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The Making Of A Guitar Genius.

This month we look at Van Halen's greatest riffs.
There's not too much that can be said about Van Halen that hasn't been said before. In Edward Van Halen they had a guitarist to challenge the likes of Clapton and Hendrix for the mantle of the most influential guitarist of all time. Never before had such a brutally raw and overdriven guitar tone been recorded and married with Eddie's two handed tapping, rapid fire hammer and pull licks and his use of artificial and natural harmonics combined to make even the most seasoned guitarist stand up and take notice. When hearing Eruption from Van Halen's first album most guitarists thought that the tapping section was a sequenced synthesizer.
If Eddie's guitarwork wasn't enough to grab your attention Van Halen had a not so secret weapon in the guise of David Lee Roth. Not so much was the man a classic singer of his genre he was merely the man with the largest ego the world has ever and probably ever will encounter. He makes Robbie Williams ( The ego has landed) look like a choirboy!!!
Together the combination was an all time classic band, one of those things that only happen once in a long while.

This month I've transcribed and created backing tracks for what I consider to be the definitive Van Halen riffs. All the songs come from the Van Halen/ Roth era as even though both Van Halen and David Lee Roth have made some great songs since their split/reunion/split again the songs don't have quite the same magic and energy as they did when both ingredients were in the mixing pot.
I've started out at the very beginning with Running with the Devil and Aint Talkin Bout Love from VH1and picked tracks from all the albums up to the split after 1984.
The selection includes Pretty Woman from Diver Down , I know this is a cover version but so is half this album and I don't think Roy Orbison ever played it quite this way!!!!

As a final treat I've got the Demo version of Runnin' With The Devil that I believe was funded by Kiss's Gene Simmons for you to download, the Demo also featured an early version of House of Pain ..... have a listen and I think you'll understand why they didn't get signed on merits of a demo and rather on their live performance.

Enjoy the tracks and Tabs

Chris Taylor