― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 1 June 2006 22:23 (eighteen years ago) link
This can't possibly be true, can it?
― Keywords: revenge, knife, granddaughter, demonic-possession, rock-star, eel (Aus, Thursday, 1 June 2006 22:26 (eighteen years ago) link
(my guess is probably not, unless their Hall of Fame's are limited to, like, 3 people apiece).
― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 1 June 2006 22:31 (eighteen years ago) link
Why not? Look at the public's taste. Anything good only gets its due respect generally 30 years too late, while most of the shit that was such a big deal 30 years earlier is finally seen as it really is: ridiculous, ironically fun and kitschy.
― Led Zep Rules, Thursday, 1 June 2006 22:32 (eighteen years ago) link
xpost
You really think so? The various guitar magazines don't really appear to have radically different aesthetics to me. Of course I haven't read them for ages.
― Keywords: revenge, knife, granddaughter, demonic-possession, rock-star, eel (Aus, Thursday, 1 June 2006 22:34 (eighteen years ago) link
― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Thursday, 1 June 2006 22:38 (eighteen years ago) link
― Tim Ellison (Tim Ellison), Thursday, 1 June 2006 23:03 (eighteen years ago) link
― jewit Stien, Friday, 2 June 2006 06:16 (eighteen years ago) link
― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Friday, 2 June 2006 09:27 (eighteen years ago) link
― Steve Goldberg (Steve Goldberg), Friday, 2 June 2006 11:07 (eighteen years ago) link
The drop-d tuna device WAS invented by EVH. This is a contraption that is situated at your tremolo system that allows you to drop down to D without having to use your tuning heads. Most major guitar lines with tremolo systems are now trying to incorporate them in their designs.
Edward is the ONLY guitar player to have his tone named in the music industry. Eddie did not name his own tone, Quincy Jones named his tone during the "Beat It" sessions. Every guitar player tried to emulate that tone and it became known by the music industry as the "Brown Sound." If you can name one guitar player that has a musical moniker for their tone that is not self-designated, I would hope you would enlighten us all and share your information.
There is also zero contradiction about everyone going to the LA club scene to copy Eddie and then to find Eddie playing with his back to the crowd. He turned his back because he had something new and original that remained a magic trick to guitar players but also a novelty to music fans. After Eddie recorded "Eruption" and Warner Brothers released VHI, it was amazing to hear Randy Rhoads playing sound like Eddie's after listening to his previous Quiet Riot material which sounded nothing like it. Lynch,Satriani,DeMartini and many others changed their entire style after Eddie emerged. You should really read the book "Van Halen 101" by Abel Sanchez. There are direct quotes from guitar players from all of the guitar publications that blow the lid off of this. The techniques were released after 1978 and were transcribed and disected in every guitar publication so people could try to nail it. It is also quite scary to me as a guitar player to hear guys like Malmsteen, Vai and Satriani labeled as "Hacks." Malmsteen 's input of classical runs to rock guitar were groundbreaking. Vai has played for Zappa, David Lee Roth and Whitesnake. He is truly a technical wizard and a hired gun. Joe Satriani TAUGHT Steve Vai, Kirk Hammett,and Alex Scolnick before launching a platinum instrmental career.
I also want to comment about equating Guitar World and Guitar Playerwith Rolling Stone. There is a HUGE difference between them. Guitar World and Guitar Player are written, transcribed, and edited by professional guitar technicians and studio players. Therefore, those two guitar publications are written by experts of the guitar. Rolling Stone is written and edited by opinionated 50-something writers who write about pop-culture. For instance, you can not rate the best guitar players one week and then have the Simpsons and the cast of Friends on the next two issues. It is a blanket entertainment publication like US Weekly and People. The credible music publications are Billboard, since it is based on facts, sales and ratings and RIAA.com which documents album sales, chart success and individual artist tallies. In fact,the only facts used in Rolling Stone use Billboard and RIAA as their sources. ( Look it up. ) The rest is all opinionated. So basically, this thread is no different than the material Rolling Stone compiles from a bunch of freelance writers sitting around a table. And YES . . .Eddie Van Halen is the only guitar player in history to be entered in both Guitar publications Hall of Fame. Write their editors and ask them.
