Slashback: How Eddie Van Halen Hacks a Guitar (popularmechanics.com) 50
In honor of legendary guitarist Eddie Van Halen, who tragically passed away today from throat cancer at the age of 65, we wanted to resurface an article Eddie wrote in 2015 for Popular Mechanics. While many know him as the guitar god, Eddie Van Halen was also an inventor and patent holder who has spent the better part of 35 years in his shop, rebuilding guitars and amps, searching for his signature sound. Here's an excerpt from the article: I've always been a tinkerer. It comes from my dad. Growing up, we lived in a house in Pasadena that had no driveway. You used an alley that ran through the middle of the block, behind all the houses, to get to your backyard or the garage. Well, the neighbor behind us had a U-Haul trailer up on car jacks and loaded with cinder block. One night my dad came home from a gig at three in the morning. He had a little heat going, he'd had a few drinks, so he says, "This thing is blocking me from getting in again." So he got out of the car and tried to move it. As soon as he lifted the trailer, the jack fell over, and it chopped his finger off. This was a problem. Besides the obvious reasons, he played clarinet and saxophone. On a sax, you don't need to seal the hole with your finger. A valve closes over it. But with a clarinet, you have to seal the hole, so he took a saxophone valve cover and adapted it to work on his clarinet.
Another funny thing was later in his life, when he started losing his teeth. You need your bottom teeth to play a reed instrument. Instead of going to the dentist, he made himself a perfectly shaped prosthesis out of white Teflon that filled the gap where his teeth were missing. He slipped that in when he had to play. Watching him do that kind of stuff instilled a curiosity in me. If something doesn't do what you want it to, there's always a way to fix it... Van Halen was an inventor on three patents related to guitars: A folding prop to support a guitar in a flat position, a tension-adjusting tailpiece, and an ornamental design for a headstock. Two of the three remain today.
Slashdot reader nicolaiplum shares the following news about his passing: Rock legend Eddie van Halen has died, aged 65, after a long battle with cancer. "In a band known for its instability -- due in part to a rotating cast of lead singers that most notably includes David Lee Roth and Sammy Hagar -- Eddie Van Halen and his brother Alex remained constants, appearing on 12 studio albums that reached across five decades and sold tens of millions of copies," reports NPR.
The New York Times adds: "His outpouring of riffs, runs and solos was hyperactive and athletic, making deeper or darker emotions feel irrelevant. The band he led was one of the most popular of all time." This story is part of a new occasional article series we're calling Slashback. We'll be covering a topic that may not be breaking news, but is interesting to us.
Another funny thing was later in his life, when he started losing his teeth. You need your bottom teeth to play a reed instrument. Instead of going to the dentist, he made himself a perfectly shaped prosthesis out of white Teflon that filled the gap where his teeth were missing. He slipped that in when he had to play. Watching him do that kind of stuff instilled a curiosity in me. If something doesn't do what you want it to, there's always a way to fix it... Van Halen was an inventor on three patents related to guitars: A folding prop to support a guitar in a flat position, a tension-adjusting tailpiece, and an ornamental design for a headstock. Two of the three remain today.
Slashdot reader nicolaiplum shares the following news about his passing: Rock legend Eddie van Halen has died, aged 65, after a long battle with cancer. "In a band known for its instability -- due in part to a rotating cast of lead singers that most notably includes David Lee Roth and Sammy Hagar -- Eddie Van Halen and his brother Alex remained constants, appearing on 12 studio albums that reached across five decades and sold tens of millions of copies," reports NPR.
The New York Times adds: "His outpouring of riffs, runs and solos was hyperactive and athletic, making deeper or darker emotions feel irrelevant. The band he led was one of the most popular of all time." This story is part of a new occasional article series we're calling Slashback. We'll be covering a topic that may not be breaking news, but is interesting to us.
This news. (Score:5, Funny)
When they said Eddie had cancer, I yelled Somebody Get Me A Doctor so he could find the Source Of Infection. I thought he would Beat It, but feared the radiation treatment might turn him into an Atomic Punk.
Re:This news. (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
He would Jump for hot teacher!
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Persistence (Score:2)
I like how he kept trying even after ruining equipment, shorting out the entire house, and zapping himself bigtime. Stubbornness + curiosity can pay off.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
She can't refuse until you ask.
RIP Eddie (Score:1)
The best can now rest.
O yea... Fuck Cancer.
Re: (Score:3)
Part of the soundtrack of my youth. I wore out a couple of Diver Down cassettes
Re: (Score:2)
I think he bought three copies in about a year because the heat kept ruining them. Cassettes were terrible really.
I was wondering how Eddie got a patent for a decorative guitar headstock? How could that possibly be an invention?
Re: (Score:3)
I was wondering how Eddie got a patent for a decorative guitar headstock? How could that possibly be an invention?
Most likely a design patent.
Re:RIP Eddie (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
That tone (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Eddies sound has been copied and studies by pretty much every heavy guitar dude since. He was the original hard rock guitar shredder. (hendrix and clapton where more heavy blues. granted theres a *lot* of crossover).
Slashback. On time news in disguise (Score:2)
Slashdot usually publishes stories a day or four after it has come and gone in the normal technical media.
Today it published a story almost as it broke.
Were the "editors" so embarassed by their timeliness that they felt obliged to add this ?
"This story is part of a new occasional article series we're calling Slashback. We'll be covering a topic that may not be breaking news, but is interesting to us."
Re: (Score:2)
a giant (Score:5, Interesting)
Eddie Van Halen was so good, and so innovative, that he made every other rock guitarist go back to school on his instrument.
