The End of History

And then there was EVH...

The End of History

by David R. Low

I miss who I used to be. I used to be a kid with goofy hair, a cheap guitar, an even cheaper amp, and nothing but limitless ambition and untapped potential. Now, I'm the greatest living electric guitarist. My ability and knowledge of music theory are so far beyond those in the contemporary staples of rock that it's, frankly, embarrassing that we should even be called contemporaries. The problem with our generation of rock musicians is they all grew up on rock. Putting it more concisely, they grew up on the blues. They developed a formula: pretend you'd always liked the blues, feel the soul in those blues melodies, and have a connection with those old bayou black guys whose life experience couldn't be more different from your own. Pretend blues was always your first love (just like those actors who always pretend theater is their original passion), and from blues, you become a rock star. Unlike them, I grew up on classical music. I was sent to music school at the age of six, but even before that, I took the initiative to play my father's piano and memorize every note and chord.

            My last student for the evening is doing his damnedest (not enough) to master the opening chords to "Stairway to Heaven" while I'm doing my damnedest to feign interest. As a guitar instructor, "Stairway" has become the bane of our existence since debuting four years earlier. The last thing I want to do is dissuade a young go-getter from learning the most famous song in current times, so rather than tell them how trite and rudimentary Led Zeppelin is, I sprinkle in tidbits of more talented artists and exciting compositions. Southern California youth have yet to take to classical music with much enthusiasm. Still, I've gotten a couple of kids onto the likes of true progenitors of rock musicianship with bands like King Crimson, and that new album from Rush wasn't half bad. Led Zeppelin, well, where do we even start? Many praise Jimmy Page as a talent, but is a low-rent Jeff Beck clone really a talent? He's a piss-poor producer and an even worse songwriter. I had the misfortune of seeing him live, and he spent more time dressing himself up in faux dark man occult paraphernalia than he did tuning his damn guitar. He has to be the lousiest live player I've ever seen. But when most of your audience is stoned out of their minds, they would be impressed by a charlatan scratching his guitar strings with a violin bow. He might as well take the violin itself next time and use it to play the guitar and watch the fans lose their minds. I assume Page is responsible for most of the lyrics, as they're as nonsensical as his playing is unimaginative. Plant, the young androgynous heartthrob, has gyrated his way to fame among the female members of the audience and is another in a long line of white Englishmen doing his best imitation of a soulful black man. Still, even that isn't enough to save the lyrics of a song like "Black Dog". The only time this hasn't bothered me in recent memory was with Humble Pie's hit "Black Coffee". One lyric from the song that truly struck a chord with me is, "You see my skin is white, but my soul is black," and that might just be the only time I actually believed it. These other guys, they aren't giving credit where credit is due, but in "Black Coffee", they not only admit it, but they revel in it. I'd like to see Page and Plant write a song as honest as "Black Coffee". I understand this genre is meant to be enjoyed by the youth and something to dance and rock out to, but what happened to standards? I yearn for the complexity of Jim Morrison's pretentious lyrics when I hear Page's output.

            This kid's poor fingers have rubbed themselves raw trying to mimic "Stairway's" famous Am  C #5+7/G#  C/G  D/F#  Fmaj7  G  Am progression. And because he refuses to learn notation, I've written out tablature for him, but his eyes and hands have no chance of ever reconciling their differences. I can't help but think how dull Page's licks are, how monotonous. The world deserves a better class of rock musicianship because if Page is allowed to be appraised as one of the genre's best, then it looks like we've already witnessed the peak of rock guitar, and there's nowhere left to go.

            Young Timmy pulls a wrinkled five-dollar bill out of his pocket and pays me for the lesson. He packs up his guitar, comical strapped on the back of his miniature body, and exits my garage. I put on my smoking jacket and drive to Glendale for my gig.

            What distinguishes me from the rest of the guys is I'm the only non-Armenian in the band (The Think Tankians (alternatively spelled The Think Tankyans)). At twenty-two, I'm also the oldest. In a way, I'm the group's authority figure and guidance counselor. We're a twin lead guitar outfit, with me proficiently trained in classical music while my partner Gevorg (professional Frank Zappa lookalike) is a jazz wizard.

            The venue is small, but I think of it as intimate. We're not mainstream, nor are we trying to be. It's true you won't find waves of women throwing themselves at us at our shows, but that's because we're guitarists' guitarists. We play for our peers, and because we have that added layer of scrutiny at all our performances, each gig we do is us playing as if our lives depend on it. And tonight, our lives depend on it. Producer Ted Templeman is in attendance. While I don't need a bigwig like Ted to validate my talent, I'm still a human being who abides by the rules of how things work.

