Eddie Van Halen or Jimi Hendrix?

Hendrix played his cock.

Yes, that's why we have so many veteran guitarists ruling Eddie as guitarist supreme based on sportsmanship and craftmanship. I'm surprised you haven't included the fact that he went from jeans to parachute pants and back to jeans again in your list of reasons why he is so inarguably great. Take your Zakk Wylde opinions and shove 'em up your ass. There are a million no-name mullet-headed dipshits who can squeal like Zakk or tap like Eddie. And before Eddie was custimizing chewy rectifier rectal "brown sounds," Jimi was customizing nameless stompboxes and geegaws to invent a sound that didn't even exist outside of heavy machinery and dangerous explosions.

http://pop.wizbangblog.com/images/2006/03/eddie-van-halen.jpg

Funniest irony ever.

...which would be fine if playing music was a track & field event, or a science project.

"When Jimi emerged, no one was trying to play like him, look like him, or capture his sound."

"Innovation: Eddie Van Halen. His style of double hand tapping revolutionized the way the guitar would be played for decades to come."

Pfft. Double hand tapping is only common in an extremely narrow slice of rock music - you could easily make the claim that Sonic Youth's tunings, or Kevin Shields' "wall of feedback" has influenced an equal number of guitarists. Who cares?

"If you throw in the creation of the drop-d tuna"

is this a reference to drop-d tuning? Eddie didn't invent that.

"the only tone nicknamed in the music industry ( "Brown Sound") this debate was never a debate to begin with."

Baloney - tons of guitarists have nicknames for their own individual peculiarities. That Eddie went so far as patent and market it is not all that impressive an artistic achievement.

"When Jimi emerged, no one was trying to play like him, look like him, or capture his sound."

This is COMPLETELY WRONG. Read interviews of any of the Brits who saw Jimi play (Beck, Townsend, etc) and they were all blown away by Jimi and wanted to copy him. Back in the states once Jimi hit every single black guitarist copped his act - witness all the fuzz guitar all over Norman Whitfield's productions, Eddie Hazel, Black Merda, a host of "heavy" blues bands, etc.

"When Eddie emerged EVERY guitar player tried to play like him. In fact, during the club days, Eddie had to play his solos with his back to the crowd"

As has been pointed out, these two sentences kind of contradict one another.

"like Randy Rhoads, Jake E Lee and George Lynch would not learn his techniques. bettencourt, Rhoads, vai, satriani, Lynch, Beach, Malmsteen, DeMartini,Dweezil Zappa,Dimebag, Kirk Hammet, Zakk Wylde,"

With the ostensible exceptions of Randy Rhoads and Hammett, all of these people are horrible hacks who play some of the most boring music ever - music that appeals strictly to people who fetishize Musicians' Trading Post catalogs.

"Green Day, Pantera, Smashmouth, Phish,Weezer, and Pearl Jam are just a handful of bands that have covered VH songs or site Eddie as their musical influence."

Everybody covers everybody. Most common cover is the Beatles' "Yesterday". "Louie Louie" is probably after that. Who cares?

"Getting guitar advice from Rolling Stone is like getting plumbing advice from your dentist. They also had their website shut down after 4,000 plus angry e-mails from EVH supporters."

4,000 EVH fans can't be wrong, eh? The masses quake.

"Meanwhile Eddie Van Halen is the only guitar player to be elected in to the Hall of Fame in both Guitar World and Guitar Player."

The notion that Guitar World and Guitar Player are not just as deluded and tradition-bound as Rolling Stone is laughable.

"They were so great they he had only one top ten single in his career, A COVER, no platinum albums until a decade after he died.... By Van halen's third album, way before MTV started, they outsold Jimi's entire catalog to date."

Sales as an arbiter of artistic quality is an empty argument. Aesthetics are not economics, and mass appeal /= proof of creativity.

"Any questions?"

why do you fucking bother? (hell why do I bother...)

Steve Hackett to thread.

"After a several year hiatus, Bruce Bennett, of Bennett Music Labs, is back to building the Brown Sound distortion pedal. His aim was to capture the essence of Hendrix’s Foxy Lady sound and other classic tones of the era that were based around a touch of fuzz and a ton of power amp distortion."

I think that's my favourite comment in the entire thread (at least he was humble about his own skills, so I give him credit for that)! First, I don't think anyone has bad-mouthed Eruption. It is clearly quite a feat of speed playing, and it would be unwise for anyone to claim that it isn't a very difficult piece to play, or that Eddie isn't a highly skilled player.

But having admitted all of that, I'm still fully within my right to not like Eruption, and I think it's funny to imply that anyone who doesn't like it simply must not be a good guitar player, or has a poor taste in music. I just listened to it again, just because of how this thread has degenerated, and yes, it's quite amazing, but no, I don't like it. :)

The very first sentence of the original start of this thread is "Who is your favourite?", and everyone is entitled to an opinion. Unfortunately, as is always the case, it turned into a polemic argument rather than a lively debate. And I may be completely incorrect here (I just don't have the energy to go through the entire thread again), but it seems to me that it was some (note that I said "some", not "all" or even "most". Many of those who prefer EVH have made perfectly logical and valid points) of the EVH fans that started with the "Hendrix sucks" comments, and as someone above stated, Eddie himself would laugh his ass off at anyone who claims that Jimi Hendrix was a shitty guitar player.

I think I'm pretty safe to say that both Jimi and Eddie are two examples of fantastic guitar playing. So for me it comes down to what I like better, and in this case it's Hendrix. I can safely say that I'd be fucking ecstatic to have a fraction of either of their skills, but I also know that even if I was able to play Eruption as well as Eddie, I'd be jamming to Hendrix-like stuff way more often.

But I guess I'd still suck! ;)

ding ding ding OTFM

i like both EVH and Hendrix a whole bunch.

so low and loud that it literally emptied bowels)

How did Sunn0))) get here? Do they have false teeth, too?

-- George 'the Animal' Steele (georg...), June 1st, 2006.

i heard the brown sounds story in regards to the swans...i guess they used to put amps along both walls of small art galleries and make people poop their pants.

Pete Townshend to thread, come on.

This can't possibly be true, can it?

(my guess is probably not, unless their Hall of Fame's are limited to, like, 3 people apiece).

This can't possibly be true, can it?

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.

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.