[kj] A Different Sort of "Gathering" (OT)

[TB]

"Stevie "workslave" Robinson" wrote:

Sent: Friday, October 06, 2006 1:29 PM
Subject: Re: [kj] A Different Sort of "Gathering" (OT)


Not on this side of the Altlantic, oh no, it's just occured to me, are 
you're talking about people like Ratt, that sort of thing?

++++++++++++

Actually Van Halen had a huge influence on a lot of the British heavy metal 
bands as well starting around 1980 - '81. Not as overt as the Ratts, Motley 
Crues, Dokkens and many other hard rock bands (primarily out of Southern 
California in the early 80's) form the US but you look at bands like Judas 
Priest pre-1980 and then after about 1984 and you'll see the influence in a 
lot of facets, not just their music (especially the guitar player's style) 
but the costuming and live show presentation. It's like after Van Halen's 
1980 tour, *every* hard rock band had to pile a mountain of speaker cabinets 
sky high on stage and every singer had to start moving and working the stage 
instead of standing stock still in front of a mic stand. Early Roth era Van 
Halen brought "sex" (and women) back into hard rock arena concerts that had 
mostly been missing since mid 70's Led Zeppelin and KISS.

To get a good idea of just how influential (especially Eddie) Van Halen 
still is, you walk into almost any decent music gear store and likely hear 
some kid trying to ape an Eddie solo or riff trying out a new guitar over 
someone peeling off a riff or solo from say, The Edge, Carlos Santana, 
Johnny Thunders or Geordie.

As far as hard rock, I'd say only Jimi Hendrix, Led Zep, KISS, maybe AC/DC 
and perhaps Queen overall have been a more pervasive influence on the genre 
than Van Halen.

T.B.