This is one of the recordings that marked a before and an after in the world of electric guitar playing. Edward Lodewijk Van Halen didn’t invent anything technique-wise with the crazy baroque-inspired single-string two-handed tapping run near the end of “Eruption”, but he surely outperformed and skyrocketed what others like Jimmy Page, Ace Frehley and Steve Hackett had done in the past. An incommensurable level of talent is the only explanation for a guy who wanted to be a drummer and became a guitarist just because his brother started playing his drum kit to reach such level of mastery on the guitar out of the blue.

This copy of the debut LP by Van Halen, originally released in 1978, is a reissue from 2009 mastered from the original tapes by Steve Hoffman and Kevin Gray.

Numark TTXUSB turntable – Nagaoka MP-500 phono cartridge – ART DJPRE II phono stage preamp – Vinyl record vinilo LP