In my house of pain Top Jimmy is always hot for teacher. So jump

You have those all time records. The ones that no matter how many years, decades have passed you’re still entangled in those songs from your misspent youth. I was a pre-teen in the mid-80s, and I started buying albums(cassettes) when I was 10-years old. I was always a fanatic when it came to music. I grew up in a house where records and 8-tracks were played constantly. My mom had younger brothers that would come over, drink, get high, and listen to Cheech and Chong, Aerosmith, and ZZ Top albums downstairs on the Zenith hi-fi playing pool. There was a haze in that basement that would linger for a couple days.

I was doomed from the beginning to be a music-obsessive.

So when I started buying music of my own, there were four tapes I bought with allowance money in quick succession in the fall/winter of 1984. Ratt’s Out of the Cellar, Quiet Riot’s Condition Critical, Twisted Sister’s Stay Hungry, and Van Halen’s 1984. Of those four albums, only one is still listened to by me over 40 years later and it’s not Quiet Riot.

The 80s sit heavy in my memory, especially the music that came out of that decade. Albums like Sports, Pyromania, Born In The USA, Like A Virgin, Thriller, ABACAB, Purple Rain, and 1984 for me were defining albums of the time. There were LOTS of defining 80s records from all sorts of genres and styles, but the ones I mentioned for me are timeless musical stamps of my elementary school years. You could throw some ZZ Top, Tears For Fears, Motley Crue, Rush, and Tina Turner in there as well.

Of those first cassettes I bought, I was most familiar with Van Halen. My parents had the first Van Halen album and Van Halen II on 8-track, so I grew up hearing those blasting in my dad’s 1977 Pontiac Trans Am Firebird. I was already enamored with Eddie Van Halen’s playing, plus the nearly heavy metal ca-chunk of songs like “Atomic Punk”, “Light Up The Sky”, “Bottoms Up”, “D.O.A.”, and “On Fire”. Like most future guitar nerds “Eruption” was my beginning of my guitar obsession. And Eddie’s “brown” sound was the peak of guitar tone, and something most guitarists could only dream of finding. Eddie was a ‘Victor Frankenstein’ when it came to guitars, tearing them apart and rewiring them and tinkering till he got what he wanted. While his playing was trailblazing, his inquisitive mind was as equally a part of his musical magic.

1984 was the first Van Halen album I bought, and that quickly led me to catching up on the albums I hadn’t heard yet. Fair Warning, Women and Children First, and Diver Down were quickly acquired after some chores and birthday money. I loved them all. Even the most maligned of the Roth-era discography, Diver Down, I absolutely loved. Everybody seemed to hate it, with it’s several cover songs and synths starting to make their way into the fold, but I found the covers to be incredible(c’mon, “Dancing In The Streets”???? Phenomenal). And “Little Guitars” showed off Eddie’s growing penchant for melody and pop hooks(I mean, didn’t “Dance The Night Away” clue those metal heads in on his love for a great hook?) And who could forget the great Better Off Dead and it’s stop motion hamburgers with “Everybody Want’s Some” playing, off Women and Children First? Not me.

My point is, Van Halen remained a staple for me for many years. Even the Hagar stuff I owned up to For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge. But despite their “maturing” sound and continued radio/MTV presence I eventually moved on from Van Halen. I was getting into more singer/songwriter, metal, power pop, and the evil “grunge” that took the jobs of many a spandex-wearing coke head. Of course college rock and alternative music reigned supreme for me throughout the 90s, as well as discovering the vast musical genius of the Kinks, Procol Harum, solo John Lennon and then Wilco in the late 90s.

It almost became a stain on your indie music cred to say you liked Van Halen. The great SLC Punks used “Hot For Teacher” to demonstrate that it was for frat boy meatheads. Terms like “cock rock”, “stadium rock”, “arena rock” were used to describe Van Halen. And lets be honest, the quality of the Van Halen records from the mid-90s on became questionable. Even hearing “Eruption” 20 years on felt dated. When you had a whole slew of new guitarists that used Eddie as a jumping off point and kicked up the shredding to new heights. Satriani, Vai, Bettencourt, Petrucci, and others took that influence and upgraded the guitar to so many other levels.

At some point, you get old enough that you can say I don’t care about how things look. I’m going to love and like what I love and like without remorse. Some folks never lose that, and God bless ’em. For me, it was more that I just found a newfound appreciation for the Roth-era Van Halen. About 10 years ago I started collecting all those old records on vinyl. Revisiting them I would say absolutely that Fair Warning is my favorite Van Halen album. It was that turn in style and heaviness that gets me. It’s their darkest album, and I think so because Eddie was ready to take two years off to write and take his time, but Roth and the record company had other plans. Strike while the riff is hot! So he writes his darkest record yet. The meanest riffs and the coolest vocal takes, plus that rhythm section of Michael and Alex was on absolute fire.

But if I’m being honest, 1984 feels like the most concentrated Van Halen record. Their magic boiled down to a fine formula, showing off all facets of the California Sunset Strip Gods. It’s got it all, man; the boogie woogie of “Hot For Teacher”, the futuristic sound of “Jump”, the jump n jive of “Top Jimmy”, and the power ballad of “I’ll Wait”. Plus, “House of Pain” absolutely rips. And “Panama”, maybe one of the greatest air guitar songs ever. No tennis racket went unattended when that started up. Plus you can hear the revving of Eddie’s Lamborghini.

Now I know a lot of those old school Van Halen heads complained about the heavy use of synths on this record. There’s literally three songs that have synths and the rest is just pure guitar heaven. The tone, the riffs, the melodies, and the absolute strut on this record is undeniable. There’s a reason this is one of the defining albums of the decade, and when you listen to it 40 years later Ted Templeton’s production still shines. It’s an ageless sound.

Back in 2020 when Eddie died I started to revisit those records again, and damn if I wasn’t blown away yet again by the ferocity and near perfect coming together of guitar, bass, drums, voice, and synthesizer. I found a whole new appreciation for Eddie’s writing and riffing. And sure, the solos are still perfectly put together with a “wow factor”, but Eddie’s rhythm playing is equally as amazing. The grooves and tone and interesting turn of phrasing are where its at for me. I came full circle with the Van Halen bros, and they reside in a very special place in my head and heart. Fair Warning is still number one, but 1984 is no slouch.

In 2021 I took my dad and son to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. It was a special trip, as my dad had never been there and my son was now old enough to truly appreciate it. He had gone a few years prior when the family went, but he wasn’t yet fully locked in to music. There was a NIN exhibit he was super excited to see, and my dad had always wanted to go but never got to. Since he and my mom are a huge reason as to why I became such a music head, it only seemed fitting to take him there and share that experience.

In one of the upper levels of the Hall of Fame there was a guitar exhibit. I think there was a Slash section, but there was also an Eddie Van Halen one. It was new, as it hadn’t quite been a year since his passing. Digging back into the Van Halen records over the last year, seeing his Frankenstein guitar, as well as as his yellow and black strat and one of his EVH guitars I was very moved. These feelings came rushing to me, and thinking about not only the history of Van Halen and Eddie’s affect on the world of guitar playing and rock and roll music in general but the affect he had on me. It was like seeing Excalibur, or the Holy Grail displayed. Eddie and Van Halen were pivotal music moments in my life. And ones I can still revisit and have all those feeling come back to me.

“Top Jimmy cooks, Top Jimmy swings
He’s got the look, woo
Top Jimmy, he’s the king“