Cowboys, Clowns and Becoming A Man Of The House

In 1982 I lived in Dallas, Texas.  My family had moved there in 1977 from San Antonio because of my father’s work.  It was the summer of my sophomore year in high school – and I was excited to be going into my Junior year.    Because of the movie Urban Cowboy, I had definitely gone into a “country western phase” and I was fully immersed into it.  I wore the giant belt buckles, the hat, the Wrangler boot cut jeans and the boots.  I had the pickup truck with the gun rack, the spittoon and the custom stereo system installed at the local Pacific Stereo at the mall (remember those).

But, here’s the thing – I still listened to rock and roll.  AC/DC, Styx, Boston, Aerosmith and Kiss – those were my Summer staples.  Windows rolled down, cowboy hat and sunglasses on – blasting Styx’s “Renegade”.  I can still draw the Styx logo from Pieces of Eight album amazingly well.

And, it was on one of those hot, summer days – the kind that only Dallas offers – 102 degrees, humid and stifling that my dad gathered my sister and me into the family room and had “the talk”.

They were getting divorced.  I was 15 and my sister 10.   My dad would leave immediately and live somewhere else.  I took it in typical, dramatic teenage fashion – getting up and running to my room.

The Yellow Brick Road To My Passion

I started playing the piano when I was nine years old.  It was the typical situation – I hated going every Tuesday evening, but enjoyed the McDonald’s Happy Meal that always awaited me on the other side of my one hour lesson.  For my recitals – which happened monthly –  I almost always stuck to classical fare such as Beethoven’s Fur Elise’, Ravel’s Bolero or Beethoven’s Sonata 20 in G Major.

So then, the first album I ever bought (as opposed to one that was given to me) was Elton John’s Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.  Of course my first album had to be a double album – I was starved for music.   And, the power of that album made me want to play rock and roll piano for the rest of my life.  I ran home from the record store, the album stuffed under my shirt.  I unwrapped the cellophane of the album, opened up the liner notes, placed the vinyl on the record player and sat down next to my bed.  I put on my headphones and turned it up.  What happened next would change my life forever.

So, the album starts with Funeral For a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding.  As it starts, there’s this eerie, smoky synthesizer with bells in the background.  Then, this synthesized organ comes on with feels like a processional.  It turns into this grand, majestic synthesized orchestral piece and it goes right to a crescendo and then….. just as quickly subsides.

The piano that comes next still haunts me every time I hear it.

Van Halen Star Guitar

This guitar comes with a great story. Picture this if you will. It’s 1982 and the biggest rock band in the world is VAN HALEN. I was 12 years old and had only been playing guitar for 9 months. Eruption and the Mean Streets intro were on a constant loop in my head. I was signed up to play at my school talent show. It was coming up in a week. I was going to play “Running With The Devil” with my little teenage rocking combo.

In the days before the show we received a phone call at our house from a guy claiming to be Edward Van Halen. My mom answered the phone and talked with him for a bit. She whispered to me, “This guy says he’s Eddie Van Halen, pick up the other phone and listen to see if you think it really is.” Of course I jumped for the other phone extension and quietly picked it up. I heard a gritty voice on the other end talking about wanting to come over and meet Frank Zappa. I had no reference of the sound of Edward Van Halen’s voice except for the possible long shot audio clip from Unchained where a voice is heard saying, “Come on Dave, give us a break.” I thought maybe that was Edward’s voice, or maybe it was Ted Templeman’s voice? It didn’t matter. I wanted it to be Edward Van Halen so I said to Gail, “It’s him… it has to be him!”

Frank picked up the phone and talked for a short time. He hung up the phone saying, “Okay I’ll see you in a few minutes.” 20 minutes later Edward Van Halen was at our house. He had a new guitar with him. A purple Kramer with a piece of tape covering the logo. Frank called Steve Vai and asked him to come over. What followed as the coolest night a 12 year old guitar player could ever imagine, or perhaps any guitar player. Edward Van Halen, Steve Vai, and Frank Zappa all passed around this new purple guitar. Occasionally I would fumble around on it as well.

Randy Rhoads Changed My Life

I didn’t know that I wanted to play the guitar until one was literally placed into my hands.  When my older brother Todd decided to learn how to play the drums, the rules of brotherhood decree that I too must learn a musical instrument.  That image of our father walking through the front door with a snare drum in one hand and an acoustic guitar in the other is forever etched in my memory.  However, simply handing the instrument to me at eight years of age wasn’t enough to set me on a life-long path.  The desire, dedication, and determination had to have been prevalent.  When I first placed my left hand on the fret-board and held the pick in my right hand, I knew that playing the guitar was something I would do for the rest of my life.  Unfortunately, there were a few people who felt the contrary.

