Van Halen Diver Down Song by Song Thread

Secrets is easily my favorite song on this album.

 

Nice! Thanks.

 

Hang 'Em High - It's OK. I like it.

Secrets - I liked it for a long time, but then I just got sick of hearing it after they released it as a single. I thought it was unusually mellow for VH. The way I understand it, the "Diver Down" album was sort of a concession to Eddie who wanted to go in a more melodic direction with keyboards, and the later album "1984" was a concession to DLR. I guess DLR was more in tune to what their core audience wanted at that point.

 

Dammit! The wow is driving crazy! Why in the hell couldn't the uploader center the groove> It sounds awful!

 

According to their manager at the time, it's the exact opposite of that. Dave really wanted to get Dancing In the Street out as part of a covers EP to patch the gap between tours. They were looking to have a longer break to re-charge from the album-tour cycle. But when Pretty Woman became an unexpectedly large hit, they were pushed to use whatever they had available to make it album-length.

1984, with its longer gestation and inclusion of keyboards (over Dave's initial protest) was the ultimate concession to the brothers.

 

That sounds right.

 

It was no surprise to me when I found that when he was young, EVH was a fan of Steve Hackett and old school Genesis, since the way Cathedral starts off (the fade in with the volume knob) is very reminiscent of the mellotron at the beginning of Watcher of the Skies. Cool little guitar number.

Secrets is a nice little tune, probably one of my favorites from what is probably my least favorite VH studio album. I love that pretty stuff EVH does during the verses.

 

this was the last time van halen really did anything out there on instrumentals until balance when they included 3 of them.

 

To hear Edward tell it, no guitarists really influenced him other than Clapton.

 

I like Cathedral, but never thought of it as an intro to Secrets -another good song.

 

Did Edward ever comment on hearing Steve Hackett "tapping" prior to their debut album release? I don't know who invented this technique, but I give Edward credit for popularizing (and perfecting) this style of playing.

 

And even then only Clapton in Cream. He's also said that he was influenced more by Clapton's setup, not sound--guitar jacked into an amp with little or no effects used. This was at his Smithsonian interview a few years ago.

 

Edward's never commented on Steve Hackett, period. At least not to my knowledge. In the Smithsonian interview that @wavethatflag (what flag are we waving by the way? ) Edward states that he never claimed he invented tapping. He said he got the idea from watching Jimmy Page at a Led Zeppelin show in California with his brother Alex also in attendance. What he does say is "I never said I invented tapping, BUT what I did do was do things with it that nobody had done before" (I'm paraphrasing here, but what he says is absolutely true).



25:09 is where he discusses where he says he got the idea and how he furthered the technique.

 

Nice interview, thanks for sharing.

 

This interview shows that he was an equipment innovator as much as a playing innovator. His sound was that whole package--technology and technique.

 

Yeah, that aspect of Edward gets lost a lot. He built his own guitars. In the interview he states that he was friends with Les Paul and that Paul always told Edward that he (Les Paul), Edward, and Leo Fender were the only ones who really understood how to make guitars. It is pretty remarkable that Eddie was such a talented innovator in terms of making his instruments. He created the Frankenstrat and Bumblebee himself using various parts from other guitars. As mentioned, the Bumblebee was buried with Dimebag Darrell and, I believe, the original Frankenstrat was ultimately torn apart and the parts used on another guitar. I think that's right anyway. (Edit: the info is a bit confusing but it might still be around).

 

Secrets has always been my favorite Van Halen song. It has everything...great lyrics and understated vocals by Roth, a great shuffle groove by Alex and Michael Anthony and an awesome solo by Eddie.

 

Yes, Eddie's ability to build guitars and modify his gear, and the way he was able to just figure this stuff out at a young age out is amazing.

Here he is in '79 discussing the Bumblebee and hand-wiring his own pickups.


What kind of electronics went into that one?

