The Brief

When guitarist Eddie Van Halen died of cancer in 2020, his older brother Alex was overwhelmed by grief. Only 20 months apart in age, they had grown up together as "a yin and yang ... the two halves of a whole," Alex says.

Raised by a Dutch father and an Indonesian mother, the brothers immigrated to the U.S. from the Netherlands when Alex was 8 and Eddie was 6. In California, they learned to play music — mostly classical and military marches — but their focus switched to rock once they started listening to The Beatles and The Dave Clark Five. In 1974, they formed the band Van Halen, with vocalist David Lee Roth and bassist Michael Anthony.

Initially, Alex was the guitarist in the family, but he discovered that he had "no connection with the instrument," he says. "I just wasn't feeling it." His brother's link to the guitar, on the other hand, felt like fate. "The fact was, when Ed played, he made that instrument sing. It was unbelievable. [I said,] 'Ed, you're playing guitar. I want drums.' "

Known for their extravagant, high-energy performances, Van Halen would go on to produce 12 studio albums and singles that included "Runnin' with the Devil," "Hot for Teacher" and the 1983 anthem, “Jump." The band went through some famous lineup changes (mostly singers) through it's career, but Eddie and Alex are the only members of Van Halen who played on all of those albums.

In the new memoir, Brothers, Alex looks back on his relationship with Eddie and the decades they spent playing music together. "We left a lot unfinished," he says. "Obviously, every time I hear some of our music, that puts me right back there."

Interview highlights

On how Eddie Van Halen found his voice as a guitar player

He played guitar from the moment he woke up to the moment he went to sleep. And it was just his way of either communicating or finding peace with himself and the earth. …  It's just that Ed had a sensitivity that was very difficult to describe. … The problem with Ed was he could play anything. So the most difficult thing for him was to find his own voice. And he spent a lot of time doing it. Then when he finally found it, that was it. Big smile.

Brothers, by Alex Van Halen

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HarperCollins

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On lighting his drum kit on fire during performances

For me, fire represents the temporariness — that only the moment counts. I mean, the flame is there and poof, it's gone. So it's life, right? So to me, that represented that. And there was an element of danger because we did it on such an amateur level. … My favorite memory of all of that was — we kind of gotten it down to a science. And as we're doing it during the performance, the lighter fluid starts to come down my arm. And then I look over and I notice my arms on fire. So I'm thinking, that can't be good, right? So I look at [my tech] Greg, who, in theory, he's there with a fire extinguisher. So I look at him and he's looking at me and he gives me the thumbs up. “Looks great, man!” I'll never forget that as long as I live.

On the This is Spinal Tap mockumentary that satirized a heavy metal band

That wasn't funny at all. Ed and I saw it and we said, “That's what we experienced!” That is really how things happen. It's mind bending. The public doesn't really have any idea what goes on behind the scenes. And I'm certainly not going to burst the bubble. But that movie, there were a lot of elements that were more true than they were parody.

On the band getting upset when Eddie did guitar on Michael Jackson’s “Beat It”

If I remember right, he did consult [us] and we said, No. ... I did want to kick his ass, because our model was basically Led Zeppelin. The way that they structured their business, the way they structured how they played, who they played with. You couldn't get you couldn't get Jimmy Page anywhere else. You can only get him on Led Zeppelin. Come to the show. That's it. You don't get in with Michael Jackson. But Ed violated that. And it started a whole cascade of bad, bad vibes.

On David Lee Roth's departure from the band in 1985

[Eddie's collaboration with Michael Jackson] really was not the single thing because things were already starting to unravel. When we named the album 1984, it had nothing to do with the year. It had to do with George Orwell and the dystopia of what was going on. This band was so fractured, we barely ever played together anymore. And unfortunately, MTV became the predominant way of conveying all this. And Dave being the visible guy naturally opted for more visual stuff. I don't blame him for any of it, but it's just too bad [because] we were on the cusp of something really, really big. … Nobody fights better than friends.

A long-awaited vision for Huntington Drive is finally coming into focus. In the future, the busy corridor will have dedicated bus lanes, protected bike lanes, two lanes of vehicle traffic in each direction, a thin median and wide sidewalks.

This was the plan chosen by the City for the Huntington Drive Multi-Modal Transportation Improvement Project, which runs on an approximately four-mile stretch of the street between North Mission Road near LAC+USC Medical Center and Alhambra/South Pasadena. This had much more public support than the competing alternative, which featured a wide median rather than wide sidewalks, according to Mary Nemick, a spokesperson for the Bureau of Engineering.

Nemick said the next step is to hire a consultant to create design and engineering documents. This phase is expected to take about two years before groundbreaking can occur.

