mark, where it turns into a traditional Metal headbanger that rides on for the next 45 seconds until the song’s end. It’s immediately followed by the Maiden-like harmonies of “Demoralizer”. It’s a great mid-tempo track that quickly segues into faster territory with a blazing, Mustaine-like solo by Nick Poulos.

Everything sounds….so much bigger. I don’t mean in the same way that everything sounder bigger on the previous album. The guitars AND Tony Forresta’s voice sound like they can truly BREATHE. I’m wondering if that has to do with the way the amps were miked this time around. When Jimmy Page recorded the guitar tracks for Zeppelin’s first album, he remembered that distance equals depth. That’s why he placed the mics relatively far away from the combo amp he used to make the record and wouldn’t you know it, a small sounding amp suddenly sounded far more monolithic in tone. Could that be the approach here?

“Last Crawl” and Grave Dive” seem to fall into a similar formula, the former being faster paced than the latter. And there’s nothing wrong with this because each song has its own character. I’m grateful that a lot of Tony’s lyrics have not changed that much since Waste ‘Em All. “Grave Dive” alone is purely about the allegiance of the band’s longtime fans as he screams “We dig up our fan base/The real ones that count/We’ll bring up their corpses/And toss them all out”. “The Bite” has a little more of my favorite lyrics, as Tony screams “A symphony/Of blended heads/Forced gore/Rotting legs/Skull shards/Springing forth/Bludgeoned with/A spinal chord”.

That song, along with “High Speed Steel” sounds a lot like songs Metallica could’ve written had they recorded Ride the Lighting today. They’re a lot more Thrash in that vein along with some harmonies blended in with the chord changes, something I’d never hear in a Municipal Waste song. Then something happens not to long before this track ends; it transitions from being a Thrash song into sounding a lot like the best Mercyful Fate song they never wrote for Don’t Break the Oath. The gang “whoa” vocals could EASILY be replaced by King Diamond doing the same thing, and Nick’s short solo spot is something Michael Denner probably would’ve played himself! That diversity I spoke about? Here it is.

“Thermonuclear Protection” kicks the album back into a much-needed high gear with its immediate breakneck speed. The more I hear Electrified Brain, the more I wonder how much of an influence Nick Poulos was this time around, especially since he’s been in the band for a while now. Is HE a bigger traditional Metal fan than the others in the band? I fucking LOVE “Blood Vessel-Boat Jail”. It’s a no bullshit, mid-tempo instrumental palm muter until the second half kicks in. It seamlessly transitions between a normal tempo and Dave ripping out blast beats. I fucking shat myself because I had a feeling I wasn’t going to hear that again. Sadly, I was right. The rest of the song had me envisioning the time an old friend of mine jumped off the faux balcony of this loft the band played at in Brooklyn in 2006, forcing Tony to warn people to not jump off it because you can die. This actually happened.

I swear that “Restless and Wicked” is a King Diamond tribute. The first half of the song sounds like a less technical “Welcome Home” from Them before transitioning to break down that comes off as a slightly faster “Curse of The Pharaohs”, the overplayed, yet classic track off Melissa, Mercyful Fate’s debut album. “Ten Cent Beer Night” was NEEDED. It’s CLASSIC Municipal Waste, from its bar fight lyrics to the non-stop speed. No breakdowns into tradition Metal territory here. Minus a few slight nuances, it’s the ‘Waste we all loved in the mid 2000’s. “Putting On Errors”, the penultimate track on Electrified Brain is the most BRUTAL track on the album. Hear that fucking furnace of a voice making Tony sound like a chihuahua? That’s Barney Greenway of Napalm Death. This was more a of a grinder at the end, and Tony couldn’t EVER do that last part justice. Ever.

So how do I feel about Electrified Brain?

After a few listens, both caffeinated while heading to and from the gym and with no caffeine in my system, I’m impressed. I can easily see why one reviewer felt that most tracks blended into each other, as they do follow a similar pattern. But, as I said, I do feel the songs all have their own character. I’m convinced that Nick is the catalyst for the increase in the 80’s Metal influences outside of the Thrash subgenre. I found it to be a treat to hear Municipal Waste step out of that zone and managed to sound good because this experiment could’ve QUICKLY gone South. The only thing I’d hope for, when they release their next album five years from now, as that Ryan and Nick find a good balance between the two styles.

I give Electrified Brain 4 out of 5 middle fingers.

Recommended Tracks: Electrified Brain, Demoralizer, High Speed Steel, Blood Vessel-Boat Jail, Putting On Errors (w/ Barney Greenway)

Jerry Cantrell – Brighten

Posted on by Mike

It’d been nineteen years since Jerry Cantrell, the fucking Riff God himself, release a solo record, 2002’s Degradation Trip. And a lot has happened since that time, in particular the completely unexpected REBIRTH of Alice In Chains with their 2009 comeback MASTERPIECE, Black Gives Way To Blue. From that point on, minus a song that was recorded for the John Wick: Chapter 2 soundtrack, it was largely assumed that Cantrell would never release a full-fledged solo record again. In fact, when asked about a future solo record by Guitar World in 2018, he told them that the only reason he even recorded two solo records was because he didn’t have a band, and now he does again, thus Alice being his ultimate priority.

