First Encounters with Van Halen, Part 2

As I was writing my last post, I was both delighted and disturbed by another memory. Delighted because I remembered listening to 5150 during the summer, before and after playing baseball in the Oklahoma summer sun. This would be when I was between 7th and 8th grades. For example, after taking batting practice at a large baseball compound in Tulsa, I would hop back in the car with my dad, put the Walkman headphones on--this was 1986--and listening to songs like "Get Up" on the way home. Or, later that night, small boom box at the head of my bed, behind a pillow, I'd fall to sleep with "Best of Both Worlds" on. I distinctly remember this.

But then I was disturbed because I have always remembered that trip to my friend David's as my Van Halen initiation. But perhaps it was a different kind of initiation. By then--this the fall of 1987--I had traded the ball and bat for an electric guitar--a shiny black Fender Strat made in Japan. Now I dreamed of sounding the heart electric. Oh, I still liked sports, and baseball in particular, but because I thought/felt I was too small to play on my school team (which was comprised of a pool of boys from a student body of 2K) I turned my interests to the art of making music. Plus, I couldn't hit for shit.

Somehow, between listening to 5150 before/after my middle school baseball practice/games and hearing "Eruption" played throughout David's house, I got into the likes of Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, Chuck Berry, all the 50s' rock. So, I guess I figured I hadn't really fallen in love with VH's music just yet. I mean, it's not like listening to 5150 in the 7th grade changed my life like hearing that one track from Van Halen I. Maybe that's why it's a different kind of initiation.

By the way, today--many years after having bought every VH album on cassette and then on CD, because for a while I had a CD player on my boom box but only a cassette player in the car--5150 is the album of theirs that means the most to me. It's my favorite album of theirs. It's the spirit of the album that I love--fun, intense (in a couple spots), funny. But I'll admit that some of its songs cannot compare to some of their songs with David Lee Roth. This is to say that I could really care less if David or Sammy is singing lead with the band, though I don't think "the third guy" was worthy of singing back-up on an album being recorded in the studio next to Van Halen's--though I guess Van Halen records their stuff at Eddie's private studio.... Anyway, Van Halen/Van Hagar--I don't care. But today, as I write this, it's 5150 that I have in the tape deck--that's right, I'm listening to a cassette, and am loving it--and I am reminded of how good it made/makes me feel.

What I love about this story of mine--my three first Van Halen experiences (1984, 5150, "Eruption") is that each connects me to a specific time in my life. That's why music is important to me. It doesn't exist outside of any experience. But it reminds me of a time and place. And I will always remember David for introducing me to Van Halen, and for many other reasons--as I have known him since birth in the way an infant "knows" someoone since birth. He was a best friend of mine. And then his family moved to Louisiana. And on that visit there, he gave me something that kept me afloat during some lonely years. Appropriate since I would sort of lose touch with David, except through various tales told from his mom to mine, as our families have remained in touch.

The night before David moved, I stood in our unlit living room and cried-howled. When I heard Van Halen (and Eddie's guitar, especially when David played "Eruption") I understood beyond language that such raw emotion--be it dark or sad or joyful--could be transformed into sound, something tangible but not, and so it felt like a religious experience. And that day in Louisiana I felt more human and alive, a little bit older, because I had discovered something for myself, with the help of a friend, and not under the watchful of a coach or in front of a parent's guiding hand.