Eddie Van Halen or Jimi Hendrix?

And as for the fuckhead who said Hendrix is somehow less for using "destortion," get one clue moron. Both Hendrix and Eddie used plenty of destortion [sic]. The difference is Hendrix is distorting the power section of a tube amp by just turning the fucker all the way up, and Eddie is distorting the preamp section by carefully tweaking the amp with a bunch of kind of interesting techniques. Neither one is inherently better and neither is inherently bad. They are just completely different.

Eddie's a fantastic player of rock and pop. Hendrix is really a jazz player in the rock idiom.

Chuck Berry kicks both of their asses in many ways.

The real question is if Hendrix had lived to face his demons, would he be a total prick? Alternately, if Eddie had died at the peak of his career, would anybody be talking smack about him now?

So anyway, I am one of the biggest Van Halen fans you'll ever talk to, but I'm still gonna have to go with Hendrix.

EVH is the master! Cobain.. worm food.

obviously Cobain was depressed too? YA THINK?

I've heard this meme before and it's nonsense. Hendrix was a blues and R&B player. His playing comes directly out of that music -- and I don't mean this to be in any way denigrating. But there's hardly a lick of jazz in anything he plays.

As for EVH, well, unlike the kid in Rock School and the minions making after-school trips to guitar center, he actually COULD groove as well. And he could play a really memorable, catchy guitar solo, which is one of my ultimate measures of a guitarist. I'll take Hendrix over him, but I wouldn't want to live in a world without Hot for Teacher.

But otherwise.....yawn.

Wrong. Eddie learned tapping by watching Ace Frehley from Kiss do it first. And it's about the only thing he ever learned.

Van Halen was "discovered" by Gene Simmons. Eddie and Alex recorded some demos with Gene and Paul when Gene was considering replacing Ace and Peter.

Eruption is not that amazing. Get one grip on reality.

Not if you've been in a Guitar Center on kiddie weekends or watched the movie Rock School. Now it's more along the lines of a reason to walk out the door, grit your teeth and suffer it, or reach for the bottle of aspirin.

So, Jimi wins, even though Van Halen in a way was more fun (thanks to his vocalist)

TECHNICAL ABILITY:
1.) Jimi Hendrix had better technical ability thanks to his enormous fingers which could extend some ridiculous amount of frets that few others can physically accomplish. It wasn't just reach: Jimi was technically gifted in physical mastery of the instrument.
2.) Having mastered control of the instrument, Jimi was also technically gifted in mastery of sound and invented or had designed a variety of stomp boxes and gadgets to technically master the sound he was after.

EMOTIONAL PLAYING ABILITY:
While this is totally subjective, it seems nonsensical to say that an better emotional player is not also a better technical player. Emotion is about technique and technique is technical. Besides, Hendrix was a better technical player, anyway. He may have sometimes played sloppily for a certain effect, but he could certainly play very clean and precisely WHILE singing. And he didn't just do a bunch of hammer-ons and divebombs.

So,
Van Halen

So, Van Halen.

So,
Van Halen

First of all, you're lying about being able to play "anything all of Jimi's stuff" unless of course, you have a 14" hand.

Secondly, if "technical ability" only = "shit, I can't play that!" then I guess Buckethead must be the greatest guitarist on earth. He has Jimi's fingerspan and he can EIGHT-FINGER tap, which even Eddie couldn't do.

Look at this poor wretch seahag fucker:

http://us.news3.yimg.com/us.i2.yimg.com/p/ap/20060306/capt.camw12703061102.elton_john_oscar_party_camw127.jpg

the rest just looks sadly like boys fiddling. thrusting. needing me to look.

nah. its what you do with it.

Hendrix played bitchin sex jams,
Van Halen plays plastic cheese.

SOUL PATROL!

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1947917209390029777&q=van+halen

Jimmy:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4980626658551413306&q=jimmy+hendrix+national+anthem

While I personally disagree with the outcome (I love Hendrix and I rarely play Van Halen), I think this is the best answer in the entire thread. I've never understood this need to rate musicians as if they're competing in the Olympics, and comparing the likes of these two is definitely apples and oranges.

For the record, I don't really get into shredding, so I simply can't go with Eddie. If I did though, I woul definitely prefer listing to the likes of Satriani or Vai.

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

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. In fact, during the club days, Eddie had to play his solos with his back to the crowd so people 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, etc. all tried to play Eddie's style. Some guitar players went further and tried to look like Eddie: Vito Bratta,Warren DeMartini,etc. Today? 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.

Technical: Eddie and not even close. In the words of Zakk Wylde: "Jimi Hendrix would have never been able to play Eruption or Spanish Fly."

Accolades: Yes, Rolling Stone chose Jimi as the greatest RNR guitar player of all time. They also chose Joan Jett over EVH and Randy Rhoads and left Vai and Malmsteen entirely off the list. 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. 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. Eruption was listed as the second greatest solo of all time after Stairway. No one was voted best guitar player more than Edward.

Accolades: Blah, Blah, Blah . . .Jimi's emotion and songs were so great. 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, and had him chased to the UK because no American label would sign him. Especially when you were booed opening up for The Monkees. By Van halen's third album, way before MTV started, they outsold Jimi's entire catalog to date. They are the ninth best selling band and the 19th best selling artists of all time.

Any questions?

Ah, so that's who's to blame

Yes, just one. Is your hair long in the back and short on top?

Your horrid image does unfix my hair.

....
Lenny Kravitz never existed

-- Roy Cox (thectbrennan...), May 30th, 2006."

Your arrogance and attitude is laughable. Perhaps if you attempted to enlighten with knowledge rather than condescend to a group of people with similar interests as your own, you might be taken a bit more seriously and not be the butt of mullet-head jokes.

Eight years ago tho. I have no idea how The Beatles fit into ILM Discourse at the time.

great revive

ffs

That pair of posts b4 the revive is pretty gr8

the Van Halen Rising book was great