We Are Family: Van Halen

Van Halen: You Really Got Me

[purchase]

Sometimes it's fun to try to post something that meets the theme in more ways than one. It's sort of like sinking a three-pointer in a basketball game.

In this case, brother-band Van Halen is covering a tune by another brother-band, The Kinks.

Alex and Eddie Van Halen started playing music as kids, one on the guitar and the other on drums. What I didn't realize until researching this post, is that it was Eddie who was on the drums and Alex who handled the ax. At some point early in their career their interests shifted, and they traded instruments. The world should be grateful that they did as Eddie went on to become perhaps the most wildly inventive and celebrated guitar player of the post-Hendrix era who, with the help of a one-of-a-kind vocalist, made Van Halen the most successful rock act of the 80's.

Anyone who watched the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame 25th Anniversary Concert on HBO last week knows that Eddie's influence is still widely noticeable. Case in point: None other than Jeff Beck broke into a classic sequence of Eddie two-handed finger-taps during one of his solos.

I'll let someone else write about The Kinks, maybe the greatest brother-band of all time. In the meantime, enjoy this cover song that is special in the sense that it rocks even harder than the original.