Rick Lee...I started jamming Van Halen again.
 

hey rick, i remember that you really liked evh, too..and actually after reading some of your posts about it, i decided last april to get my old charvel out of storage and start playing again after an 18 year break. it's been a crappy year, but learning how to play all over again has been therapeutic. my brother also convinced me to do it..he's a drummer and wanted us to jam together. and we saw van halen live a couple months before i got it out and that was it! :)

anyway, are you still playing? we made a whole bunch of videos on his camcorder and uploaded them here to youtube under my same pelican name. half of it's ear and half is relearning from internet tabs. man, wouldn't those have been worth their weight in gold back in the 80's??! wow.. :)

http://www.youtube.com/user/bigchillcar

later,
ryan

Crunching some video right now, but will watch your vid in a bit. Good for you!

Enjoyed your Van Halen!

Alex vh has entered an occasional PCA TT at SOW (local track just north of LA).
After he barely let me pass I went looking for his black Ferrari.
As I approached him I said "do you play the drums?"
He answered "only when I'm working". :D
Very cool guy, said he'd like to trade the f car in for a black GT3 RSR. :cool:

big al...neat story, ted! :)

You know, AVH seems like such a nice guy. His talent is obvious but I think his humility is more impressive.

God, I wish I could play guitar like that...everyone makes it seem so effortless. I SUCK!!! good to have you back.

I should post a video of my old band ripping through Mean Streets

Ryan those vids are great! I havent touched my guitar in yrs. Always get the itch to blow the dust off it!

Very cool. I love the Full Bug, truly an underrated great It demonstrates to a tee how great a rhythm player EVH is by taking such a simple riff and making it so cool just by phrasing and accents.

I have only been playing my nylon string Gibson acoustic for the last few mos. I need to crank up my amps and dust off my Ernie Ball EVH model. It's sad that the longer I stay away from it, the more afraid I am to pick it back up because I don't want to hear how bad I suck now.

I saw the Atomic Punks play here again recently. Gawd, they crushed everything. Just amazing. I really felt schooled and even learned a few things I had always been playing wrong.

So does anyone have any dirt on Eddie's recent wedding? I'm dying to know if Dave was invited. I hear Ed just had some surgery on his hand and ain't gonna be touring soon.

What's the cheapest camera I can get away with for posting similar videos on Youtube? I've been meaning to do this for a while. I'd like to make some videos of myself playing VH, Eric Johnson and Steve Howe stuff.

BTW, I still think the all time toughest guitar solo out there is White Lion's Little Fighter. No one on Youtube can nail it. A few come close. Amazing how many kids out there can totally nail anything by Yngwie, but still no one can get Little Fighter just right.

hey guys, thanks for the welcome back and the nice comments. the first couple of months last year, i was literally sitting down at home re-learning how to do even basic chords, much less rhythm and lead work. it was weird..after 18 years it was sorta like the 'muscle memory' thing..re-learning in days or weeks what had taken me months or years first time around. seeing tabs for the first time was huge..wouldn't have gotten back this far without them, just saves a lot of time i used to spend slowing down record albums, learning by ear..sometimes i'd still prefer that for subtle phrasing.

rick..i know of the atomic punks from youtube only, and you're right on..they slay the stuff. there are a few guys i subscribe to as well who are just 'armchair players', but phenomenal..look thru mine and find someone like 'satchbooogy' if i spelled it the way he does..super nice guy to write back and forth with and he kills vh stuff..and all kinds of others that i'm not even familiar with.