When I last checked, no one looked like Jimi. Mentioning Kravitz or perhaps Prince is a stretch. That is funny you think all of those Brit guitar players sounded like Jimi. When I listen to music, I can tell you immediately if it is Clapton, Page, Townshend, Beck, or Hendrix. Not one of them sound like the other nor do any of them do anything that is Jimi-esque. You are really grasping here and you are also minimizing the individual greatness of these other guitar players. There are legitimate arguments that would site Clapton and Page as more influential and innovative players than Hendrix in the UK as well. I have heard people mistakingly credit Jimi for the use of distortion. (It was invented a decade earlier by Link Wray and mastered by The Kinks.)Jimi is mistakingly given credit for fuzz and feedback, both of which had been used the moment the electric guitar was pioneered. ( Try Les Paul in the 1940's. he invented the first guitar effects, multi-track recording and the hollow body electric guitar. The first signs of fuzz and feedback were on early Les paul recordings)
Listen, if you like Jimi Hendirx more, you are entitled to your opinion. That is fine. By burying EVH's accomplishments with shallow opinion is insulting to those of us who actually do play and do know the history of the guitar. Again, read my first post and see if my facts are incorrect. If you are bearking this down on proven and documented innovation, influence, technique and accolades, then Jimi is not even close to Eddie. I will debate this up and down and left and right. Eddie Van halen is th emost important and most revolutionary guitar player in rock history. One out of every three things you either use or apply to the guitar and directly associated with Eddie.
― Roy Cox, Friday, 2 June 2006 12:22 (eighteen years ago) link
― James Cowher, Friday, 2 June 2006 12:29 (eighteen years ago) link
My actual point here is if you like Jimi more, than that is fine. People who try to undermine Eddie's accomplishments in the process of praising Jimi are uninformed or foolish. Had Jimi lved longer, who knows what he may have done. The point is not would have or could have been done, but actually what has been accomplished by Eddie. If Jimi was so innovative and amazing, he would have came up with double hand tapping and artificial harmonics. He would have invented the Floyd Rose or Drop-D Tuna. He would have been the 19th best selling artist of all time. The point is, none of this happened. eddie came up with someting that no one was doing beofre him and everyone did after him. That is innovation and influence. If anything, I hope you like Hendrix but you learned and respected a lot more about Eddie.
― Roy Cox, Friday, 2 June 2006 12:41 (eighteen years ago) link
Music simply cannot be judged like a sport, and thank the stars for that. As paraphrased above, Eddie himself said something along the lines of:
"Guitar playing is not a sport and it is not competition. There is no best. You like what you like and you play how you feel."
So I find it unbelievably ironic that you are bound and determined to dig your heels in behind this imaginary line that your own guitar-god-hero dismisses. If technical speed was the main determination to establish the intangible "best" in music, then I shudder to think about what today's music would be like.
Music is about pleasure, so to stretch the analogy, if you ask any woman if she prefers a speedy lover over one who takes his time and gives emphasis to certain "notes and rhythms", I'm willing to bet the farm that well over 90% would choose the latter. That's exactly how I feel about music.
Now if you have a wife or girlfriend, do this for me: Play Eruption, then play Little Wing. Then ask her which one gets her more in the mood. And if you honestly don't think that evoking emotional or even sexual responses out of song is a valid indication of the power of music, then there really is no further point in having any kind of discourse with you.
Your "evidence" really only supports that EVH is a better shredder and speed technician, and that is a very small percentage of both guitar players and fans of music in general. And as I said before, even though I'm not a fan of shredding, I feel that Satriani is a much better example of a guitar virtuoso who can not only shred with the best, but also appears to be much more versatile, and in my opinion soulful.
As for all of the responses by guys claiming that you have "schooled us", that is high praise indeed from people who before you showed up were famous for saying ridiculous things like "Hendrix Sux!". I've already mentioned it, but it is clear that some things need to be said many times before they sink in. Roy's evidence, in my opinion, does in fact support and conclude that EVH is more of a technical genius than Hendrix was. But that's where it ends. Claims that one influenced more subsequent guitarists are far from empirical, and such a conclusion is near impossible to make based upon the sheer number of fantastic guitar players in the world, all of whom would be laughing their asses off at this polemic thread.
― shorty (shorty), Friday, 2 June 2006 13:09 (eighteen years ago) link
― I am ready to kill myself and eat my dog (teenagequiet), Friday, 2 June 2006 13:12 (eighteen years ago) link
― shorty (shorty), Friday, 2 June 2006 13:15 (eighteen years ago) link
Well yeah, by 1 degree of separation: I play a guitar and so does he.