The pickup that’s on the picture is not really what I used. It’s like when we did the photo session for the album cover, I’d just finished painting it and slapping it together, and I just stuck some garbage pickup in there I wasn’t actually playing, just so it would look like a complete guitar. But I’ve tried a bunch of different pickups in there. I took the pickup out of the first one and put it in there, and it didn’t sound too good. So what I did is I took a DiMarzio pickup – I don’t really go for those, because they’re real distorted. See, I like a clean sound, but with sustain. I hate the fuzz-box, real raspy sound. I don’t particularly go for that.

It’s old now.

Yeah. DiMarzio pickups have real big magnets – that’s how they get their power – so what I did is I took a DiMarzio pickup and put the P.A.F. magnet in it and I rewound it, which took a long time.

You did that by hand?

Yeah. It took a long time to rewind that thing. Actually, I ruined about three pickups. By the fourth time, you know, it worked.

Did you have an idea of how many windings you wanted?

Uh, just by sight.

Did you use fresh wire?

Yeah. See, I’ve done something else too before – I put two Strat pickups together and added more windings to make a humbucking out of it.

Did that work?

Uh, it got kind of an interesting tone. It sounded like a heavy-duty Telecaster.

Sharp edged?

Actually, it was kind of bassy, but it didn’t have the bite. It had kind of a unique sound, but it was not something that I could use.

What other pickups did you try?

That’s about it. I’d do anything to get an old P.A.F. They’re the best. They go for 100, 200 bucks apiece, but that’s what I use, that’s what I like. A lot of people don’t like ’em. See, with my setup, it’s matched. Like if I play my guitar through someone else’s setup, it won’t sound right. And if I use someone else’s guitar through my setup, it won’t sound right.

So what pickup did you finally end up putting in it?

A DiMarzio with a P.A.F. magnet, rewound with copper tape around the windings.

And then dipped in paraffin?

Yeah. Well, I dipped it in paraffin before I put the copper tape on. But DiMarzio plastic is real cheap. I mean, you have to really be careful. It looks like a wrinkled prune, actually, but it still works [laughs]. It’s real cheap stuff. But old P.A.F.s, you can just throw them in there and let them soak it up. Doesn’t matter how hot it gets – doesn’t melt. But DiMarzios, God! If you blink, all of a sudden your pickup’s ruined.

So you dip the entire pickup and casing into wax?

Yeah, the whole thing submerged in paraffin wax.

Eddie Van Halen: The Complete 1979 Interview | Jas Obrecht Music Archive

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And then there's the Variac thing. Again, how he was able figure something like this out amazes me.

ESQ: You used a light dimmer on what?

EVH: I bought an English version, I had my 100-volt Marshall. I bought one through the recycling or the newspaper that was from England, and it was set on 220 volts. I didn't know. So I plugged the thing in, but I'm going, "F---- thing doesn't work. I got ripped off." I just let it sit there. After about an hour, there's sound coming out, but it's really quiet, cause it's running on half voltage. So I go, "Hey, wait a minute. It sounds exactly like it's supposed to all the way up, but it's really quiet." So we had a light dimmer in the house, and I hooked up the two leaves from the amp to the light, so I did it backwards, blew out the fuse box. Then I went down to DOW Radio and asked, "Do you guys have any kind of super duper light dimmer?" They go, "Yeah, it's all Variac, variable transformer, you know." And on the dial you could crank it up to 140 volts or down to zero. So I figured, if it's on 220 and it's that quiet, if I take the voltage and lower it, I wonder how low I can go and it still work. Well, it enabled me to turn my amp all the way up, save the tubes, save the wear and tear on the tubes, and play at clubs at half the volume. So, my Variac, my variable transformer was my volume knob. Too loud, [makes knob turning sound] I'd lower it down to 50.
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ESQ: That's amazing. But still, that was it? That was the only modification you did?

EVH: Just out of necessity. I need an amp I could play in clubs. We wouldn't get hired, I would play so loud, you know, I'm going, what can I do? What can I do? Okay, I turned the voltage, the wall voltage into my volume knob.