'full bug' is definitely one of my faves..and it's so true about his rhythm. when i was young, i focused on his lead playing..this time around, honestly i'm rediscovering rhythm..and how little attention i used to afford it or accentuate it..his songwriting skills are wayyy underrated. i would tell you my all-fave has to be 'i'm the one' though..there are so many damn riffs in it..hu throws in just every technique he used to do at that time, plus the boogie woogie rhythm is par excellance..i've always gotta crank the piss outa that one on the stereo. most of what i posted here is just raw footage of me learning the stuff on cam..much is incomplete and i'm fumbling thru the parts i haven't taken the time to learn. my 'full bug' intro is much improved, but i still have trouble quickly jumping from the first to the second part of the solo with the two-handed run across the strings smoothly. but whadaya expect??! this is ed's *****!!

man, i know very little about cams..i only know we use a little panasonic and it's just using it's internal mic, which doesn't help the sound quality..lol. i'm sure we could set up the audio recording part better in some way. maybe someone will chime in how to help you with that. we're just playing around with no intentions of doing anymore than playing for ourselves and our friends. i hope you do upload some video..would be cool to share videos with you, too..some of these people really inspire you..and some make you wanna toss away your guitar! :D

I also focused mostly on Eddie's solos when I was growing up. But once in a while I'd see someone play a VH tune in a music store or see Eddie play it live (had front row on the Balance tour) and then I'd run home to relearn the song I used to think I was playing right. So many of his chords and melodies have so much genius to them and get overlooked because of his solos. Honestly, I think I could nail just about any of his solos if I went back and relearned them. But I still cannot get all the cool rhythm stuff down from Fair Warning. Listen hard to Sinner's Swing, Dirty Movies, Hear About It Later and especially the bridges in Unchained. Pure genius rhythm playing. That album could be years worth of lessons. I got it when I was in grade school and stil pick out new stuff every time I listen to it.

I gotta get a camera rigged up and then brush up on some VH tunes. I have a Boss GT-3 running through a Fender Hot Rod DeVille and can get just about any sound from it. I have a 5150 setting and another for a Marshall Plexi. But my 22 yr. old Gallien Krueger 250ML (solid state) still gets closer to the olf VH sound than anything else I've heard. I remember my dad yelling at me for spending the money on that when I was 16. But to this day it's still been the best $325 I ever spent.

wow, yeah i'd love that gk amp as well. i only had the charvel model 1 remaining, but i've added a new seymour duncan custom custom (reportedly an ed copy of sorts), added a floyd that this guitar never had, bought a line6 bogner spider valve tube amp and a digitech rp500 modeler pedal to hellp bring me back into the modern era of gear. i'd list all my old **** i have, but you'd know it all anyway.

the bridge on 'unchained'..yep, the only part i can't quite work out yet..a cpl of the guys i subscribe to have it down, but i've set that one aside for the time being (do you hear a challenge there? haha). there's a guy on there 'craigman65' who a bunch of consider a better 'fair warning' player..check him out. of course the intro to 'mean streets' is a beast, but i also dig the solo on 'so this is love'. 'girl gone bad' is sweet and beyond my skills..i'm not a great harmonic tapper. honestly, about all i play is roth-era...i try a cpl hagar-era. i like a lot of the hagar stuff, it's just that you could spend years working on nothing but those first six albums! i'm ashamed to say i'm not very famiiar and don't know how to play anythign north of hagar..i need to explore it sometime. but after 18 years, it's gonna take a while to work that damn far up the ladder, you know?

wow after an 18 year break your playing is fantastic. all the little nuances are there with natural movement. being a player, i know how fast the muscle memory and feel disappear even after a few weeks of not playing alot. good job

i love EVH. those early records i still put on, on vinyl and they sound great. he has a wonderful approach to using effects...very sparingly that give the song just what it needs to make it different from the rest

Oh, 1984 is another much overlooked one because of its commercial success. Girl Gone Bad, House of Pain and Top Jimmy are just amazing. I don't find the harmonic tapping stuff difficult at all. I have the intro to Mean Street down pretty well. But man, the solo in that song and especially the intro to the solo are very tough. The Atomic Punks did that last time I saw them and Lance so crushed it. I have to learn the intro to that solo. Soooo cool. WTF was Ed thinking when he came up with that one?

