Van Halen Stories #30 Dave Friedman "Inside The Holy Grail"

Great video! Thanks for the props on my JEL20 demo!

Best Eddie tone ever is the opening riff to Drop Dead Legs!!

Dave may have seen Def Leppard open for Billy Squier back then.

The first record sound? Dime the level on a Boss GE-10 with the mids slightly boosted and run it into a Marshall w/ 6CA7 tubes. There are picture of his early pedalboard. Others attest to this too. Everyone keeps focusing in on the Marshall circuitry. Tom Bukovac also touched on Eddie's use of using the GE-10 to achieve overdrive in his rig rundown video.

If you listen to the Gene Simons Van Helen demo, Eddie's tone is almost more of a ZZ Top sound. I have a feeling this was how the original mix of the first album sounded. There's a Sunset Sound round table video where it's discussed how Donn Landee HATED the initial final mix and insisted on remixing the whole album over a weekend. He clearly did something to it with heavy EQ and ran everything through the Sunset Sound echo chambers where he more than likely goosed the mic preamps to get more saturation. As we all know he hard panned the guitar. I too have read that Eddie didn't care for the result. That's probably why we never hear that tone again after the first album, once Eddie had more say. As an aside, Lee Jackson tells a story how he was at 5150 and the tone coming out of the mic'd cabinet sounded NOTHING like what he heard coming out of the speakers in the control room. He said he was worried because he was commissioned to rewire Eddie's output transformer. Lee said he thought he messed something up, but Eddie liked the result. I agree with a comment in this video about Donn Landee. He has the details for sure.

Eddie himself, in an interview, said he was really pissed off and freaked out on Hartley Peavey when Peavey changed the 5150 Sheffield speakers without his consent. Eddie had no idea of the change until he brought out a new cabinet and couldn’t understand why it sounded like sh|t.

I just listened to an interview from 79 and Eddie went into great detail about the pickup he used in his frankenstrat - He built the pickup using the magnets from an early PAF combined with coils taken from a di Marzio brand pickup that Eddie hand wound - unfortunately he didn’t go into detail as to how many turns per coil but he did say he liked the combination of the weaker magnets with the hotter wound bobbins.

Is Marty at Morty City Guitar who makes Motor City Pickups?

So , Marty Friedman isn't his brother?😅😅

Fyi - Jake didnt write 'A Shot in the Dark"

The reply on my Runt 50 FX loop question, quick and straight to the point. Thanks Dave

I'm not an amp guru at all, so this might be an idiotic observation. But, Dave describes the missing Jose amp that he was working on with Ed as being huge. In the promo video for the Frankenstein replica shot at 5150 with Matt Bruck, there are several amps stacked behind Ed's chair. One is an enormous, strange looking, seemingly nameless head that dwarfs the EVH 5150 sitting below it. Could that possibly be it?

Could this interview be any slower? Snuffleupagus has more energy than these guys

Seduce! Wow, thats a blast from the past. Im from Detroit and i remember they were a huge band in the local scene.

Unchained is a jb for sure! or something extremely similar.

First time I saw VH live was 1978 in Houston, TX at the music hall. They opened for Journey. We got there late because we were coming to see Journey NOT VH, ha. We didn’t know who VH were. We saw VH’s last 2 songs and I wish I would’ve gotten there earlier!!

I agree as well , I liked Jake better than Randy .

(Im I shadow banned or is this comment visible?) Saw VH Twelve Times. Met Edward 3 times. First time was 1979. I wish I had the ticket stubs still. Lost all my T shirts. Only have a video of meeting Edward in 2014 at the Smithsonian in DC. Great interview. I really would like to have Freidman amp because of this. Yes I really play guitar. Best regards.

