Listening to Van Halen demos from the early 1970s reveals the adage “the right thing at the wrong time is no longer the right thing.”
It would be another five or six years before songs would appear in their debut album on through to the to “Fair Warning” album. In the early recordings, you don’t really hear Edward doing any tapping or pull off techniques on the guitar, suggesting that he had not perfected or honed this particular style in playing in the early days. If he did, he’s certainly never made it evident in the early demo recordings.
It wasn’t until 1975 or 76 that at least one studio recording, we hear the beginnings of what would become Edward’s signature style playing and the “brown sound”. The earlier recordings definitely revealed the band was ahead of the curve stylistically for their time, but retaining much of the same vintage late 60s and early 70s timbres and tones reflective in much of the music of that time particularly in small live venues and studio recordings.
Because Van Halen were mostly playing cover tunes at various venues for many bands this becomes inherently problematic as it makes it difficult for a band to find their own niche or their own style and find their own style and sound they did.
Again listening to Edward Van Halen’s “brown sound” which perhaps evolved in late 1975 or perhaps early 1976, which is about the time the band was discovered by the Rock Music icon Gene Simmons from the band kiss. The Simmons demo tapes or recordings revealed (some) songs that would not appear on any Van Halen albums for another 40 years.
A song titled “put out the lights” presumably recorded in 1975 or 76 which had been entirely rewritten and re-titled “Beats Workin’” on their “A different kind of truth” album which wasn’t released until February 7, 2012 featuring Van Halen‘s 6th of 12 albums recorded with David Lee Roth and the final Album Van Halen would record as a band without Micheal Anthony as bassist and before Edwards passing.