            At the end of the gig, Templeman comes up to Gevorg and says, "Not too bad. Why don't you guys grow your hair out and write songs the kids can dance to? I'm not saying sacrifice your identity but give it a try. You might be surprised."

            "I think that went well," says Gevorg once Ted has left.

            I shrug my shoulders.

            "Why don't we go to Pasadena?" he asks.

            "I really see no reason why we should.

            "You don't wanna see those Van Halen guys?"

            "I have no strong desire to. Don't tell me you've fallen onto the bandwagon," I say.

            "I'm on no bandwagon; I just feel we're bound to see them eventually, so we might as well get it out of the way. Who knows, could be fun."

            No, it couldn't. Their reputation preceded them. A bunch of rock and roll clowns. Pretty party boys who accumulated more noise complaints than attendees. Sure, they were a hit with girls, but only because their singer, David Lee, was some kind of crossdresser and had prettier hair than any of them. Not by choice; I've encountered him on occasion. He'll roll up wherever there's young girls around or a chance for attention. He also used to sell reefer to my bandmates. I've told them to knock out that dope crap, but they are somewhat hippies themselves. Why Gevorg, of all people, wants to be seen at such a scene is beyond me. Likely, he wants to score some dope, and this is his excuse.

            "It's not like a big commitment; let's just go see the band, confirm they're nothing special, grab a beer, and come back."

            He's driving, so I don't argue. On the ride over, he turns on the radio, and we listen to that dreadful T-Rex dribble. Somehow, Gevorg is enamored by Bolan's simplistic, primitive songs. I read Chopin in my head. Some Supertramp track comes on next, and it's not half bad; I make a note to give them a chance. After, there is a Bee Gees song, and I enjoy it even more. We pull into the parking lot outside the Pasadena High School Gymnasium. And it's just in time as right before parking Deep Purple's interminable "Smoke on the Water" starts playing. What an insufferable guitar riff. I once liked Deep Purple before Ian Gillan came in to replace original vocalist Rod Evans. With Rod Evans, they had potential. Their cover of The Beatles "Help" embarrassed the original composition with its quality.

            A high school gymnasium is a classy venue for the likes of David Lee reefer pusher. I can smell the stale beer and body odor and cigarettes mingling with that pungent dope. Teenagers dressed in rags; men indecipherable from women. Older men preying on younger girls. This riffraff wouldn't recognize a complicated chord progression from a hole in their head.

            Speaking of people with holes in their heads, an open-chested, curly-headed guy dripping in sweat wraps his cold, wet arm around me, bringing my nose danger close to his chest hair.

            "Listen here, brother," he says, breath reeking of vomit and rotted teeth. "I went to high school with Eddie, and let me say a couple of three things. People will forget Hendrix ever existed. Anyone playing guitar right now might as well give up. We might as well change our dating system to B.E.V.H. and A.E.V.H. This is it. Get ready; this is the future of music."

            I shove the smelly scoundrel off me. A troglodyte would think some valley party band was the epitome of music—some arbiter of taste. Inside the gymnasium is a madhouse. These people aren't here to witness live music; they're here to start a riot. Instinctually, I place my hand over my wallet. The band comes on stage.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I can't hear anything. Gevorg is driving us home. The last thing I caught before going deaf was Gevorg asking, "What did you think?". I don't even know where we are. I can see he's talking, but all his questions may as well be in an alien language. When sound returns, all I hear is Eddie's guitar playing. Instead of streetlights, I see Eddie's Frankenstrat guitar, that abomination of cheap guitar parts put together and covered in black tape. I shut my eyes, but that does nothing to quiet the noise around me.

I wrap the belt around my arm, find a vein, and insert the needle, pumping heroin into my blood. This is the stuff. I got it from a lowlife who sometimes sells dope to high schoolers named Chicken Grease. I asked if he had anything stronger than reefer, and he gave me this. The stuff in my bloodstream enables me to travel in time like an H.G. Wells character. I'm watching the tube with my father, it's 1969. Stanely Kubrick is tricking the world into thinking Americans have landed on the moon in order to bankrupt the Soviet Union in the space race.

            I'm picking up an electric guitar for the first time, and before even plugging it into an amp, I feel electric currents flowing through my body. Nothing, not even this smack, has ever felt better. I knew then that I was going to do with this axe what nobody had done before. I was going to take the instrument to the limits of what was possible.

            I'm at the high school gymnasium, but this time, everyone, all those screaming, adoring fans, has vanished. It's only me and the stage. All other sounds and smells are vanquished. David Lee is a bright light in the dark. Bright pink pants and striking yellow hair, like a lion's mane. It's impossible not to look at him. He's such a striking figure I don't even register the guitarist Edward Van Halen. He's so unextraordinary in his appearance. First of all, he's quite short. He has oriental eyes and a goofy smile, almost suggesting he's some type of mongoloid. Why is he smiling? I've never seen a guitarist with so little self-control over his mouth muscles.

