There is much written about this track as we all know and in view of Eddie Van Halen’s untimely death recently I had to pick this as another track from my teenage days of the 70’s. I had a band at the time in the NY Catskill mountains where my parents had a weekend farmhouse. We used to practice in the bass player’s huge barn, which had an apartment upstairs with a pool table. It was in that apartment that I was turned on to the explosive first album of Van Halen. The bass player said, “check this out…you won’t F***in’ believe this guy’s guitar playing!” and he played Eruption! Our jaws dropped to the ground as we puffed our smokes and guzzled beer and Tequila Sunrises! We must have played that record a hundred times that night and starred at the fiery cover in between playing pool.
As a teenage guitarist this changed my outlook of guitar, tone and technique forever. In the coming months I quickly learned the 2-hand tapping technique and the band started to play “You Really Got Me” and “Runnin’ With the Devil” at bars and high school dances. You have to remember, in those days it was before Van Halen was huge and household name, way before the MTV days and their super hits. Not many people knew about VH especially on the East Coast at this time, so we really felt it was our band, something special we related to and felt that their music spoke directly to us.
You can learn more about Van Halen here:
Image Credit: Carl Lender on Wikipedia
About the Curator: Brian Tarquin
Multi Emmy Award winning Brian Tarquin is an established top rate composer/guitarist. He has won 3 Emmy's for “Outstanding Achievement in Music Direction and Composition for a Drama Series” and has been nominated for an Emmy 6 times. In 2019 Tarquin received a Global Music Gold Award for his release Orlando In Heaven for “Best Album.” Three years in a row (2016-2019) Tarquin received “Best Album of the Year” nominations from the Independent Music Awards for his releases: Guitars for Wounded Warriors, Orlando in Heaven, and Guitars for Veterans. On which, Tarquin shows his guitar prowess alongside such world-class shredders as: Steve Morse, Larry Coryell, Billy Sheehan, Bumblefoot (Guns N’ Roses), Reb Beach (Whitesnake), Chuck Loeb (FourPlay) to name a few. In 2006 SESAC honored him with the Network Television Performance Award. Tarquin has graced the Top Billboard Charts with such commercial releases as: This is Acid Jazz, Vol. 2, Sweet Emotions, and Bossa Brava: Caliente on Instinct Records, followed by several solo jazz albums, which charted Top 10 at Smooth Jazz Radio R&R and Gavin charts. Brian has appeared on 38 releases, selling over 140,000 records in his career.