Eddie Van Halen Interview - Esquire Eddie Van Halen Interview

 

Anyone you want, I guess. It's a line from a Grateful Dead song, which is about as far removed from Ed, Dave and Van Halen as you can get. Evidently my brain is geared for long, spacey jams and shredding. Although I don't think of Eddie as a shredder, but he sort of invented it. Just like I'll take issue with the statement that VH is "hair metal," although unfortunately they sort of invented it. Edit: Or rather, they inspired the imitators who invented it.

 

When did Eddie start tapping? There's a pretty famous Led Zeppelin bootleg from 6/21/77 actually called "Listen To This Eddie" generally believed to be a reference by the bootleggers to EVH although I have seen some people bring up that it could also be an Eddie Kramer reference. Anyway, at one point during Jimmy Page's guitar solo/wankfest before Achilles Last Stand, I hear what sounds to me like "tapping", and I always thought 1977 would be too late for it to have influenced (never heard that above quote) EVH. So is it possible this may be the show with EVH in attendance? Or at least one of them (LZ played 6 shows at the Forum from 6/21-6/27). Prior to that, they did 3 shows at the Forum in March '75 as well as several between 1970-1973.

Thanks for the link.

 

I don’t know when Edward started tapping and he’s not specific about the date of the show he saw. Ace Frehley was doing a similar thing to what EVH describes Page doing as early as Alive! which is circa 1975. Maybe Frehley got it from Page? Maybe the other way around? I’m simply unsure about origins of what happened when and who did what first. Edward seems to have picked up the guitar at a relatively early age and was playing in rock bands since the early 70’s. I’d imagine his tapping technique (wherever it was inspired from) developed in those years. I know when they used to play clubs early on he’d turn his back to the audience when doing solos so people couldn’t see what he was doing. So the answer is: not really sure.

 

Intruder/ (Oh) Pretty Woman:

Now onto Tracks Five and Six, the latter being a cover of the classic Roy Orbison tune penned by Orbison and Bill Dees. The band was originally going to take a break after the Fair Warning Tour, and Dave suggested recording a single to keep their name out there, and while he initially wanted to cover Dancing In the Street, Eddie said they should instead do this song. There is a section of the song missing from the song, which was caused by Dave and Eddie being distracted by arguing with each other over rather the other guy learned all their parts, and then they went back and realized they missed a section, but left it as it was. The intro, Intruders, came during the making of the video, when they needed a piece to fill out the beginning of the video.
That very intro begins with Alex laying down a beat, then leads into Eddie doing all these things with his guitar creating all this ambience and texture while Mike and Al lock in, and it just grabs you and then....
We launch into Pretty Woman, and it feels so Van Halen and yet very much reminiscent of the original, and I love Dave's voice on this song so much, he just nails the delivery, the vibe, the spirit, and though he doesn't have that vulnerability that Roy had on the original, who is just lovestruck, whereas Dave is more seducing her, but both nail their intended delivery.
Though I think I might give the edge to the original, I F---ING LOVE this song so much, it is excellent, and shut the f--- up Eddie about covers or there not being any solos in this song, it's perfect the way it is! I love this so much, and on a scale of one to ten, I give it Mike the Samurai facing off Belushi the Samurai

 

Oh how I love Intruder. So simply and yet the sound and groove of Alex's playing makes it such a menace. This and Afternoon in the Park from the prior album reveal a side of the band that I wish they explored further. Later instrumentals were either more melodic and "nice" (316 is wonderful) or were just sound collages of Eddie from probably his worst moments.

Pretty Woman is a very strong cover. With Dave not having Roy's super-smooth voice, its incumbent on them to nail the background vocals and infuse the track with a You Really Got Me-type of energy to carry it over. And on this tune, it really works. On the next (Dancing In the Street), I'll argue that it does not.

 

Yes, another inarguably great track and another reason to question the sanity of DD haters.

 

I thought I read Eddie heard/saw Page tap during a Heartbreaker solo...