Eddie Van Halen or Jimi Hendrix?

"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.

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 Player
with 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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.