            I can't help but think…is this it? This is the Van Halen, the band that caused so many noise complaints and sent so many youngsters claiming that this E.V.H. was the second coming of guitar playing? The song is a Led Zeppelin cover. It doesn't get more elementary than this. Some filler track off their newest album, called "The Lobster '' or "The Rover" or something like that. E.V.H. does a fine job mimicking Page's crude playing. In between boring covers that the youngsters eat up are original numbers, and again, I can't help but think…is this it? It's so restrained as if he isn't even trying. Each song usually opens with an aggressive opening riff, only for E.V.H. to take the backseat while David Lee hops around the stage like a dandy. During all this, E.V.H.'s playing is so restrained it's almost like he's practically trying not to be heard at all. I've never seen a guitarist try less to impress. Maybe that smile of his indicates this is all a big joke to him. A giant practical joke on the audience. The most superlative expression of the decline of Western civilization — David Lee's androgynous appeal in concert with Eddie's playing being conflated with an appreciation for music.

            Then something happens; Eddie takes a seat and calmly takes drags from his cigarette. David Lee wanders offstage. What is this utter contempt for the audience? Even Page's bowstring wankery onstage is still showmanship. Eddie plays a melodic, lowkey, low-effort riff. He goes at it for a while, taking drags from the cigarette he'd placed in the headstock of the guitar. The audience is loving it. They cheer to see a guy smoking like a fool, but that applause has nothing to do with talent, and I'll have him know that before his career is through.

            With a complete lack of build-up or warning, the slow, carefree playing becomes animalistic screaming. With minimal effects pedals and his whammy bar, he starts violating his guitar. Violating is the only word I can use to describe his actions because these are no cheap gimmicks. Since guitars have been electric, players have been able to mimic various sounds to varying degrees of success. Still, here Eddie is pulling off near-perfect horse neighing and elephant trumpeting intermixed with space-age sounds of far-off alien worlds. His guitar is pleading with him to stop, but Eddie does not bow to his axe, his axe serves him.

            After mesmerizing the audience, he leaps up from his seated position, abusing his guitar further and playing licks confusing and captivating. Fast. Complicated and deceptively simple. I think I can keep track of what scale he's tackling before he switches it up and throws in an unexpected pinch harmonic and yank on his whammy bar. He slows down, touching every part of the guitar guitarists tend to ignore because there's no point. Still, somehow, he's making sounds that aren't noise but musical by tapping his fingers along the bottom of the neck, playing with the tuning knobs, bending and pulling at various things. What is this?

            He switches up again, playing faster and faster. People often use the phrase 'to play with desperation,' but that's not what Eddie's doing. It is the guitar that is desperate—desperate, crying out to escape from Eddie's talons. It screams out for help and the audience sits there, complicit. This is not the same man who was sitting and smoking. This ferocious playing is building to something. Then, he turns his back to the audience, leaving them blind to the workings of his fingers. The sound is that of the skies opening up, God's voice, outer space. I know what he's doing; it's two-handed tapping. He's not the first to utilize this technique, but nobody has ever done it to this extent and with this much intensity and melody. The audience is completely hypnotized. They belong to him. People won't even take sips from their beers for fear of missing one moment of this display.

            Facing the audience again, he uses his right hand to turn the volume knob on his guitar while using his left hand to hit strings on the neck, creating a churchlike angelic sound I'd never heard before.

            Intensity kicks in again when he starts slapping his strings with his right hand while holding them down with his left, creating a sound I've never heard before. His right-hand movement is so frantic that it doesn't look like he could possibly know what he's doing, but he does. He's creating music where it shouldn't be possible. The coordination required to pull off slap harmonics of this speed and intensity suggests Eddie is a demon. I can't make any sense of his hand movements.

            It's one thing for a player to display one of these techniques at a show and be called revolutionary, but with Eddie, it keeps coming. He is no one-trick pony. He's the real deal. No amount of hype could have prepared me for this. Beyond all that, beyond all the flash and raw talent, he is an unbelievably solid rhythm player—restrained and laid back. Even those who came to see David Lee's showmanship can't take their eyes off Eddie. This is a player so confident, so far beyond his peers, that he's happy to hang back and let David Lee take center stage while he keeps the rhythm going. Worse than all the technical wizardry and innovation — the music is fun. How did this modern-day Mozart end up in a party rock band for adolescents? This is it. I've seen the future.

