Van Halen's style of playing, his tone (from his homemade guitar), etc. was pretty revolutionary, IMHO. Never heard a guitar sound quite like that until then.
NO snark intended but at the time I was in a place where everything I heard on the first album had already been done by Beck or Hendrix and even Fripp,
tone-wise.
And his tapping technique had already been introduced to the world with the Chapman stick.
I also have to be honest and admit that DL Roth absolutely alienated me, I
hated him.
He was the idol of the same high school kids who drank too much beer at the Saturday night parents-have-left-town-for-the-weekend party, puked it all up, and bragged about it on Sunday....
I allowed that and the basically simplistic rhythm section to prejudice me against the band.
Don't get me wrong even though I'm lambasting the band according to my opinion of it as it was then, I became more tolerant over the years. (more later)
But while we are discussing "unique" guitarists, let us not forget the most revolutionary guitarist of all - Jimi Hendrix.
walrus
"That goes without saying", but coming full circle while carrying on a theme, by the time of VH's debut I was in a circle of friends who had become tired of all the bands trying to mimic his "sound" with devices and seemingly ignorant of the fact that the majority of his magic was in his hands and his compositional and improvisational skills.
Also
he knew how to play his amp which was a major part of the "organic" nature of his sound compared to all the sterile effects pedals that were being thrown at the market.
Jimi only ever used 4 basic devices: Ocatvia, wahwah, flanger, and echo, and rarely if ever more than 2 at once while playing although he and Kramer might add stuff later on in the engineering.
(Its' pretty incredible how sparse the raw tracks for
Are You Experienced sound before Mr K. sweetened 'em up with with stuff like reverb and echo. Never knew how much of that was him and not Jimi until I saw "The making of..", I think it was.)
So we were abandoning the arena rock bands and looking for guys who were following their onw muse like the 7 I mentioned.
We also had benefit of a local record store that specialized in European imports, and had discovered jazz via the likes of King Crimson's horns and Ralph Towner and Oregon, and John Coltrane and Zappa...
Side note: When one has tasted Elvin Jones' drumming and Jimmy Garrison's bass playing, Alex Van Halen and Michael Anthony generate about the same excitement as a TV commercial jingle.
But again, "that was then".
IN retrospect I realize a lot of those arena rock bands may well have been pushed into their pigeonholes by avaricious record company A&R reps desperate for fodder to feed the ravenous beast of the recordradio industry.
(Speaking of which I HATED the Buckingham-Nicks version of Fleetwood Mac in the beginning, too).
Heck, even Epstein and the Beatles only figured the gig was gonna last for 2 or 3 years. It's in the DNA of the industry because teenagers grow up and the new batch wants their own new objects of worship.
Then Video Killed the Radio Star.
I've told the story before:
I finally gave Eddie grudging respect when I saw "Panama" on MTV for the first time.
Finally! That riff introducing the middle section! A riff with taste and artistry deriving all its power from the notes not the device!
A couple of years later "Finish What You Started" also grabbed me even though I had about the same amount of affection for Sammy Hagar as the David.
And by then I'd seen a few of my friends attempt to do the dues paying thing while trying to break into the biz, even did a little grunt work equipment handling after the shows, and realized how much hard work and stress it really took.
Started to get a little sympathy for
anybody trying to make a living that way.
I'll still allow my prejudices against certain lifestyle role modeling on the part of an artist get in the way...but "the Eddie" 's alright in my book, now.
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