I got the Live Without a Net VHS when I was 15 and I spent much of the next summer sitting in front of the tv with my GK and Kramer Focus 5000, learning every single note of that concert solo. That's how I really figured out Cathedral and the intro to Mean Street, though I like the album version of Catherdral much better.

Last night I was playing Spanish Fly on my nylon string and had forgotten how much of a stretch the end of that one is. HTF did he come up with that and then get so much sounded out of a nylon string? His wrists have to be made titanium to do that stuff. I feel arthritic when I do it.

Yes, Ed also uses effects more tastefully than anyone else. They're really obvious and upfront in songs like Atomic Punk or Hear About it Later or Unchained. But he also used them very subtly in solos just to give it a little more ooomph. Listen closely to the solos in Ice Cream Man, On Fire and You Really Got Me. Great slow phase in all of them. When F.U.C.K. came out, I think he used a wah-wah pedal in every song on that one.

Cool stuff, Ryan!

thanks for the props..yeah, i can't say enough about how weird it felt to hot strings again after that many years! in some ways i'm stronger now, maybe have more endurance for playing that is, but i can't play legato as fast, which i find very frustrating. i was never a speed-metal player, so i don't tend to go into that area..what is it called? string-skipping arpeggios or something like that? looks and sounds cool, but my fingers aren't ready to get too far into that. at some point i gotta just stop learning licks and just settle into my own thing.

i ought to get that video..i never have another guitarist to jam with who plays anything other than acoustic strumming. yeah, love ed's acoustic numbers, too..'take your whiskey home'..love the ***** out of that intro..i got most of it down, but the coolest sounding licks in it..guess i'm still fakin' ;) i learned cathedral late last year, but quit after my v olume pot finally said 'no more' and froze, so i tend to stay away from it now..lol. i have fairly long fingers, but yeah the ending tap series in 'spanish fly' is a bear..and the legato licks in the beginning before the tapping takes over? i often wonder about that..i mean, that guitar's friggin' angry! must have had the mic sitting right on the neck with mucho gain..surely nobody's fingers have that much attack..on nylon. :eek:

Take Your Whiskey Home is an amazing intro. So much feel to that one. No way to write it out correctly. You just have to have it in you.

haha! yup.. :cool:

i use a flanger on 'unchained', parts..for the early stuff i'm almost always using a small amount of phase in there...1984 material i used a mono detuner..i'd heard he began using one extensively on that album. i have heard a lot of wah on later stuff that i may not have known the name of, but recognized ed. my pedal models amps and cabs, which is really cool..so many choices though. i tend to use the peavey 5150 modeled amp or the '68 plexi..plexi has a great vintage sound, but it demands way more from my fingers in terms of attack..also have a marshal, but can't recall the model offhand. i think all the youtube stuff was running the peavey sound..the latter two i've only messed with the past month or so. i'm sure it would be hella fun to sit and jam with another true ed head..have never had the opportunity..guessing you have?

Ryan- Excellent playing and great videos! I play my drums every week, I'm glad you're playing again!

The only true Ed-head I knew in high school was a guy who graduated my freshman year, so I didn't get to see him much. But he always played Eruption at the talent shows that one year and he totally crushed it, used a Kramer Pacer and a GK like mine. Another buddy one year behind him also used a Pacer and GK like mine, but he was more into Ozzy and Rush. He got me into Rush. How cool it was to see them play all of 2112 at a talent show. They also played Push Come to Shove, which I didn't appreciate much at the time, but really grew to understand how awesome one has to be to pull that off. Somewhere I have some photos of my first-ever performance at a talent show with some buddies. We played In a Simple Rhyme.

My guitar teacher in junior high was a serious Ed-head, but was also Ed's age and had been playing a lot longer. I lived in NJ then and CA seemed like a world away. But he got to go to NAMM a few times and brought back some cool photos of Ed at the Kramer booth and just got to hang out with everyone you ever heard of.