..... Regarding the subject matter at time mark 39:00.... Question for Dave. I have a 1971 Marshall Major box head. When I bought it & had it shipped to my home, I had it serviced for the usual stuff (new tubes, check out power supply, make sure everything was in working order, install aftermarket FX loop in the back, master vol, etc..... This was done by Shane at Tubesonic Sacramento) I then had the idea to make this my "EVH-70s era" Major, al-la 1974-78 VH #1, Marshall. The amp was rated for 110 wall amperage (common in that era) but wall amperage today is 120. I discussed with Shane about making the amp biased for that era 110 & using a Variac at 89-98 volts. What would it sound like & would that harm the amp in any way? He said it would be okay to do that. So we did that. After I got it back I bench-tested it & thought it copped the VH #1 guitar tones pretty close (Variac at 98 + master vol. set to no more than 3 & preamp vol. set to 7-8).... Later I asked if Shane had done anything else?. He said, no. Amp was set for 110 wall & all other biasing was set to same for that amp were it used in that time period..... Any thoughts on this?

Great vid and story about Eddie’s special Marshall and his personality!!

You really need to interview Rudy Leiren, the VH road manager. Steve Rosen did a great interview with him which I found on a VH forum. He knew Eddie since high school and worked as a roadie for VH before they even played the Sunset Strip.

Van Halen II is also my favorite tone as well.

Dave...I know Marty and Motor City Guitar. That place has cost me a decade of cash!

I agree 👍 Jake was the best

I remember bon Jovi opening for ratt

This guy is boring

Is David Black from seduce he was in decline of the western civilization, the metal year’s right. That guy smoked he was the best guitarist in my option

The 75 watt celestions in those JCM 800 cabinets are fantastic and warm sounding with a good tube amp that’s running at its sweet spot., meaning loud to very loud ..

Thanks you

Dave is absolutely right about live concert sound now.

Obviously the guy was incredibly strong but for a 5'8 dude he looked to have pretty big hands. You aren't doing the Spanish Fly and Ice Cream bends with short fingers. I'm 6'2 with big hands and all I can do on those stre
😊

I saw Jake at the US fest.
Ozzy came on in the afternoon so I was still lucid.
I agree Jake was special
Everyone I think was still upset about Randy so he was in top form that day.
I like Zack because of the No Mote Tears Lp.

I remember going into the Makin' Music store back when they were in Homewood Illinois and hadnt moved to Chicago yet . Probably that was later 80s era and the Record Swap was really close by.
I really enjoy your content.
I bought so much gear and strings between there and Musiclab in Lansing

According to Larry Dimarzio the pickup in the Kramer 5150 was a broken Seymour Duncan JB when he designed the pickups for Eddie’s music man signature

...no master volume amp is going to sound like Ed's 100w Plexi through a Variac. No matter what guitar Ed was using if he was going through the plexi it still nailed that tone.

My first concert was Van Halen in 1978. Festival seating, so I was in the front row. It blew my mind! And it was $8.00.

Was that the same Andy Brauer from Real Guitars in SF?

Dude jeff, get a microphone. Can't fuking hear you

I saw eddie one time at a ..in n out burger in el segundo..he was chuggin down a clili cheezeburger with a medium fries and a large dr pepper..ill never forget it !!!?

Talk to Alex

Dave's Classic plex amp can do the eddy vanhalan brown sound. 🤠
just a great amp. 🔥

If you ever want to have me on the show, just call or reach out.

I thinks Ed’s earlier sound is unmistakable, everyone knows that sound and it is incredible…however, my favorite tones he had was 1984, 5150 and then the F.U.C.K. era were his best.

I agree with Dave, I respect and admire all of Ozzy’s guitarists but Jake was his best, he was so versatile and his phrasing/nuances and soloing was amazing. His style has always been one of the most influential in my opinion.

In reference to Dave wondering if Ed used a JB on fair warning. It actually was a Custom Custom he used on the fair warning album that was revealed in an article about him and Seymour Duncan.

Great information. We miss Eddie V.

I was lucky 🍀 and had a girl friend that wanted to move to California right out of College from WV / got a place on the Beach 🏖️ in San Diego ( $300 month) bought a Fender bass to. join a band