Read yesterday that although Eddie's throat cancer was terminal, it was a massive stroke that claimed his life suddenly and before the family was expecting it. Eddie was cremated and ashes were giving to his son. Eddie was 65.

Also his son isn't happy Eddie's guitars ( not sure all of them as he had many) were sold.

Read Eric Clapton's 1954 Fender Stratocaster (blackie?) was put up for auction with the minimum bid at 1 million. It didn't sell. Nobody bid on it at that price.

Eddie's guitars including Frankenstrat went for 465 thousand. 

@robertdee

I’m not sure what your source is regarding Wolfgang’s supposed anger over Ed’s guitars, but Wolfgang has stated in several interviews recently that Ed left his vast collection of guitars, amps, equipment, etc. to him..He also hinted that Ed’s studio, 5150, and most likely Ed’s house, have been legally passed to him.

Have some guitars been auctioned off over the years of Ed’s life for the benefit of various charities? Yes....Including the 75 Peavey Wolfgangs Ed donated to Mr. Holland’s Opus several years back..

Have many been given to Ed’s friends over the years? Yes...Dweezil Zappa, Jerry Cantrel, Dimebag Darrel, Jack White, Jason Becker to name a few....

I would add that Ed had boatloads of Frankenstrat type guitars very similar to the original one...Wolfgang stated on Howard Stern a few weeks back that he has the original and the “backup” shown in the Panama video....Along with many others Ed tinkered with, striped, modified, etc...

@chain

Yeah ,I agree Chain. Ed's guitars went to Wolf.

@chain  I did see that clip from Stern where Wolf was talking about those. I have not seen the whole interview with him just bits and pieces.

@jszfunk

If you can find it, check out the whole interview as it’s quite enlightening about the delay in Wolf’s releasing his new album, the band he’s assembled to tour behind it, the idea of one last Van Halen tour with all the members past and present, etc....Stern did a great job I thought...

@chain  Thanks I will check it out. I did listen to the Eddie Trunk podcast that he did with Wolf. It was pretty good.

Wolf was pissed at the timing of the auction, as it appeared to be taking advantage of the situation with EVH's recent passing.  Pissed might be too strong of a word, but apparently he made some negative twitter or instagram comments about it as he is wont to do when he doesn't like something.  Which is understandable given the situation.  But I imagine the auction was planned considerably in advance, including the items to be auctioned off.

The auction was $465k for three EVH guitars.  One was the non-playable mini-frankenstrat the kid in the Hot For Teacher video portraying Eddie used as a prop.  That sold for $50k.  One was a Kramer giveaway guitar that Ed and Matt Bruck constructed out of Kramer parts that went for $230k.  As Chain mentioned above, Ed assembled boatloads of those guitars in the 1980s and gave them away over the years.  And the third guitar was a 2004  EVH Charvel Art Series replica guitar of the Frankenstrat in its VH1 colors that (surprisingly to me) went for $141k.  That was the first year of the EVH/Charvel replicas and they weren't yet mass produced like the later Striped Series.  The one sold at auction has photos of Ed hand-striping (taping) it.  As I recall, the 2004 Art Series were auctioned off and would go for $25-50k at the time.  I don't know if it was the '04 reunion tour with Sammy, or '07-08 reunion tour with DLR, but at some point they began auctioning one off at each tour stop and Eddie would play the guitar for one song that night, certificate of authenticity, etc. etc.

https://www.blabbermouth.net/news/three-of-eddie-van-halens-iconic-guitars-sold-for-422050/

It's only starting to come out now, and like it or not I suspect we will hear more details in the months/years to come, but it's apparent EVH suffered quite a lot the last months of his life.  I suspect the stroke that got him was complications from all the other medications/treatments he suffered through.  He had skin cancer on his head/neck, a blood cell disorder that can be caused by chemo, metastatic lung cancer for 3 years that went to his brain.  It's no wonder he was such a hermit. 

@zambi So it sounds like these guitars were not currently owned by Ed/the Van Halens. Ones that were given away over the years and not recently in possesion by Wolf/Ed. I get it now...

Posted by: @jszfunk

@zambi So it sounds like these guitars were not currently owned by Ed/the Van Halens. Ones that were given away over the years and not recently in possesion by Wolf/Ed. I get it now...

Correct.  That is my understanding.

I've been listening to some of the Wolfgang interviews.  The Stern one was great.  Sounds like Wolf has all his dad's guitars that are meaningful or have any historical significance, one way or the other.  Of the first two Kramer guitars that were assembled in 1983 as EVH's touring guitars, Ed's backup #2 guitar was labelled "1984".  Wolf mentioned that his dad gifted him the 1984 guitar and it was all "legal" and his.  EVH had mentioned in interviews a few years ago that Wolf had the original Frankenstrat also, and I believe had used it on some of the recordings for WVH Mammoth.  And I've read that Wolf has acknowledged in other interviews that they still have the Kramer #1 touring guitar with the "5150" markings, and presumably all of the others remain at the 5150 studio compound.

The headline should read:

“Three guitars that are striped were sold at an auction for charity.”

