I have to assume the majority of those who visit Van Halen related sites are music freaks. I'm very excited about this site, as well as any other site related to the "greatness" that is Van Halen.
I originate from the Oklahoma City suburbs, but have been in Dallas for the last ten years. My first taste of music came from Kiss' "Destroyer" album when I was nine (Thanks mom!) At the time, "Beth" was the primary reason I was interested in the album, but soon found myself preferring "Detroit Rock City", "Do You Love Me" and "Flaming Youth". Before long, I happened on to Queen's "News of the World" and ultimately became a huge Brian May fan. (I still get chills when I hear the tone of his guitar.)
Finally, MTV came along and opened my world to numerous other artists who I still respect to this day. I couldn't wait for Saturday nights to roll around because MTV would feature concerts from bands such as
REO Speedwagon, Journey, Iron Maiden, etc. These concerts were the highlight of my week. I still value these concerts ten times more than anything MTV has aired since.
My mom eventually decided I needed to broaden my horizons and signed me up for guitar lessons. (age thirteen) As most beginners, I had to start out on acoustic. I liked the acoustic ok, but definitely preferred the sound of Gary Richrath's Les Paul/Marshall combo. (REO was another one of my favorites growing up.) One day, I'm watching MTV and see Van Halen's "Unchained" video for the first time. I must confess, at the time I was not that familiar with Van Halen. All I knew was that I loved the heaviness of the song and couldn't help but notice their guitar player and his guitar with all the stripes, circles, triangles, etc. on it. At the end of the video, it's pure chaos. The drummer's gong is on fire, the lead singer's doing these crazy acrobatic jumps...and the guitar player's doing something to his guitar neck with his right hand. The video shot was too far away for me to figure out exactly what he was doing. All I know is the sound that was coming out of my tv's speaker while he was doing this was hypnotic. At that point, I was a
Eddie Van Halen fanatic. I've never recovered from that moment...and probably never will.
That's basically my story. I LOVE music and look forward to interacting with all the other music lovers on this site!
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