I think he said "Whoa, a f***ing little Les Paul!" He definitely was smiling. He was tickled. He loved it, and immediately took it out the case and tried it. He hustled us all to venue to run it through his rig, and there backstage, he bought that one, and contracted me to make him another one. Manager brings in a briefcase full of cash - literally full - and pays for the bulk of it in cash. Immediately his tech removes my strap buttons and whacks in big eye-bolts with a mallet to go with Ed’s low-tech “Tractor Supply Store” looking strap hooks. I could hear the wood crackling and little chips of nitrocellulose snapping off as he cranked the eye-bolts in using a big screwdriver like it was a tire iron. That was a quick lesson in Ed’s favoring function over form.

I should mention, the first of Eddie’s LP’s (#13) contained a small battery operated practice amp & speaker - it was on when the volume knob was pulled, and bypassed when the knob was pushed down. Valerie Bertinelli, Eddie’s wife at the time, said he loved it and “practically took it in the shower with him.” I think that was the only mini I made with an amp & speaker in it. That’s going to be a key feature of the reissue line I’m thinking of doing. It’s a lot of fun to tote around a small electric guitar that you can hear when you play it. (Duh.)

In this photo, you can see Wolfgang Van Halen as a child playing this guitar with his dad Eddie.