Big-Joe Radio: You Can Run…But Why Die Tired!

Big-Joe-Radio

You Can Run…But Why Die Tired!

From the title of this blog you may be wondering what kind of history I want to examine. The battle of the Bulge perhaps? Or how about the invasion at Normandy. Better yet, can we get some mother-fuckin Marines together as we talk about the flame throwing capabilities at Iwo Jima! That will have to wait another day unfortunately. Today I just want to write about some interesting correlations between Michael Jackson, Eddie Van Halen, Paul McCartney and German Dive Bombers. Obviously one of these should not belong, but there is a tie to it at all.

So first thing’s first. A look at the gloved one, shall we? For the sake of this writing I don’t really care what happened at Never Never land. We all know that Michael Jackson was a philanthropist, and while he was encouraging people in his ever so high voice to “Heal the World”, we all know about the dilemmas that tarnished his people loving mentality. So let’s be relieved in the fact that I am not writing about his baby-sitting abilities, just his music and business savvy. Leave the Jesus juice at home please.

So I have wanted to write this blog for the last few months, but I always chicken out. Mainly because of what Michael did to his reputation and I just could not figure out a way to make this properly flow. I would be running on the treadmill hearing some pop music, or some rock music and I just kept thinking that I could make an awesome blog with this. Well today I finally told myself that I would write 2000-3000 words on this topic even if at the end of the day I come up with nothing but garbage. And here we are!

I can’t get this song out of my head. The song that I am talking about is Michael Jackson’s, “Beat It”. The song is very old of course. Hell I remember as a kid seeing the video on MTV. You have some skinny black kid with a high voice who can dance like no one’s business. Well I heard the song one day while running on the treadmill and I knew then that I wanted to get home as soon as I could and research the songs meaning. Not only the meaning, but that crazy ass guitar riff that jumps in at 3 minutes and 10 seconds that still has me at hello. The song remained on the top of the charts for many weeks, and earned the gloved one many awards. The album thriller made MJ’s bank account sore to new heights, and his economy of scale would give him enough leverage to become the new owner of the Beatle’s music. To this day, Paul McCartney cannot claim ownership of those songs until 2018.

Back to the song at hand; Beat It. The man behind the guitar riff is none other than Eddie Van Halen. That is really hard to imagine that a Rock and Roll hall of famer, and by most accounts one of the best guitarists of our time, would lay down some tracks for the gloved one. According to the “Conspiracy” book about Michael Jackson, Eddie Van Halen was first called by Quincy Jones on the idea of him laying down tracks for the song “Beat It”. Eddie of course thought the phone call was a prank and told him to “Fuck Off” not once, but a few times until Quincy could establish that it was in fact a genuine request.

So Eddie heard the initial tempo and voice tracks of the song, accompanied by the rhythm guitars that is credited with Steve Lukather. Eddie Van Halen comes up with two recordings of the solo and Quincy Jones takes the second one. Wham Baam, thank you Ma’am. Here’s the business dilemma. Eddie did not ask for any payment for that recording. He did it for absolutely nothing. His band mates, manager, and label almost flipped, saying it was foolish not ask for money.

Eddie Van Halen would have gotten the shit slapped out of him from any level 101 microeconomics teacher. There is no need to go into drawing a scale with consumer surplus, producer surplus, and dead weight loss. Eddie Van Halen gave it ALL to the gloved one. Eddie says he was doing MJ a “favor”, and that somehow that would return to him. Eddie…stick to groupies, music, and concert venues. Then again the collaboration of Van Halen/Michael Jackson sparked other collaborations such as Aerosmith/Run DMC. Sometimes the first one through the door has to do some sacrificing to pave the way. So you could say that Eddie might not have made a dime on this, but he was the bridge for a later American music trend.

Here’s the thing with Eddie Van Halen; he has a very distinct style. Even before the release of the song on the Thriller LP, people who got to hear the song on the radio were going nuts trying to contemplate that indeed that was EVH recognizable guitar style. Eddie is the first guitarist who put “tapping” on the rock scene. Eddie Van Halen himself calls it “Guitar yodeling”. That’s when he takes his right hand that normally caries the pick, and he uses his index or middle finger to “tap” on the fret board. While doing that he has of course the four fingers on his right hand to tap notes near the neck of the guitar. The prime example of this is when Van Halen broke through the scene with their first album. The song “Eruption” closes with a long and highly technical “tapping” session that has been having young guitarists soul-orgasming over it since it came out in 1977.

