RIP Eddie Van Halen

We are all gobsmacked by learning of the death of Eddie Van Halen today. He was only 65. He tells his life story in this video.

Everyone has a Van Halen story. In December of 1983, I was the music director of a small rock station in Kentucky. I had put "Jump" on the high rotation playlist. The station manager (who was the son of the owner, an arrangement I've seen many times) came in and told me we weren't playing that garbage, and broke the single right there in front of me. The guy was just trying to exert his dominance.
I didn't really care, since I'd accepted a different job earlier that day.
 

I saw Van Halen in concert a few years later at the Pyramid in Memphis. It was good.