van Halen ambulance chasers

Devil#20

I saw a news item on some american channel this morning. Apparently sales of van Halen music and merchandise is up 6000%+ since the announcement of Eddie's death. I don't get this. Surely if you're a fan of van Halen you own all their music already. Is it morbidity or fear of missing out? When they brought out the Mexican built Frankenstrat I fancied getting one but thought I'd give it a few months and they'd come down in price. They were much more accurate than the earlier replicas. Doesn't look like I'll ever get one now.  

skunkwerx

Used to see it all the time in Hmv when I worked there. An artist dies and suddenly everyone is the biggest fan and needs the entire back catalogue. 

I never understood it. Like, the cd’s will always be back in stock.. just wait a bit. But I guess people wanted it on the day for whatever reason. 

I reckon the Frankenstrat will be around though for a long time.. especially if sales have gone through the roof.

Funkfingers

Devil#20 said:

Surely, if you're a fan of Van Halen, you own all their music already?

Not necessarily. Some fans might prefer the early, funny ones.

guitars4you

Sad I know, but there was talk at the time, after Elvis died and then with  M Jackson, that it was the best career move they made - Something serious increase in sales and estate value after - But agree with your thoughts @Devil#20 ;

Whitecat

You’ll get one. Fender will ramp up production and flood the market, and a load of people who shouldn’t have bought one will sell after they’ve processed their grief and realise that owning the Frankenstrat =/= playing like EVH. 

The thing that’s working in your favour is that it’s a current model. It’s much worse if you’re chasing a signature edition from a deceased artist that has been long discontinued...

Funkfingers

Right now, various guitar makers ought to be cashing in with replicas of models used by Lennon.

Pabcrane

Ahhh, it's not that the fans already own all the music and stuff.

When I first came across Van Halen in the late 80s I wasn't old enough to own any LPs or CDs - but my older brothers were! I took it in then and then rediscovered it in my early twenties when I started playing guitar and I had a friend who made a tape of their first album for me around then which I listened to until it broke.

So now I'm thinking about buying a couple of albums because Eddie has died and reminds me that the music is good. I don't think that is too bad is it?

Dominic

it didn't do much for my Jim'll Fix it badge

LPManic

This is not surprising to me. And you wonder why certain artists like MJ and Prince appear to die before their time.

skinfreak

I'll be honest and I've been on the EVH guitars website more than a few times this weekend. More so than my monthly "I'm sure I can get a permission slip for the orange Wolfgang special" visits. Clearly people are snapping them up though as the lead times are going into next year on some websites. but then I also underlines how great value some of the Chinese made EVH models are. You can get a frankenstratish clone for a few hundred quid! 

I have all the Van halen CDs apart from maybe one or two. Including two different versions of Van halen III. I never got around to completing the collection with all the remastered versions but maybe I'll think about doing that now. everyone's got a wish list of things that they want to get done but cash flow might not let them. I don't think that the surge in sales is anything to do with ambulance chasers. Sure there are some people out there that fit that category but at this point in my life I don't really need to get the remastered version of Van halen 2. EVH dies and all of a sudden I think maybe I should do it. Maybe it's some misguided respect thing? 

handsomerik

I’ve downloaded and been listening to van halen on Spotify over the last week. In my case it’s because his band largely passed me by over the years and now hearing all the stuff on the news about how revolutionary a guitar player he was I decided to give it a listen. Nothing to do with ambulance chasing. 

p90fool

It's natural, there's so much music around we can't all listen to everything we like all of the time.

His death reminded me, as a casual fan, how much I liked some of his music, that's all. 

Teyeplayer

Or there’s the other possibility: having only ever really heard the ‘hits’, person A has read enough obits in the last few days to convince them that EV might be worth checking out and buys several albums to investigate the back catalogue. 

Is that ambulance chasing? Is there an unwritten rule that states when someone dies we can nolonger engage with their music? 

I’d imagine a good chunk fit into that category, people simply don’t read about music in the same way as we did in the days of the mainstream music press. If it takes an obituary to discover an artists work, as sad as that is, at least they have now discovered that artists work.

EricTheWeary

Like others have said his death is a reminder of something you maybe don't listen to all the time, maybe things mentioned in the tributes about the music that passed you by the first time. 
People buying up memorabilia in the hope it will go up in value, that is more of an ambulance chasing thing. 

chrisj1602

I don’t see this as ambulance chasing at all, people are being reminded, reminiscing, or maybe just discovering his talent having read the obituaries, as mentioned above.

Now, if people start selling stuff on eBay for inflated prices, that is pretty tasteless. I have seen this in the past with Chris Cornell and BB King sig guitars being hiked up.

TeleMaster

LPManic said:

This is not surprising to me. And you wonder why certain artists like MJ and Prince appear to die before their time.

Because of drug addiction?

crunchman

Gear 4 Music jacking up the prices on the EVH guitar is ambulance chasing.

There were details in another thread.

scrumhalf

Of course it's understandable that people have been buying EVH's music recently.

Maybe they owned the albums when they came out but got rid of them over time. Now, with his music being played a fair bit this person thinks "You know what? I've forgotten how much I liked this, I'll have to buy it again."

Mystery solved. 

Devil#20

Whitecat said:

You’ll get one. Fender will ramp up production and flood the market, and a load of people who shouldn’t have bought one will sell after they’ve processed their grief and realise that owning the Frankenstrat =/= playing like EVH. 

Yes I suppose there is that so I hope so. The Mexican Frankenstrat was about £1300 when I last looked and out of interest I'll check it later on. When they brought out the Jimmy Page dragoncaster (again a Mexican built replica) I put my name on the waiting list at Andertons for one. Nearly a year later they got the first batch and I got one. On hindsight I shouldn't have bothered. I could get a factory fresh one now for a few hundred less. Fell for the sales blurb that said they were only making so many and didn't want to later on get scalped if I wanted one. They either made more than they said or Jimmy isn't as popular as they thought. Wish I'd seen the Ritchie Blackmore strat that somebody sold on here recently. The only other replica I'd like is Deke Leonard's black and white concentric rings Telecaster well before Zakk Wylde subsequently copied it. Deke's had a bloody big square hole cut in it. Can't see fender doing a replica of his though as he'd be considered a minor artist so I might make my own :-) He had it stolen in Berlin in what was probably pre-planned. There wasn't enough evidence to pin it on the prime suspect who was a known collector and hosted the band during the tour.  

axisus

It's no surprise at all. People who don't understand are maybe short of empathy.

DulcetJones

Age factor is part of it, a lot of people have grown into young adults since the last Van Halen album was issued and are just hearing about Eddie.  As mentioned already, it happens to all past artists that had fame in their day.