Let's count the other similarities:• My guitar has 6 strings... so does Eddie's!• I use an amp or some sort of module that translates the signal from my guitar to more interesting and audible sound... so does Eddy!• I use two hands: my left one is on the fretboard, my right hand hits the strings with a pick... so does Eddy (when he's not tapping the most boring shit ever)!• That reminds me: in addition to a guitar with strings and an amp, I also use a pick... so does Eddy!• I recently took apart a guitar and put it back together with new parts... I hear Eddy did shit like that with his Charvel neck and wax-dipped pickups. Wowee!• Sometimes I play drunk or stoned... so does Eddy!
― Uri Frendimein (Uri Frendimein), Friday, 2 June 2006 14:16 (eighteen years ago) link
― M@tt He1geson (Matt Helgeson), Friday, 2 June 2006 14:45 (eighteen years ago) link
And I could go on to take minor issues with a vast number of your points (first distortion - ever heard "Rocket 88"?! double hand tapping - you list all the people you initially listed in your first post. Repeating the same half dozen people does not make your point. THERE ARE OTHER GUITAR PLAYERS fyi). But why should I bother? In a sense that would just be validating your approach - that the quality of music and a musician can be broken down into scientifically verifiable little categories that can then be quantified and ranked on a checklist. I could list a million guitarists that you in all likelihood have never heard of and never will because they do not fall into any of these little categories of yours, and do not run in the same circles of shitty multiplatinum metal studio musician hacks. (Honestly go to the current "favorite guitar player" thread and tell me you even know who half of the people listed are...) But what would be the point? You probably would say it isn't "music" cuz they never sold a billion records or were on the cover of Guitar Player.
― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 2 June 2006 14:52 (eighteen years ago) link
― shorty (shorty), Friday, 2 June 2006 15:16 (eighteen years ago) link
My actual point here is if you like Jimi more, than that is fine. People who try to undermine Eddie's accomplishments in the process of praising Jimi are uninformed or foolish.
― Steve Goldberg (Steve Goldberg), Friday, 2 June 2006 15:32 (eighteen years ago) link
― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 2 June 2006 15:36 (eighteen years ago) link
― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 2 June 2006 15:38 (eighteen years ago) link
― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 2 June 2006 15:43 (eighteen years ago) link
― Uri Frendimein (Uri Frendimein), Friday, 2 June 2006 15:46 (eighteen years ago) link
― Uri Frendimein (Uri Frendimein), Friday, 2 June 2006 15:51 (eighteen years ago) link
― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 2 June 2006 15:56 (eighteen years ago) link
― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 2 June 2006 15:58 (eighteen years ago) link
it's mostly from the Grateful Dead, just amped up w/guitar mag chops (and boring playing and w/o jerry's great voice.)
― M@tt He1geson (Matt Helgeson), Friday, 2 June 2006 16:15 (eighteen years ago) link
― Uri Frendimein (Uri Frendimein), Friday, 2 June 2006 16:29 (eighteen years ago) link
As for his assertion that Van Halen has had a greater influence, lest we forget, Satriani one of the virtuoso guitarists that Roy cites (as do I) began focusing on his amazing career when he heard that Hendrix died. My guess is that both Satriani and Eddie himself have called Hendrix one of their main influences. Vai also notes that his early influences included Hendrix and Page. Kirk Hammet is another respected speed metal guitarist who cites Hendrix as one of his major influences. These are just a few that I've bothered to Google, and each of them falls into the shredder model. If I attempted to start a list of lead guitarists who are more into the blues-rock than shredding, I'm certain I could come up with a list as long as the day is long.
― shorty (shorty), Friday, 2 June 2006 16:30 (eighteen years ago) link
― shorty (shorty), Friday, 2 June 2006 16:32 (eighteen years ago) link
Malmsteen cites Hendrix as his inspiration too. It just seems to me that Roy was emphasizing EVH's accomplishments, and now you guys are gleefully attacking this guitar-center wanker strawman rather than replying to what he actually said.
I don't think it's arguable that EVH was a better technician than Hendrix. Beyond that it gets a lot more subjective. I've never been a huge fan of the music of either.