 

They weren’t stage guitars.

I had nothing to do with this.

I don’t EVER plan on selling any of my father’s iconic guitars.

The only place they’d possibly belong in is a museum.  https://t.co/npM4TZKWYU

— Wolf Van Halen (@WolfVanHalen) December 3, 2020

So back to the thread topic, that video with Jason Becker and Ed is great. And indeed touching.  The title mentions it's from August 1996.  In Van Halen World, Hagar was fired/quit in June 1996.  And the Best of Volume 1 compilation dropped in late October 1996, so this would likely have been the time DLR was back in the fold to record the 2 new songs on BOV1.  I wonder if DLR put Ed in touch with Becker, or how that came about.  (Becker was DLR's guitarist on A Little Ain't Enough album from 1991.)

It was also cool seeing Ed noodling on his Peavey Wolfgang that he gave to Becker.  I heard Me Wise Magic and Can't Get This Stuff No More (the 2 new songs from BOV1), as well as a few of the riffs that wound up on 1998's VH3 record with Gary Cherone (Without You, Dirty Water Dog??).

@zambi  Yeah I was wondering about that too, getting in touch with Becker via Dave . I do remember him playing on that release and he could not tour due to his illness. Thats been almost 30 yrs ago.

Always dug this tune off of there.

Posted by: @jszfunk

Always dug this tune off of there.

 

Thanks for posting that tune. I need to check out this album and the one that followed.  I had mentally checked out of DLR world after he went pop with Skyscraper and then Vai and Sheehan left his band.  And then when I came back around to DLR it was during the time frame that DLR Band was falling apart and his bizarro No Holds Bar-B-Q video movie soundtrack thing, and his touring band was the Atomic Punks VH tribute band.  So I passed on him again. But I like what I've heard of the solo stuff he recorded with John 5 that was shelved in 2007 when DLR rejoined VH.  And probably some other decent stuff with Becker and John 5 from the 1990s that I missed and need to check out.

A little more context on timing of the Jason Becker visit and video.  The MTV Video Music Awards that had the "Welcome Back Kotter" themed reintroduction of the original VH lineup was Wednesday, September 4th, 1996 at Radio City (per Wiki).  So that sorta explains why they were already on the East Coast, and allowed for quick jaunt down to Becker's place in Virginia the weekend before when this video was taken.  Again, touching video.

@zambi  Your Filthy Little Mouth is not to bad, kinda all over the place ,but some solid tunes. The DLR band one is pretty good, with John 5 on guitar.

Watching Ed play the main riffs for what would become Me Wise Magic and Can't Get This Stuff No More was pretty cool.  I've always loved both of those tunes.

To me at least there's something about the gritty yet super crisp tone on both tunes that blend nicely with Roth's sort of rusty vocals (rusty in the sense that apparently Roth hadn't sang all that much before they recorded these songs and so was vocally weak and straining to hit the notes in the studio....which can clearly be heard on the recorded version of MWM)....

Posted by: @chain

Watching Ed play the main riffs for what would become Me Wise Magic and Can't Get This Stuff No More was pretty cool.  I've always loved both of those tunes.

To me at least there's something about the gritty yet super crisp tone on both tunes that blend nicely with Roth's sort of rusty vocals (rusty in the sense that apparently Roth hadn't sang all that much before they recorded these songs and so was vocally weak and straining to hit the notes in the studio....which can clearly be heard on the recorded version of MWM)....

 

I agree.  And I think CGTSNM undeservedly gets bashed as a filler tune. I like it, and I think they should have added it to the live repertoire as it seemed to fit nicely in DLR's limited vocal range.  Although, I guess prior to 2020 Hagar was dead to the Van Halens, and he got a writing credit for CGTSNM because they had worked it up in the Balance sessions and seems they used Hagar's melody or melodies, at least in parts of the DLR-version of the song. 

MWM was out of Dave's vocal range, except for the talking parts.  It is the better of the two songs, for sure, but Dave couldn't sing it.  No way he could pull it off live either.  Not without transposing it to a different key.

When they do get into the vaults, I hope they share versions of the songs that multiple singers worked on.  Like CGTSNM vs. Back Door Shuffle from Balance.  Apparently, the Brothers brought what became Summer Nights and one other off 5150 to Roth before the split in 1985.  The Cherone follow-up record to VH3 had songs that turned up on A Different Kind of Truth, or possibly the "new" Hagar songs from the 2004 Best of Both Worlds compilation were leftover songs written for Cherone.  And they had started working on a record with DLR around 2000 before that fell apart.  Anyway, depending on how far each singer got working on the same songs, it would be cool to hear the different approaches. 

Might not be enough there for public consumption though, and I cannot really see the VH vocalists would allow that to happen.

@zambi I posted this earlier about the vaults. If you have some time check it out.

https://allmanbrothersband.com/community/general-chat-anything-goes/engineer-brian-kehew-talks-van-halen-and-what-he-found-in-the-warner-bros-vault-and-eddie-van-halens-home-studio-1998-you-had-to-be-there/#post-165065