Eruption: The Eddie Van Halen Story

Though Eruption gives Eddie Van Halen’s guitar sorcery top billing – Thin Lizzy’s Scott Gorham and more recall their slackjawed awe – former Kerrang! and Planet Rock editor Paul Brannigan goes deep here, his detailed, yet relatively concise biography probing Van Halen’s psyche as well as his music. Alcohol, we see clearly, is the fatal flaw in the guitarist’s tight-knit Dutch émigré family, and as he slips toward selfdestruction (and, in time, redemption) he and first wife Valerie Bertinelli’s cocaine high as they write their marriage vows is telling. Brannigan is excellent on Van Halen and David Lee Roth’s tirade-strewn power struggle, and on the Sammy Hagar-era’s unitshifting highs and seamy lows. And who knew Heart’s Wilson sisters were propositioned by EVH and his brother Alex, or that a Pete Townshend collaboration fell through when he lost Pete’s number?