He wasn’t wrong ladies, there was a shit ton of unfinished business with Alice In Chains.

So, if you weren’t surprised when it was announced that he was performing a few solo shows just months before the greatest year and a half of my life took place, you were a dumb motherfucker. I was even more stunned when, not too long after those shows took place, it was announced that he WAS, in fact, going to record a new solo album. I sure didn’t know what to expect. You didn’t either, especially once the video for “Atone” was released on Rolling Stone’s website a few months ago.

I knew what NOT to expect. But I certainly didn’t imagine that “Atone” would come out sounding like something out of any Western style movie with a soundtrack composed by Ennio Morricone. As fate would have it, it’s what Jerry was looking for. As fate would also have it, holy fuck does it sound fucking great! It may sound like a modernized “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly”, but it also has Jerry’s signature songwriting style all over it, along with the Open D Major tuning he’s used on and off since Alice’s 1995 self-titled album. And, for as much as I will never forgive Duff McKagan for being the bassist for Guns ‘N’ Roses, I really does like some of the fills he plays here.

The next single to drop, as well as the second track on the record is “Brighten”, the title track. Very different sounding from “Atone”. I can’t begin to tell you how pleasantly surprised I was to see Abe Laboriel Jr. on drums for this video and song. If you don’t know who I’m talking about, Abe, who I’d first read about in Modern Drummer Magazine in the late 90’s, is a very talented drummer who’s been in Paul McCartney’s touring band since 2001. This is more of a Rock tune in every way.

The next track is “Prism of Doubt”. A mid-tempo track of sorts, it sounds unusually happy, or at least introspective. The pedal steel guitars, fit right in. The aura created by the track makes me think of driving aimlessly on a desert road while your girl has her head out the window, or if your friends in the backseat have their hands out.

Spoiler alert: there’s more pedal steel guitars where those came from.

“Black Hearts and Evil Done” is a largely acoustic guitar-only track…with more Pedal Steel Guitars. If I thought that the previous track was lyrically introspective, I hear more of that on this number. The opening lines, “Too many heads broke too many times/Tired of the same joke, tired of the grind/Coming down’s a bit low, harder to stay/Same punk in the mirror, different the day” hits a little too close to home as I’m trying desperately to change my own life around. I feel the aches of living a mundane life oozing out of this track, as I work two jobs daily with no true break, all so I can transition smoothly out of one of them.

I’m just curious about the second verse. I’m not the biggest fan of musicians getting political. While Jerry never named names here, or particular events, I wonder what he’s referring to when he sings “Tired of the lies spun in the land of the free/Sеlling out’s a mission, kneel, settle, assume/Samе crook in the White House prospecting me and you”.

“Siren Song” can almost be “Breaks My Back” Pt. 2. If you’ve never heard “Breaks My Back”, here’s your chance now. It just has that aura about it. It’s actually one of my favorite tracks on the record because it sounds so sensual at points. Jerry ALWAYS knows what to play and when to play it.

“Had To Know” is just fun. And no pedal steel guitars here! Holy shit! But it does contain an organ. I really love the organ solo followed by Jerry’s solo. It’s on this track that backing vocalist Greg Puciato can actually be heard outside of the title track. He’s not mixed too loud on most of this album, which is a relief because I hate him thanks to his previous band.

Dillinger Escape Plan sucks. Fuck them and him.

“Nobody Breaks You” is a lyrically powerful song. If “Black Hearts” tackles life as an existential nightmare, this targets the idea of at least trying to “get out”. “Nobody breaks you like you in your heart”, Jerry sings. Almost sounds like life advice, no? It’s as if he’s telling us all to believe in ourselves…or at least to not take on a victim mentality and take action to change our lives for the better, as only we can do so in the end.

I fucking loved “Dismembered”. Don’t let the Alice sounding title fool you; “Dismembered” is nothing like that and a hell of a lot more of an idea of the type of song the late Glenn Frey and Keith Richards would’ve written if they ever collaborated together in 1972. It’s the perfect mix of the Country Rock style that put the Eagles on the map pre-Hotel California and the Boogie Woogie style the Stones would’ve performed during that time. It’s another song that conjures up images of driving on an open road or getting hammered even in a nasty ass roadhouse somewhere in the mid-west.

Jerry chose to close this incredible record with a cover of Elton John’s “Goodbye” off his landmark 1971 album Madman Across the Water. It’s a cover so faithful to the original that it even received approval from the old Queen himself! This isn’t to say that Cantrell can suddenly sing like Elton John in his prime because Elton hasn’t sounded like Elton since the 70’s came to a close. However, for those of you not in the know regarding Jerry’s relationship with Elton: Jerry asked him to play piano on the closing title track to Black Gives Way to Blue. Elton was so moved by the lyrical content that he immediately agreed to do so. Jerry grew up listening to Elton John long before he was introduced to Black Sabbath, thus making a song like “Goodbye” childhood verse, more or less.