Eddie and his brother Alex learned classical piano and very young ages. His brother didn’t stick with it, but Eddie kept that training up, even while bras were falling off beautiful breasts all over Pasadena as Van Halen was rocking the garage and school circuits. It could be that dexterity on the piano that gave Eddie the magic and know how to pull off those kind of guitar tricks. Another of his tricks is what you call “Dive Bombing”. Simply put, that is when you hit a low string (one of the fat ones) on an electrical guitar and you bend the tremolo bar down towards the guitar itself. What this does mechanically is takes the note that is played, and drops it up to two octaves below what it would be without the effect. One of the best examples of this is on the Van Halen song, “I’m The One”. When you hit the 3 minute and 15 second mark, Eddie literally makes his guitar sound like it is taking a huge shit. That is because he does it on the fattest string, or the low E string. The shit is sick, fellas. Now when Eddie does this same effect on the skinner or higher strings, he makes it sound like a German Dive Bomber. The best example for this is when Van Halen came out with the song, “Everybody Wants Some”. The whole beginning of that song is filled with this effect. With the drums and base background you kind of want to say that there is a jungle theme to it. Yet when you realize what was in Eddie’s mind, you see it for what it is. The Bass and the Drums are actually playing a war rhythm as Eddie’s guitar mimics German dive bombers coming in for the attack. The Germans are attacking the British all over again.

The German dive bomber, also known as the Stuka (from Sturzkampfflugzueg) is well known for its screaming “Jericho Trumpet” or wailing siren. It was a propaganda tool for Germany during the Blitzkrieg attacks against Great Britain. From what I remember in history books, the German dive bomber has automatic pull up brakes in the event that the pilot passes out from pulling so many g-forces while dropping his bombs on his intended target. The term’ “Jericho Trumpet” comes from an epic battle in Jewish history. When the Hebrews were conquering the land of Canaan, it was written that God told the army to march around the walls of Jericho for seven days. On the seventh day they would do seven passes, and on the seventh pass the trumpeter would sound the horn, and the walls of Jericho came down. So this all has to do with psychological warfare.

Now isn’t it interesting that Eddie is using his background and history to implement music ideas? And it worked. Eddie Van Halen and his family immigrated to Pasadena, California when they were just young boys. They came from Nijmegan Holland. Eddie is old enough that there would have been people in his family that were old enough to remember what happened during world war 1 and 2. He may have been well aware of this history in his family. The Dutch were neutral during both world wars, yet they were close enough to the battles that fear must have always gripped the citizens of that country. Eddie took something that was negative and made it a positive thing in his life.

Now back to Michael Jackson. What can be said about the gloved one that hasn’t already been said in the courts of law and public opinion? If he had kept his philanthropy to strictly adults, he may have very well gone on to die one of the most admired human beings ever. You can’t deny his talent, and his business savvy. The man became Rich enough that he pretty much stole a bunch of Beatles songs and all the while he did it as him and Paul McCartney were buddies. Of course that would tear the friendship apart. Even when Paul Asked Michael the logical question of, “Hey in the real world, writers usually get a cut of the profit they make on a pay role”. In his classic high voice, the gloved one simply replied, “Oohhh Paul, its just business”. Paul has been pretty upset about this for some time. Under the 1976 US Copyright Law, all songs written prior to 1978 revert back to the writers after 56 years. Paul has to wait until 2018 for him to get half of the Beatles catalog back from the gloved one’s estate. Oh Paul, we can work it out!

So what are my closing thoughts? I think Michael Jackson was of course a brilliant business man. Yet I’m sure people have a real problem with the idea of a grown man sleeping in the same bed as other people’s children. I love his music to this day and when I see his videos I still am always tempted to snap my leg up in the same fashion as he did. Now if he lived next door to me, I would choke him. Plain and simple. Eddie Van Halen on the other hand can be argued made one of the stupidest business decisions when he laid the tracks down for the guitar solo on, “Beat It”. If I was his brother, I would have choked him haha. He helped to make the career of another man skyrocket. But like I said, it was also the catalyst for the joining of other music genres together that may have never happened without Eddie’s own sense of philanthropy. Yet Eddie is one of the best family men in my book. He and his brother have been the anchors of the music band named after them, and when Eddie’s son was old enough, he trained him up in the ways of music so that eventually he would be the new Bassist of the band. In an interview his son, Wolfgang, answered a question about what it was like to have Eddie and Alex as his father and uncle. Wolfgang replied that he didn’t begin to realize that his dad was famous until he started seeing cd’s with his picture on it. Talk about your dad being a son’s first hero.

Thank you for reading about my pleasures in life.

I dedicate this blog to my Jiu Jitsu homie, Mr. Jason Kramer. He told me I had a talent and that I should blog and write until the cows come home. Good knowing you bro!