Eddie Acoustic

[DFVH5150]

I was thinking the other day how little there is of EVH acoustic. Here's what I came up with as far as definite songs. Am I missing anything?

1. Spanish Fly
2. Take Your Whisky Home (intro)
3. Could This Be Magic? (along with Dave)
4. Little Guitars (Intro)
5. Big Bad Bill (Is Sweet William Now)
6. Dreams (intro over the keyboard)
7. 316
8. Can't Stop Lovin' You (?)
9. Take Me Back (Deja Vu) (intro)
10. Neworld
11. Once (over the keyboards)
12. Josephina
13. Stay Frosty (post-intro)

And we know Dave does the acoustic intros to "Ice Cream Man," "The Full Bug," and "Stay Frosty" along with the slide and rhythm on CTBM, and Sammy does the rhythm on "Finish What Ya Started" and "A Apolitical Blues."

I have a question mark after CSLY because he has stuff like the intros to "Bottoms Up!," "Fools," "In a Simple Rhyme," "Feelin'," "Year to the Day," and "Blood and Fire" along with the breakdowns "Ballot or the Bullet" of "As Is" which sound acoustic-y but are really just him turning off that knob, right? So those aren't technically acoustic?

Aside from that and including bootlegs all I could come up with are:

1. "Cabo Wabo" on the MTV Viva Van Halen Cabo Wabo special in '90
2. "Finish What Ya Started" at soundcheck in Atlanta during an MTV special of the tour in '91
3. "Best of Both Worlds" at the Neil Young Bridge Benefit in '94
4. "Dirty Water Dog" at the Hard Rock in Boston in '98
5. "Beautiful Girls" from the Downtown Sessions '12
6. "You and Your Blues" same
7. "Panama" same
8. "You Really Got Me" same (but only on YouTube)

And the only time he played acoustically on stage at a Van Halen show was "Josephina?"

[JUNGLE DRUMMER]

The slide on CTBM is all Ed, Dave only plays rhythm. Intro to IASR is acoustic. I dont think CSLY is acoustic. Those other ones are clean electric.

The outro to Ballot Or The Bullet, where he breaks a string at the very end.

[Metalsludge]

Is Sam on acoustic on the studio version of FWYS?

[DFVH5150]

Is Sam on acoustic on the studio version of FWYS?

Yep.

[DFVH5150]

The slide on CTBM is all Ed, Dave only plays rhythm. Intro to IASR is acoustic. I dont think CSLY is acoustic. Those other ones are clean electric.

The outro to Ballot Or The Bullet, where he breaks a string at the very end.

"Clean electric"--thank you JD. I knew there had to be a term for it.

And I realize now that I meant Dave fingerpicking on CTBM, not playing the slide. On his radio show he played it pretty much in full and demonstrated how to pick (which was the only time it was ever played outside of Mike's '82 bass solo chorus quote).

[DFVH5150]

I thought I'd check the VH Encyclopedia, too, for more info, especially since it's pretty guitar-oriented on top of that and saw some stuff that answered some questions.

For IASR it said he played a 12-string Rickenbacker electric but originally Eddie wanted more of an acoustic intro so he "changed it because he felt the band might be labeled as trying to sound like Led Zeppelin."

With BOTB it said he used the electric sitar with a Dobro throughout the song, including the ending part with the string break.

Also, double-checking CSLY, it said he "used an EBMM equipped with a Piezo pickup to get the acoustic/electric rhythm song in this song." So it's just an "acoustic sound." Another song with that acoustic sound was "Secrets" that I forgot to mention, but apparently that was a Gibson 12-string/6-string double-neck.

So I guess the official count is:

1. Spanish Fly
2. Take Your Whisky Home
3. Could This Be Magic?
4. Little Guitars (Intro)
5. Big Bad Bill (Is Sweet William Now)
6. Dreams
7. 316
8. Take Me Back (Deja Vu)
9. Neworld
10. Once
11. Josephina
12. Stay Frosty

Plus possibly any non-Van Halen songs he performed on, and since there's so many I'm drawing a blank on any that might have acoustic parts. But I don't think there are if memory serves right.

[ScottyBHarris]

I thought I'd check the VH Encyclopedia, too, for more info, especially since it's pretty guitar-oriented on top of that and saw some stuff that answered some questions.

For IASR it said he played a 12-string Rickenbacker electric but originally Eddie wanted more of an acoustic intro so he "changed it because he felt the band might be labeled as trying to sound like Led Zeppelin."

With BOTB it said he used the electric sitar with a Dobro throughout the song, including the ending part with the string break.

Also, double-checking CSLY, it said he "used an EBMM equipped with a Piezo pickup to get the acoustic/electric rhythm song in this song." So it's just an "acoustic sound." Another song with that acoustic sound was "Secrets" that I forgot to mention, but apparently that was a Gibson 12-string/6-string double-neck.

So I guess the official count is:

1. Spanish Fly
2. Take Your Whisky Home
3. Could This Be Magic?
4. Little Guitars (Intro)
5. Big Bad Bill (Is Sweet William Now)
6. Dreams
7. 316
8. Take Me Back (Deja Vu)
9. Neworld
10. Once
11. Josephina
12. Stay Frosty

Plus possibly any non-Van Halen songs he performed on, and since there's so many I'm drawing a blank on any that might have acoustic parts. But I don't think there are if memory serves right.

I think Dave plays acoustic on Stay Frosty.

Don’t forget about the Down Town sessions.

[DFVH5150]

I think Dave plays acoustic on Stay Frosty.

Don’t forget about the Down Town sessions.

Oh I mentioned it in the original post, and Ed plays the acoustic throughout "Stay Frosty" after Dave's acoustic intro part.

[Brett]

Ed has said that he’s not the biggest fan of playing acoustic and didn’t do it too much.

I kind of laughed at the post that was made about Dave playing the slide guitar on Could This Be Magic. Dave could only dream of playing like that.

It’s also pretty obvious even if you didn’t know that it was Ed because Dave calls “Edward” as if he’s asking him to play a solo, and then says “thank you.”

[Ashe]

Around '95, Eddie said he's not an unplugged kind of guy and that MTV was always asking them to do an Unplugged TV special. He said, "If I wanted our songs to be acoustic, I would've written them that way. I like to feel the sound from an electric guitar."

[Little Dreamer]

True, not a lot of acoustic Ed out there.

Now in the 5150 vaults, unreleased, there might be more...

[Sam203]

Maybe not, but Dave does a good job on the finger picking aspect. It's funny because Ed has said that he never really learned slide & just sort of winged it on that song.

[JUNGLE DRUMMER]

Maybe not, but Dave does a good job on the finger picking aspect. It's funny because Ed has said that he never really learned slide & just sort of winged it on that song.

Dave's playing on CTBM is terrific, as is Ed's slide of course.

[jimmy812]

Didn't Ed play slide on the Dirty Movies overdub? (not to get off on a tangent about Ed on slide--although I wish he did a little more of that).

Oh A Apolitical Blues as well.

[JUNGLE DRUMMER]

Didn't Ed play slide on the Dirty Movies overdub? (not to get off on a tangent about Ed on slide--although I wish he did a little more of that).

Oh A Apolitical Blues as well.

Yep that's slide on Movies. Also slide on Ballot Or The Bullet.