"Edward Lodewijk Van Halen was a virtuoso, innovator, intergalactic legend," declares a respectful Jawa, a native of Tatooine, in the opening moments of this glorious online tribute to the late Dutch-born guitar genius. “Rumours exist of his origin in this galaxy…”
What follows, is spectacular, with the monked humanoid producing a miniature version of Van Halen’s iconic ‘Frankenstrat’ guitar and ripping through a jaw-dropping version of EVH’s signature guitar solo Eruption, as heard on the Californian quartet’s self-titled 1978 debut album.
The genius behind this splendid piece of art is YouTuber Thomas J. Yagodinski, who says: “A Jawa Plays Eruption: A Tribute to Edward Van Halen is exactly that! This was an extremely FUN way to pay respects to a musical Legend and to also challenge myself to recreate Eddie's amazing solo, frame by frame via stop motion animation. Is it perfect? Of course not, that's impossible and nothing ever is :-) The Jawa is a stop motion puppet I fabricated and the guitar is the 1:4 scale (16inch) Mini Guitar (#EVH-004) that I further customized. The set... well, that's from/for something entirely different! Hope you have as fun watching as I had creating.”
For those seeking to dive deeper, Yagodinski has shared a a number of behind-the-scenes images illustrating the meticulous detail he brought to the animation, on his Instagram account.
"This was insanely fun to make,” he says, “especially taking the solo apart, frame by frame, to replicate as closely as possible to the actual shredding. Plus, I flippin' love Jawas!! RIP to the maestro, may his music live throughout the galaxy."
Respect to Yagodinski, this is as pure and sweet a tribute as EVH might have wished for.
