After this was widely copied, Van Halen repainted the guitar red with white-and-black stripes, its now-iconic configuration.Īsh body with bird’s eye maple neck 25 ½ in. His original decoration used white spray paint for the body with black intersecting stripes. This 2018 Super ’78 Eruption guitar is an exact replica of the original configuration of Eddie Van Halen’s “Frankenstein” guitar, which he constructed himself from various spare guitar parts. Most dramatically, Van Halen’s rig included the casing of a World War II–era practice bomb that was repurposed as a rack for housing his Univox tape echo units. It includes amplifier speaker cabinets and tube-powered amplifiers (heads), effects units, and a reconstructed pedalboard featuring effect pedals identical to the originals, alongside a replica of the 1978 version of the “Frankenstein” guitar. Van Halen’s use of “dive bombing,” depressing and releasing the vibrato bar to create dramatic descents and ascents in pitch, drove innovations in guitar design such as the locking vibrato system and ushered in new standards in virtuosic hard- rock and metal performance.ĭisplayed here is a reconstruction of his rig as it appeared onstage in 1978, the year the band Van Halen released their eponymous debut album. Two-handed tapping, in which both hands sound the strings from the fingerboard, allowed him to produce fluid phrases at dizzying speeds. In another room, Eddie’s 1978 rig is on display, along with rigs of Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin fame, Keith Richards of The Rolling Stones, and Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine, each accompanied by video clips.Įddie Van Halen, a self-taught guitarist, created a new vocabulary on his instrument through an array of jaw-dropping techniques and electronic effects. In an interview clip playing at the exhibit, Van Halen says, “Ninety percent of the things that I do on guitar, if I had taken lessons and learned to play by the book, I would not play at all the way I do…Crossing a Gibson with a Fender was out of necessity, because there was no guitar on the market that did what I wanted.” This is not one of the official replicas, which was what the Smithsonian had on display in 2015. Note: VHND can confirm that this is indeed Edward’s ORIGINAL Frankenstein guitar. In the exhibit’s Guitar Gods section, Eddie Van Halen’s 1975 “Frankenstein” red, black, and white guitar is in a glass display, where you can fully see both the front and back of the Fender that he took to with a chisel and a hammer to cut holes to make room for a Gibson pickup, and later painted-twice.
The exhibit opens to the public on April 8th.”Īs previously reported on VHND, this is the first major art museum exhibition dedicated to the instruments of rock & roll, which we think is very cool! The exhibition will be on display at the Met from April 8th through October 1st, 2019. UPDATED 4/5/19 with several fantastic photos of Ed’s Frankenstein guitar, and two videos, below:Įddie Van Halen announced on social media, “My 1978 touring rig and original “Frankenstein” guitar are on display in New York at the Metropolitan Museum of Art‘s “Play It Loud” Instruments of Rock & Roll exhibit.
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