I'm surprised the "Eddie was not taught to read music" bunk has not already been refuted. Perhaps it was meant as a technical word game, i.e. Eddie taught himself, rather than being taught, but he COULD read music. He and Alex were classically trained pianists. They both actually started (after piano) on the other's instrument: Eddie first on drums and Alex on guitar before switching. The rest, of course, is history. All the VH guys, at least through the Hagar years, were solid on music reading. Except for maybe Hagar, they had all been in college music classes.
True story: David Lee Roth is putting together his band after splitting from VH and he's interviewing/auditioning musicians. He sits down with Greg Bissonette, his first drummer. Bissonette had already gone through North Texas at the time. Roth was like, "Dude, you can read music???" Apparently, the other guys Roth was interviewing couldn't.