On the occasion of Eddie’s death, reviewing Van Halen stuff and
1) I had missed how revolutionary this was at the time. I’d noticed that I couldn’t really appreciate Hendrix because my sense of what rock *was* came from stuff after him, I’m realizing same for Eddie. By the time I was paying attention in the early 90s, “interrupt the song for a showoffy guitar solo” was a tired trope
2) I used to think the 80s big hair/spandex thing was a parodic dead end but honestly David Lee Roth brings more Jagger/Bowie genderweirdness to his manic masculinity than I remember
"}