RIP Eddie Van Halen ..

-

RIP #EddieVanHalen

Guitar G*d to *millions* and an essential part of the summer soundtrack of our youth(because, back then, it was always summer, no?).

It was on one of those many(fun, before I discovered my fear of flying) #GulfAir flights that I discovered #VanHalen. Back then, if the kids can believe it, you had audio programming in different channels when you plugged in these strange rubber two-pronged neckphones. I cycled between rock, oldies, and comedy (so many awesome #TheGoonShow, er, shows, but that's a story for another #TBT day…), always embracing the opportunity to not expand my horizons. And because all of them were on a loop, if you timed it right you could listen to your favourites multiple times by returning to the channel. I listened to #WhenItsLove, oh, maybe a 1000 times!

What a strange, fun bunch! What album names: 1984(an album name that's simply a year?), OU812(an album name made up of a series of unrelated letters and numbers? ohhh…), For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge(weird title…until a batchmate helpfully pointed out the concept of an acronym to me…woah…did the teachers know we were listening to this in the common room😲?!).

Then that one evening where I watched the video for #RightNow while making my way around South India as a wayward teen (*definitely* a coming-of-age story for another TBT day😏!), man, those words hit home, no?

Later on my quirky but ever-informative suitemate Kerry taught me about guitar g*ds, strange names like #JoeSatriani, #SteveVai, #StevieRayVaughan…and, he so helpfully, explained to me, EVH.

You see, these weren't just super-fun, super-catchy, super-awesome songs that we listened to too loud in our bedrooms, no, the music had some *serious* chops behind it, and orchestrating it all was Eddie.

Years after that I met TBH, and we've been locked in a ceaseless battle since: she's Team Roth, I'm Team Hagar.

No matter what team you're on, Eddie and Van Halen will be the soundtrack to our ever-eternal youth, because as soon as you put on those headphones and those first guitar licks come crashing through the diaphragm, you're back to being a kid again, with the horizon stretched long ahead of you…

- - -

#RIP #Eddie #MozartOfRockGuitar #rock #music #rocknroll #guitar #musician #legend #hero

- - -

Van Halen (1978)
Van Halen II (1979)
Women and Children First (1980)
Fair Warning (1981)
Diver Down (1982)
1984 (1984)
5150 (1986)
OU812 (1988)
For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge (1991)
Balance (1995)
Van Halen III (1998)
A Different Kind of Truth (2012)

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Voyagers .

-
Image
#Voyagers Good, clean #LordOfTheFlies YA poli-sci-fi fun. Expert craftsmanship, especially when you consider the budget for indie-sci-fi's. Beautiful work by the DP(well-lit scenes so you don't have to squint, imagine that?, and those richly saturated colours!), composer(not resorting to easy sci-fi tropes), and esp the drool-worthy production design(that, too, on a budget!). And, to top it all off, expert sound design by Hsu, the hardest-working (sound)man in the indie film biz👏! And the kids?, well, they're certainly all right, highlighted by a terrific villain in Whitehead, kid's a keeper. - - - #NeilBurger #PaulHsu #ScottChambliss #EnriqueChediak #TrevorGureckis #FionnWhitehead #TyeSheridan #LilyRoseDepp(#VanessaParadis's kid!, boy time moves fast😳!) #ChanteAdams #ViveikKalra(#BlindedByTheLight!) #IsaacHempsteadWright(#GoT!) #ColinFarrell(yes, that CF, be still TBH's beating heart!) @voyagersfilm @lionsgate @neil.burger
Read more

The Dog (2014) .

-
Image
#TBT so how about a #Throwback Movie? 😁 #TheDog (2014) One of those headspinning truth-is-stranger-than-fiction-way-stranger stories that the good documentaries, uh, spin so very well. If "The Dog" weren't a real person, you'd have to make him up! You always hear that tagline, right?, the [blank] was only the beginning…that was never truer here. I mean, yeah, we've all seen #DogDayAfternoon, but there's so much more that happened before..and after😲. Wojtowicz himself is a terrific character, and kudos to the documentarians for digging beneath that charismatic, seemingly-fun surface to hint at the darkness beneath. And, kudos, also, for giving a showcase to his mom, a star in her own right! And how about all that early gay rights activism footage…real eye-opening stuff. An informative, absorbing, entertaining documentary about a quintessential New York character. - - - #AllisonBerg #FrankKeraudren #JohnWojtowicz #TheresaWojtowicz #Sidn
Read more

WolfWalkers .

-
Image
#WolfWalkers Wonderful, just bl**dy wonderful! The kind of intelligent, layered, nervewrack/heartwarm/thoughtprovok-ing, non-1000-gags-per-minute-headache inducing kid's film you don't see too often these days. Let's start with that eye-watering, beautiful, lyrical, artwork (I'm not an art major, but looks like they do lotsa interesting stuff with perspectives🤔?). Every frame is one of those, uh, frame-worthy efforts, inspired by those awesome woodcut-type stuff I used to see at my Aunt's place, contrasting with the magical, mythical forests(like I said, I'm not an art major…TL;DR: it's *beautiful*!). There's a lesson in there for all of us: never let budget, or lack thereof, stand in your way! Speaking of lessons, dude, this film has *all* the allegory(?metaphor? unlike Kornheiser, I wasn't an English major😁) you can handle, especially for a kid's film(actually, all the good ones have some layer of subtext, right?). "Into your
Read more