I build a bonfire in my backyard where I watch my 1974 Gibson Les Paul Custom and the first acoustic guitar I ever bought, a Yamaha, get reduced to ash and melted parts. Eddie has made it clear that he is the end of guitar playing. Perhaps there will be those who will be faster, more technically proficient, but they will never be the full package like Eddie. This is the end of history. I'm tempted even to cut my fingers off. This goes beyond Salieri hearing Mozart for the first time, no. The proper equivalent is when the United States introduced the atomic bomb and dropped it on Hiroshima. But what if I could go back in time? Would I warn the citizens of Hiroshima, or would I take it a step further and kill Oppenheimer before he ever even started work on the bomb? I can't let history end like this.

I visit every Gypsy psychic, tarot card reader, witch doctor, shaman, and voodoo practitioner in the San Fernando Valley before I meet Rocket Jizz. That's the name he gives me, and I'm not one to ask questions. I explain why I need his blood magic to take Eddie Van Halen off this earth.

            "You promise this will kill him?" I ask.

            He nods. Rocket Jizz is a man of few words.

            "When will it take effect?" I ask.

            "Immediately," he says.

            "Once I perform the blood sacrifice, Eddie Van Halen will die of cancer?"

            He nods.

            I end up sacrificing my fingers after all. Two digits on my right hand. Another part of the ritual is to commit myself to something I despise. I become a roadie for Led Zeppelin.

We are touring their Physical Graffiti album. In addition to "Stairway", their new hit "Kashmir" has become their concert centerpiece. The song has a D-A-D-G-A-D tuning, giving it a vaguely Eastern and hypnotic (as in it'll put you to sleep) quality. Page's solo performance of "White Summer/Black Mountainside" usually leads into it. The song clocks in at nearly 9 minutes long and is unbelievably repetitive.

            Backstage, Page is snorting some coke and is in a talkative mood. I introduce him to the heroin I've brought along, and he develops a long-lasting relationship with it. His already sloppy performances get sloppier with each live show. While recording their next album, he's so strung out while playing that good boy John Paul Jones often has to step in to record his parts. That's nothing to say of his disastrous live performances. There's a certain satisfaction in watching a rowdy crowd grow wise to Page's mediocrity and start booing him when he starts drooling all over himself and makes mistake after mistake.

            On the last night of the tour, I'm backstage while they play "Kashmir" for the umpteenth time. Robert Plant's voice is strained.

Oh, father of the four winds fill my sails

Cross the sea of years

With no provision but an open face

Along the straits of fear

Oh, when I want, when I'm on my way, yeah

And my feet wear my fickle way to stay

            I look at my right hand. All my fingers are accounted for. Eddie Van Halen is still alive, and blood magic doesn't exist. Of course, it doesn't—a delusional, drug-filled dream. Talk of winds filling sails tells me this part of my life is over. It's time to travel and see the world. I won't go to Kashmir, but then again, neither did anyone from the band. Plant revealed the lyrics came to him while in Morocco.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In Tokyo, it's not hard to stand out. I'm white and incredibly pudgy (once I kicked my heroin habit, I developed a habit of overeating). The fact that I stand out in a crowd here is why it is so remarkable that I met my doppelganger. This guy didn't just look like me; he was me. I was reminded of Dostoevsky's The Double.

            I invite my opposite number for a drink and discover his name is Mark. Mark was born in Fort Worth, Texas, but is currently on an extended trip of the world. He is afflicted. He won't stop talking about the book The Catcher in the Rhye; I tell him he's got to get over it. He feels he doesn't belong anywhere and is deeply unhappy.

            "What if we could start afresh?" I say.

            "How do you figure?" Mark asks.

            "I'm unhappy myself. Nothing in my life makes sense. What if we could start afresh? You be me, and I'll be you. Who would know? We could make whatever path we choose for ourselves,"

            He sips from his beer and thinks about this. I hope he'll think faster. Van Halen has just released their first album, and their star is rising. Eddie's revolutionary playing is no longer contained by the L.A. club scene; now, the whole world is aware of it. As Mark, I'd like to think I'd never reminisce about Van Halen again, and if I did, I wouldn't care. I put it all on the table. I could take on Mark's troubles and anxieties, and he'd take on mine, and perhaps only then could we find our own ways and, dare I say, happiness. We shook on it. From that day on, he would assume my identity as Kyler K. Kinderman, and I would take on his identity as Mark David Chapman.

It's 2020, and I've been in prison nearly all my life. They transfer me occasionally. For the past couple of years, I've been rotting away at Wende Correctional Facility in New York. Among my peers in this humble abode is renowned film producer Harvey Weinstein. The only reason I even make note of this day is because I discovered blood magic was indeed real. On the sixth of October 2020, Edward Van Halen succumbed to his cancer and died. Had I known it would have taken nearly half a century, I would have sacrificed more blood

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