One guitar teacher after another professed to my parents that they were wasting their money.  They were convinced that I didn’t have the ability to play the guitar and therefore refused to continue trying to teach me.  The problem was, not one teacher bothered to ask if I was right-handed or left-handed.  I am a lefty who was given a right-handed instrument.  Innocently, I had no knowledge of the fact that lefties played the guitar “backwards.”  Subsequently, I took the guitar upstairs to my bedroom and taught myself how to play.  In the process, unbeknownst to me at the time, I became ambidextrous as well.  Necessity truly is the mother of all invention.

Early idols of mine were Styx’ Tommy Shaw and Rush’ Alex Lifeson.  Edward Van Halen’s emergence had a similar impact on me as he had on many guitarists.  His style, which incorporated finger tapping, forever changed the way the instrument would be played.  Soon thereafter, another guitar player gained recognition for his classical-rock based style.  Ozzy Osbourne’s guitarist, Randy Rhoads changed my life.  Although I loved Randy’s playing, I was equally inspired by his devotion to the instrument.  He was always striving to improve and I loved that about him.

Ladies and Gentlemen, The Professor Of The Drumkit.

I was in 6th grade, age 12, when my life as a young man changed. Chris Davis, a neighbor kid from down the block, belonged to one of those mail-order record clubs where you receive something like fifteen albums in return for one penny. Chris, like me, was a drummer, and one afternoon brought over a stack of records for a listening party in my basement. One of the albums he had was “All The World’s a Stage,” the 1976 double live set by the Canadian power trio Rush. I’d first heard of Rush months earlier when I read a review of their “A Farewell To Kings” LP in the sci-fi magazine Starlog, the album only meriting a mention because of the album’s centerpiece, an epic outer space prog suite entitled “Cygnus X-1.” But even as a 12-year-old, I read the magazine article with skepticism; a rock band playing a song about a spaceship seemed a little ridiculous, and my impression of Rush (never having heard them) was that they were a bunch of nerds.

But here was “All The World’s A Stage,” and looking at the album, I was excited. The album cover showed an image of the Rush stage set at the recording’s venue, Toronto’s Massey Hall. It was a dramatic photo, with no band members in sight. The lights were up, the group’s naked-guy-in-a-pentagram logo glowed brightly above, and in center stage stood a massive drumkit, a veritable forest of drums, cymbals and hardware. I was in awe of this drumkit. The picture conveyed a sense of anticipation. Where was the band? Were Rush about to take the stage? Had they just taken a curtain call and left? Where the hell were they?

The Day My Life “Erupted”

I remember to this day the very first time I heard Eruption by Van Halen. It was a day just like any other day, except that in 1 minute and 42 seconds, my life was changed forever. It was 1980 and I was in 6^th grade. I had already found a love for music. In fact my brother and I had formed a band. He was on drums and I was on the Casiotone. We had been Columbia Music House members for  years and spent most of our time listening to Kiss, Steve Miller and Black Sabbath.

I knew what hard rock/heavy metal guitar sounded like, but I had no idea what it could sound like.

I had arrived early for school  that day  and was walking down the hallway to my classroom – big winter coat, dorky clothes, serious bed head  and books in hand. I heard music coming from one of the classrooms. Being a curious kid I opened the door. At the front of the room were two fellow 6^th Graders. They were what we called burnouts. They were in my grade but they were huge – both in size and attitude. I remember their names – Roy Nelson and Doug Shanley.  They were hovering over a record player. They both turned to me, Roy lifted the needle.

He looked me right in the eyes and said “This is the future” and placed the needle back onto the vinyl.

And what followed was 1 minute and 42 seconds of the most mind blowing shit I had ever heard in my life. It was like a bomb went off. The wind was sucked right out of me.  I literally dropped my books and my jaw and stood there transfixed. Coming out of the tiny 5 inch speaker were the most amazing and unbelievable sounds I had ever heard in my life. And in an instant, it was over. Doug  looked at me and smiled. I said “What was that?” He said, “Eruption by Eddie Van Fucking Halen.” “Play it again….please.” And they did – over and over and over. There we were –  three 11 year olds listening, wondering and dreaming of “the future”until the school bell rang.