If you haven’t figured it out yet, Brighten is not what you expected, or perhaps even hoped for from Jerry Cantrell. After nineteen long years, what were you really expecting again? He’s no longer in the headspace needed to record Boggy Depot or Degradation Trip. He’s actually happy and he’s only out solo because for once, he just wants to, not through necessity. That being said, it’s rather fitting that the songs sound happier in a musical context, more outgoing in lyrical stature. Brighten, when compared to its predecessors, is very much a 70’s era Country Rock album with multiple guest musicians, incredible song writing and something for every fan of Jerry’s to latch on to and enjoy.

Brighten gets 4 out of five middle fingers!

The Songwriting Genius Of A Guitar God: In Memory Of Eddie Van Halen

Posted on by Mike

I don’t know what to say that hasn’t already been said about Eddie Van Halen since the word got out that we lost him just a little over two months ago. I refuse to discuss his popularizing the two handed tapping technique that everyone and their mother learns eventually. I won’t discuss his invention of the super strat via his Frankenstein guitar, or his “brown” sound. So what can I discuss that most people probably won’t discuss?

Let’s talk about Ed’s creativity as a songwriter. Why? Listen to his riffs alone on those first six records. He’s not just banging out power chords like most guitarists do. He never relied on a co-guitarist. In fact he was never formally trained on his instrument. Yet he was still an even better songwriter than he was a guitarist.

Read that last line again.

Ed said in the past that if he ever took lessons he didn’t think he’d be able to play like he did. I can relate to that. I did take lessons for four years. But both of my teachers, the first teacher being the uncomfortably talented Ron Thal and the next teacher being Christian Corrao, one of the most incredible jazz guitarists I’ve ever heard, taught me both directly and indirectly to think outside the box. Nothing has to be played the way you’re told to play it. Just play what you hear in your head and how you feel and you’ll be surprised with what comes out. I attribute that to why some of my future bandmates either couldn’t understand what I was playing or they just didn’t have the mental capacity to try and learn what I was doing.

There’s no doubt that Ed wasn’t the music world’s first ever self taught guitarist. But as with every other aspect of his career, there was something different about the way he played. Thanks largely to his musical upbringing and his later experiences in cover bands, there’s no question that there was plenty of music in his head. But how the fuck do you convey such concepts when you’re self taught?

That’s why he used all six strings on the guitar, as opposed to just hitting three note power chords, as mentioned before. He needed a way to sound as big as he could without relying on a second guitarist. That’s why he wasn’t afraid to use alternate tunings. He was inventive enough that he even incorporated his popularized tapping technique into his songs. I’m not just referring to his solos, I’m referring to the way he’d TAP OUT the fucking harmonics of chords, which took an already pretty chord pattern and made it breath taking. Speaking of tapping for effect, according to Ed himself, the harmonic tapping section of “Dance The Night Away” was designed to emulate a horn section in a pop song, the inspiration being his days playing Top 40 covers.

Fair Warning, my undisputed favorite of the first six Van Halen records, is considered their darkest album. Ed himself had stated that some of his angriest playing is on that record – which is probably why I love it! Tracks like “Unchained” and especially “Mean Street” are probably the most Metal sounding songs the band ever recorded. Then there were tracks such as “Push Comes To Shove”. The track itself wasn’t angry, but Ed’s solo certainly was. Close your eyes and you could actually FEEL the emotion.

There can be a lot of benefits of being self taught depending on the musician in question. Some people are geniuses and others should just cave in and take lessons. Or give up. For Ed, it allowed for a creativity not seen in Rock guitarists before. Why? Because he didn’t uphold to any written barriers. He didn’t follow structures that were repeated over and over again. He made his own. “Hot For Teacher” is the best example of this. The whole band changes time signatures midway through Ed’s solo for 4/4 to 5/4 and then back again. Not only was it an ingenius way for Ed to have the song fit his solo as opposed to having the solo fit the song, but that little nuance alone displayed his incredible sense of dynamics.

There was no way I wasn’t going have you watch the video!

This to me is the true legacy of Eddie Van Halen. His legacy to me is more than just “Eruption”, or a homemade freakshow guitar and bastardized backline or the showmanship of David Lee Roth. His legacy is that he didn’t follow musical constructs. He bent them to his will and made them his own. He’s probably one of the most copied guitarist ever to the point that I don’t blame him for turning his back to the crowd while he was soloing during the band’s early days. He didn’t want anyone to copy his technique – imagine that!

There was no one like Eddie Van Halen before he came along and there will never be anyone like him again. Let’s not misunderstand, there are some amazing guitarists out there right now, but they’ll NEVER have the appeal that Ed or his band had to the public at large. Primarily in that unlike Ed, none of his worshippers ever got girls because they were too busy jerking off to guitar lessons.

Read that again.

Let this article and Ed’s songwriting be a lesson to all you bedroom guitarists out there. I’m glad you know every mode and scale there is to know. But if any of you ever want to be remembered for anything, learn how to write a song.

Rest In Peace To The Undisputed KING Of Guitar

Eddie Van Halen

January 26th, 1955 – October 6th, 2020