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"When I was 11, I was at my guitar teacher&amp;rsquo;s place, and he put on \"Eruption.\" It sounded like it came from another planet. I was just learning basic chords, stuff like AC/DC and Deep Purple; \"Eruption\" really didn&amp;rsquo;t make sense to me, but it was glorious, like hearing Mozart for the first time.\r\nEddie is a master of riffs: \"Unchained,\" \"Take Your Whiskey Home,\" the beginning of \"Ain't Talking 'Bout Love.\" He gets sounds that aren't necessarily guitar sounds &amp;ndash; a lot of harmonics, textures that happen just because of how he picks. There's a part in \"Unchained\" where it sounds like there's another instrument in the riff.\r\nA lot of it is in his hands: the way he holds his pick between his thumb and middle finger, which opens things up for his finger-tapping. (When I found out he played that way, I tried it myself, but it was too weird.) But underneath that, Eddie has soul. It's like Hendrix &amp;ndash; you can play the things he's written, but there's an X factor that you can't get.\r\nEddie still has it. I saw Van Halen on their reunion tour two years ago, and the second he came out, I felt that same thing I did when I was a kid. When you see a master, you know it. &amp;nbsp;By Mike McCready of Pearl Jam\r\nKey Tracks: \"Eruption,\" \"Ain't Talking 'Bout Love,\" \"Hot for Teacher\"\r\nRelated&amp;bull; See Eddie Van Halen in his Glory Days&amp;bull; Eddie Van Halen on Rocking Sober, Avoiding Beef and the Future of Van Halen"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.rollingstone.com/music/lists/100-greatest-guitarists-20111123/eddie-van-halen-20111122>