My favorite Van Halen factoid is that he did the astonishing solo on Michael Jackson's Beat It in one take. My second favorite factoid is that before the first VH album came out, and they were just a bar band in LA, he would play with his back to the audience because every other rock guitarist in town would just try to steal his licks.
I never liked Van Halen the band, but man, you can't touch Van Halen the musician. I wish his health would have held out long enough for him to make an album with some really great musicians, the way Jeff Beck did later in his career. It would have been something.
Re: (Score:2)
My second favorite factoid
Thanks for this. I have told people this same thing, but didn't realize this was before they hit it big. I always interpreted it as him doing it once they became big since I only heard it in passing.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
A factoid is something that resembles a fact, but isn't one.
Re: (Score:2)
A factoid is something that resembles a fact, but isn't one.
Well, the oid suffix means 'like' or 'resembling', but the implication that the resemblance is false or imperfect isn't a hard and fast rule. At any rate, as usual with the English language, common usage trumps traditional definition even though this tends to irritate linguistic purists.
Re: (Score:2)
At any rate, as usual with the English language, common usage trumps traditional definition even though this tends to irritate linguistic purists.
ANY language.
Re: (Score:2)
Considering a lot of these rock legends tend to be apocryphal, I stand by my use of "factoid".
Re: (Score:2)
As it turns out, going down on lots of women (Score:5, Informative)
unprotected isn't so safe after all, its called HPV throat cancer and its what gave Michal Douglas and Val Kilmer their throat cancers.
Re:As it turns out, going down on lots of women (Score:5, Interesting)
That's the Other Reason (besides being a possible spreader of HPV to women) that men should take Gardasil.
Re: (Score:3)
On The Howard Stern Show he said he got throat cancer from holding guitar picks in his mouth. Howard thinks it possibly could have been the years and years of smoking cigarettes.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
A guy whose legendary performances, that I posted about on Slashdot [slashdot.org] less than a week ago, prominently included cigarette tricks...
It's fairly safe to say this guy smoked cigarettes, and it's fairly safe to say that cigarettes cause throat cancer. So anyone who is saying they confidently know cigarettes (or HPV) didn't cause EVH's throat cancer, would have the burden of proof on them to show that.
Re: (Score:2)
Smoking and drinking, the staples of the seventies and eighties rockers were likely both heavily at play.
Re: (Score:2)
I mean starting to chain smoke the moment you get out of your diapers doesn't help.
Re: (Score:2)
Being a professional alcoholic and chain smoker certainly didn’t help.
Bowl of M&Ms (Score:2)
If there's any justice in the world, his funeral will have a large bowl of M&Ms - but with no brown ones!
https://www.npr.org/sections/t... [npr.org]
No mention of the Super Strat? (Score:4, Informative)
Eddie Van Halen started the "Super Strat" craze with his home built Frankenstrat guitar. Before that your typical Fender Stratocaster was a relatively cheap guitar (compared to Gibson) with three single coil pickups. He routed out the bridge pickup cavity from a Charvel factory reject body to fit a dual coil Humbucker pickup from a Gibson 335.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Wax potted pickups had been around since the 1940's (at least). I believe it was someone at Rickenbacker who did it first. Fender was using lacquer in the 1950's. But Wax has the advantage of being easier to remove if you need to take it apart. Tar was also used and epoxy began use in the 1980's.
The Gibson ES-335 (the model he got the pickup out of) did not come with wax potted pickups until sometime in the late 1970's
I like EVH as much as the next person but... (Score:3)
... it's highly doubtful that he invented tapping. I recall Steve Hackett (while in Genesis) was employing that technique in the early '70s. (And it's questionable whether Hackett invented it.)
As for his being a guitar god, IMHO, he's only one member in the pantheon of great guitarists. I'll never forget seeing the late Allan Holdsworth in a student union ballroom (mid-'80s -- about the time his `Metal Fatigue' album was released). There were 3 or 4 teens sitting behind me wearing Van Halen T-shirts and chatting about how great EVH was. (I suspect they were there as it had been said that Holdsworth was one of EVH's influences.) When Holdsworth unleashed a solo, it had them sitting there trying to pick their jaws up off the floor.
That said... it's still a shock to hear of his passing. Way too soon.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:1)
> That said... it's still a shock to hear of his passing. Way too soon.
65 is supposed to be the age of retirement, not the age of kicking the bucket :(
Re: (Score:3)
- Jimmie Webster, 1952* [myspace.com]
- Chet Atkins, 1953 [youtube.com]
- Vittorio Camardese, 1965 [youtube.com]
*The earliest recorded examples were by the late Jimmie Webster in 1958 who 6 six years earlier in 1952 published a instruction manual for the technique titled 'Touch Method for Electric and Amplified Spanish Guitar'. However, Jimmie learned this technique from none other than , inventor of t
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
... it's highly doubtful that he invented tapping. I recall Steve Hackett (while in Genesis) was employing that technique in the early '70s. (And it's questionable whether Hackett invented it.)
As for his being a guitar god, IMHO, he's only one member in the pantheon of great guitarists. I'll never forget seeing the late Allan Holdsworth in a student union ballroom (mid-'80s -- about the time his `Metal Fatigue' album was released). There were 3 or 4 teens sitting behind me wearing Van Halen T-shirts and chatting about how great EVH was. (I suspect they were there as it had been said that Holdsworth was one of EVH's influences.) When Holdsworth unleashed a solo, it had them sitting there trying to pick their jaws up off the floor.
That said... it's still a shock to hear of his passing. Way too soon.
When did he claim to invent tapping? I've only seen an interview with him where he says he never claimed to invent it, just that he hadn't heard anybody use it the way he ended up using it before.
Powerful Quotes Ever Spoken By APJ Abdul Kalam (Score:1)