― Steve Goldberg (Steve Goldberg), Friday, 2 June 2006 16:35 (eighteen years ago) link
― Steve Goldberg (Steve Goldberg), Friday, 2 June 2006 16:36 (eighteen years ago) link
― shorty (shorty), Friday, 2 June 2006 16:37 (eighteen years ago) link
― gear (gear), Friday, 2 June 2006 16:41 (eighteen years ago) link
― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 2 June 2006 16:50 (eighteen years ago) link
Influence: Eddie Van Halen again. When Jimi emerged, no one was trying to play like him, look like him, or capture his sound. When Eddie emerged EVERY guitar player tried to play like him
EVERY guitar player huh? Real empirical, and simply not true. In fact I'm certain that there are more guitar players in the world (professional or not) who would not claim EVH as an influence, and the same goes for Hendrix. You simply made an untrue statement.
Additionally, I've already stated that most of the people Roy cites as having been influenced by EVH have also named Hendrix, some going so far as to say the latter was their main influence. So much for that point.
Innovation: Eddie Van Halen... Artificial harmonics, volume swells, whammy screams, even the name "whammy" were all from Eddie. If you throw in the creation of the drop-d tuna, the inspiration for the Floyd Rose patent, and his line of hand-made guitars with the only tone nicknamed in the music industry ( "Brown Sound") this debate was never a debate to begin with.
Eddie perfected hand-tapping. Jimi (in many people's opinions) basically introduced the concept of the lead guitar player as we now now it. Which one is more significant to you?
OK, so EVH made innovations in gear. What the hell does that have to do with his skill as a guitar player. One of the first and biggest changes in the electric guitar industry was the Fender Broadcaster/Telecaster and later Stratocaster, and, correct me if I'm wrong, Leo Fender did not play guitar. Furthermore, many of the skilled guitar players that I know are of the opinion that wammy bars and other gear are bells and whistles that a truly skilled practitioner doesn't need. Please don't take that statement as me trying to say that EVH or anyone that does use these things are not great; I'm simply telling you what I've been told by a good number of skilled guitar players.
As for technical skill, I've already given my opinion that I concede this point, and agree that EVH has technical skills that Jimi didn't reach in his short life. But here's another analogy for ya.. I've been involved in judo for more than half of my 39 years, and I've seen many a perfectionist technician get his ass handed to him in a tournament or in the street by guys with less skills. Similarly I've seen tough, meathead streetfighters get manhandled by judoka with both technical skill and fighting spirit. Again, I feel that it takes a combination of technical skills on the guitar AND musical spirit to make it as one of my favourites.
Any questions?
Yes, why do you feel the need to be so condescending?
There really are no other salient points made in his first post than those I've covered, so I really fail to see how anyone saw Roy's post as so conclusive.
― shorty (shorty), Friday, 2 June 2006 17:16 (eighteen years ago) link
― gear (gear), Friday, 2 June 2006 17:19 (eighteen years ago) link
― Chris Bee (Cee Bee), Friday, 2 June 2006 17:20 (eighteen years ago) link
― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 2 June 2006 17:25 (eighteen years ago) link
Here are some of the fallacies I see in Roy's post, and what I see as support for each of my claims:
Appeal to Authority: As a guitar historian and a veteran player myself... 'nuff said
The Horse Laugh/Ridicule: Especially when you were booed opening up for The Monkees. If the musical opinion of the fanbase of the first boy-band in history is an indication of Jimi's lack of skill, we're all in real trouble. This is a great one since it's also a Begging the Question because we don't know how Eddie would have been met by the same crowd, and a False Dillema fallacy, since it seems to state that Jimi couldn't have been very good because that group of people booed him.
Testability: When Eddie emerged EVERY guitar player tried to play like him. Show me what metric or test was used to draw this conclusion.
I could go on, but this is a drastic departure from the thread topic. :)
― shorty (shorty), Friday, 2 June 2006 17:53 (eighteen years ago) link
― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 2 June 2006 17:58 (eighteen years ago) link
― shorty (shorty), Friday, 2 June 2006 18:00 (eighteen years ago) link
― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 2 June 2006 18:01 (eighteen years ago) link
― shorty (shorty), Friday, 2 June 2006 18:05 (eighteen years ago) link
― M@tt He1geson (Matt Helgeson), Friday, 2 June 2006 18:14 (eighteen years ago) link
― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 2 June 2006 18:18 (eighteen years ago) link