Currently, Huntington Drive has three vehicular lanes in each direction, the bike lanes are unprotected, and about 25% of the corridor lacks sidewalks. Though pedestrians and bicyclists account for only 1% of peak-hour trips, they account for 54% of severe or fatal injuries from traffic collisions, according to a project document.

The design budget is about $10.5 million, Nemick said, and the overall project cost will be determined after designs are completed.

The project is being funded by some of the money previously allocated for the construction of the 710 Freeway extension, which was abandoned in 2018 after decades of local opposition.

The Columbia Memorial Space Center in Downey held a groundbreaking ceremony Monday for a roughly 40,000-square-foot expansion that will include indoor and outdoor science learning areas and space for special exhibits.

The centerpiece of the buildout will include an interactive display of the Inspiration space shuttle mockup, where visitors can go inside the cargo bay.

Built in 1972, the 35-foot-tall model made of wood, plastic and aluminum functioned as a prototype and fitting tool for all of the orbiters that launched into space.

“We’re super excited to be able to put it on display for the public, really for the first time in forever,” Ben Dickow, president and executive director of the Columbia Memorial Space Center, told LAist.

The expansion will also allow for educational areas, where students can learn about the pioneering engineering and design work that went into building the model at Rockwell International in Downey.

The backstory

Last fall, after sitting in storage for more than a decade, the full-scale model was moved a few blocks to a temporary home.

The Inspiration space shuttle mockup was moved in sections to a temporary home last fall

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Courtesy Columbia Memorial Space Center

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The Space Center said renovation work on the mock up will take months and include rehabs of its 60-foot cargo bay and flight deck.

Dickow said Downey is where all of the Apollo capsules that went to the moon and all of the space shuttles were designed and built.

“This is part of the L.A. story as much as entertainment or anything like that,” Dickow said, adding that it’s a legacy he feels like Angelenos sometimes forget. “The space craft that took humanity to the moon, the space craft that brought humanity into lower earth orbit and built the international space station, these are human firsts... and they all happened right here.”

What’s next? 

The Space Center is looking to raise $50 million that would go toward building plans, special exhibits and more.

Dickow said the new building that will house the space shuttle mockup should be open to the public in about two years.

By early next year, he said the plan is to have the shuttle model available for bi-monthly public visits as it undergoes renovation.

Pacific Palisades homeowners looking to sell high-end properties after the January fires could escape the city’s “mansion tax” under a proposal advanced Monday by a key committee of the Los Angeles City Council.

Measure ULA is a voter-approved tax on real estate selling for $5.3 million or more. The city uses the revenue for rent relief, eviction defense and affordable housing construction efforts.

Councilmember Traci Park, who represents the Palisades, said she has heard from hundreds of homeowners who say the tax is affecting their post-fire recovery plans.

“For some, recovery is going to mean leaving the Palisades,” Park said during Monday’s meeting of the Ad-Hoc Committee for L.A. Recovery. “In those instances — where a sale is by no means voluntary — I don't think we should impede that objective.”

Vote follows direction from mayor

Measure ULA levies a 4% tax on properties selling for more than $5.3 million, and a 5.5% tax on properties selling for more than $10.6 million.

Last month, Mayor Karen Bass sent a letter asking the City Council to pass an ordinance giving the city’s director of finance the power to exempt Palisades homeowners from Measure ULA within three years of the fire.

In her letter, Bass wrote: “After adoption of the ordinance, I will issue an executive directive instructing the Director of Finance to promulgate a temporary exemption that provides much needed relief for those Palisades residents who owned and occupied residential property in the Palisades at the time of the fire, avoids unintended loopholes, and furthers the purpose of ULA.”

Bass’ office said the letter was sent following a meeting she had with Rick Caruso, the billionaire real estate developer, former mayoral candidate and founder of Steadfast L.A., an organization focused on fire recovery.

How we got here

Any final tax exemption would still need further action from the City Council and Mayor’s Office to take effect.

The proposal cleared Monday’s committee in a 3-0 vote. But it needs further consideration by the full City Council before any ordinance is passed. Bass would then need to issue an executive directive with full details of the post-fire tax exemption.

This isn’t the first effort to cancel the “mansion tax” for Pacific Palisades homeowners. A state bill introduced days before the end of Sacramento’s legislative session would have carved out sales in the fire zone.

But the exemption would have only gone through if efforts to repeal the tax either failed to qualify for the ballot or were dropped by the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, an anti-mansion tax group. The bill also would have sought to address concerns about depressed housing development in the city by lowering the tax on sales of recently constructed apartments.

Bass said she asked Sacramento lawmakers to shelve the bill so more amendments could be made in the upcoming legislative session.