My teacher was also a lucky soul who got one of the very first Kramer Barettas, you know with the hockey stick headstock and the old Kramer script on it? Back then the execs from Kramer were literally driving around to music stores in NJ to promote their stuff. One of them came in one night after closing where my teacher was holding lessons (Dave Phillips Music and Sound in NJ). They had that Baretta, but wouldn't sell it. My teacher begged and finally got it for $500 right then and there. I have some photos of myself playing it somewhere.

Did I ever post the story about when I got to tour the Kramer factory during the 5150 tour and got a shot of one of Ed's guitars there making for him?

rick, yeah i recall some posts of yours on topic from a coupple/few years back, before you got married. i read up last year at vintagekramer.com i think it might have been. you have pics from the kramer factory you could post?

dave and art..thanks, guys...i knew art was a drummer..i've seen pics of his setup...dave do you play, too? i was thinking that you do..

Was it the long hair? My first guitar was a Kramer. I have an Aria Pro II Cat Bass and a custom electric guitar - I built it. It's a bit dusty, but I did pick it up for a few minutes last night. It's time to dust it off again...

Gotta scan my Kramer photos. Man, those were the days of true guitar heros.

yeah, i love the kramer with hockeystick neck..frankenstein was my fave of his. although i've never played one, i'd like to try an ernie ball music man, which i think is what he played in recent years..it may not have been the ernie, but another just like it though.

you built a guitar dave? show a pic if you have one..seems like a fun project to do.

This is my Ernie Ball.

http://www.fototime.com/DFB767C9CB644A8/standard.jpg

Its neck is way smaller than the old Kramers had. I heard they used a laser to scan in the dimensions off Ed's Frankenstrat and whatever neck he had on it at the time to get an exact replica when designing the Ernie Ball guitars. I've played a lot of them and they do all feel alike. Likewise, I played a lot of Kramers and just about no two of them feel alike.

I heard Ed got dropped by Ernie Ball because he was nailing Mrs. Sterling Ball. So they just kept making the same guitars with without his name on the headstock, relocated the toggle switch and now call it the Axis. Since Ed was already with Peavey for his amps, he had them build his next guitar. In fact, I saw him playing the prototypes of the Peavey Wolfgang when I was in the front row for a show on the Balance tour. At that time, there were no announcements or ads for the Wolfgang. Had I not been so close up, I'd have not noticed it was a Peavey.

Now he's parted ways with Peavey and is with Fender for his new line of amps and guitars, which look pretty much like the Peaveys, but cost more. I have no interest in any of that. To me the Ernie Ball guitar is the best one I've ever played and it's one of my most prized toys.

When I bought my first Hot Rod DeVille, I brought my Ernie Ball to the Guitar Center to try out the amp. By then the Axis had been out for a while and the EVH models were skyrocketing and hard to find. You should have seen all the people gawking at the guitar. A few of the employees asked if they could try it out, which I kind of wanted, so I could crank the amp up and walk around the store to see how it sounded from a distance. Anyway, it's a real gem and I don't like to even take it out of the house anymore.

ohhh..sweet axe..and a quilt top..i really like that. yep, that's the one i'd like to try some day. how would you compare it's feel and sound to a strat-style rig like a baretta or my charvel model 1? assume it's a compound radius neck as well. is there anything or sound in particular that you think it does superior to one of those guitars? what is it about the guitar that makes it special?

Well, I don't really believe the guitar makes too much of the sound, but rather one's fingers, the amp and effects. Plug any of my axes into my pedalboard with the same settings on it and the amp and you'd be hard pressed to hear much difference between them all. I mean, look at what a beater the original Frankenstrat is and how awesome Ed made it sound with such low tech on those first few albums. I read somewhere that Ed wanted Kramer to make an exact replica of that guitar for the kids. But Kramer couldn't stand the thought of putting their name on and charging so much for such a beater.

Obviously, the Ernie Ball's DiMarzio pickups are a little hotter than what came in the Kramers back in the day. I mean, did anyone actually keep their stock pickups in a Kramer? NO! I went through EMG's, a SD-59 and Gibson PAF in several of my Kramers. I guess the difference in sound is made by how much better you play because the neck is more comfortable on some guitars than on others. If you have some Hondo POS guitar and a real Les Paul Custom, which are you gonna play more enthusiastically and want to practice more with?

