Eddie Van Halen 1978

Eddie Van Halen 1978, hand-drawn here at the Day Of The Green Concert #3, July 23, 1978 Oakland Coliseum, age 23. Shown here with his Frankenstrat 1, on their first US Van Halen Tour.

In 2011, Rolling Stone ranked Eddie Van Halen number eight in the list of the 100 Greatest Guitarists.

Van Halen is an American hard rock band formed in Pasadena, California, in 1972. From 1974 until 1985, the band consisted of
guitarist Eddie Van Halen, vocalist David Lee Roth, drummer Alex Van Halen, and bassist Michael Anthony.

With hits such as “Jump”, “Panama”, “I’ll Wait”, “Runnin’ With The Devil”, “Eruption”, “Dance The Night Away”.

In 2007, Van Halen was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

About The Frankenstrat:
Eddie built this guitar himself in 1974. He had an idea to make something of a crossover between a Fender and a Gibson;
he liked the tremolo and the looks of a Fender, but he preferred Gibson sound. With that idea in mind, he went down to Boogie Bodies guitars
whose parts were used on early Charvels, and bought himself a factory second unfinished body and neck, paying total of $130.
The body he bought was the first one he saw laying around in the store, but he paid close attention to choosing the right neck –
he looked for a wide neck with a really thin profile and big Gibson-style frets.
Eddie painted the body black. He then took masking tape and rolled it around the body couple of times, and then repainted the whole body white.
This created the black stripes, which soon became a sort of a trademark of Eddie’s. He also made the pickguard himself,
and as a finishing touch added a Gibson decal on the headstock.

As for the some other parts he used, there was a Fender tremolo from an old 1958 Stratocaster, Schaller tuners, and a Gibson PAF pickup
from his old ES-335 – which he dipped into paraffin wax (Dr. Zogg’s Sex Wax specifically) filled Yuban coffee can, in order to get rid of the feedback.

He played the guitar (or at least this version of it) on Van Halen’s first album, and during the band’s first tour.
Towards the end of the tour, the guitar was changed to feature a white pickguard and a rosewood neck.

In the mid 1979 Eddie decided to go back to his first Frankenstrat guitar, but he thought it needed some modification.
He bought some bicycle paint and painted the whole thing red, leaving black and white stripes on it, now called the Frankenstrat V2.

The 1978 instrumental “Eruption” by Van Halen showcased a solo technique called “tapping”, using both left and right hands on the guitar neck.
Although Van Halen popularized tapping, he did not, despite popular belief, invent the tapping technique. The tapping technique in blues and rock
was picked up by various guitarists in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s.

Despite his massive success, Eddie Van Halen has never fully learned to read music.

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