Anyway, you look like a giant in those videos, so maybe the Ernie Ball is gonna feel too small for your mitts. You might be better off with the old, wideneck Kramer stuff. Lots of awesome hockey stick maple necks on eBay.

excellent point..it is largely a matter of comfort between guitars..most 'sounding' the same, all things being equal thru amps, effects..unless there's a dramatic difference in pickups and how they're seated in relation to the strings. lol..not a giant..6'2" and 230 most days..but you're right about the wide necks often feeling more comfortable for my longer fingers. i do notice that it's harder for me to play legato quickly than it was when i was younger and slimmer, even though fingers are much stronger today. it's easily noticeable to me since i quit for 18 years..differences seem more obvious than had i never stopped and observed the changes associated with aging. how old are you now..and have you noticed any changes in your basic fingering abilities from the 80's, too?

The only difference I've noticed in my fingering ability is that I have to put my wedding band on my right hand when I play, or else I bang up the neck with it. I haven't been married that long, so it's still an adjustment.

Also, the Internet has severely degraded my ability to learn by ear. In the old days it was press play, pause, rewind, play, pause and that was the only way to learn except for when the song you wanted was featured in TAB in one of the guitar mags. Nowadays I don't even bother sitting down to learn by ear. I just look it up on Youtube or Google the TAB for it. Although I do think I can pick stuff up faster with less effort now. But man, back in the day my ears were trained.

BTW, Ed used the shark guitar on the cover of Women and Children First for recording most of the first couple albums. Everyone thinks it was the Frankenstrat, but he only used that for stuff he needed a whammy bar for. There are some real cool fan replicas on the Internet.

sounds like we've both done tons of ed homework over the years..knew about the guitar..also used an ibanez destroyer. anyway, same here..can learn songs much faster than back int he day..i think it's a good trade-off for any finger-speed losses..i'm not interested in shredding anyway. trying to incorporate ed licks into whatever unique voice of my own and approach to play and soloing that i'm currently doing. i've begun slacking off practice past couple months..i try to run thru panama, i'm the one, eruption, u really got me, full bug at least every other day..not working on anything new at the moment. i was goofing around with the song 5150 a couple months back, but faking the rhythm part down at the nut rather than neck, also a little of black and blue. no doubt we'd have a blast jamming were we in the same town, rick.

Yeah, you gotta come to Phoenix. Though I don't have anyone here to jam with. I started looking on Craigslist a while back and so many of the ads said "no combo amps." WTF? Do I really need a full stack to jam with a band or prove I'm any good? I unloaded my big gear when I stopped gigging and before I moved to AZ. My combo will shake the fillings out of anyone's teeth. It's plenty loud. Alas, I'm a home player for now. I have the D-Tuna on my Ernie Ball, which I use for 5150. Love that song. I read an interview with Ed around the VHIII tour where he said he had to go back and relearn I'm the One for the tour and really struggled with that fast first lick. He said there were probably kids out there who could still play it better than he could. Ha ha.

no combo amps? that's pretty funny..guess those guys only gig in places where there's no p.a. gear? with one of those you don't need that much amp anyway. i wouldn't wanna have to drag stacks around either..if i absolutely have to be playing thru those today, i better be touring, selling records and have an army of groupies, coast to coast.. :D

don't have a d-tuna, but would get one..unchained is in d-tuning, but i just fake it. yeah, i'm the one is the coolest..it's soo hard to get it to swing just right, tje main rhythmic phrase..all the staccatos are on upstrokes..it's so badass..and the first fast lick..i'm stillll trying to get it down correctly..i seem to fake it differently every time! i'd ;ove to read the article you're talking about..lol. there are indeed some damn kids out there who can pulverize it! not atomic...just punks! ;)