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Who do you like better Eddie or Randy?


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On 6/16/2020 at 6:06 AM, Nathan of Brainfertilizer Fame said:

Okay, now tell me where I'm wrong and who I've slighted with my opinions.

I just skipped down to the above paragraph, so no harm/foul here...

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21 hours ago, LucSulla said:

 

I can't imagine what it must have been like hearing all this stuff fresh as a teenager as it was happening. 

The above isolated track is a perfect example of EVH attack. ZZTop boogie on steroids, you can hear the the strings snap off the fretboard. Somehow EVH manages to have heavy pick attack, but a light touch with the fretting hand so notes are true and not bent out of tune.

I was 12-13 when Mammoth was playing venues around L.A. county. When DLR joined, Van Halen was pretty much the house band at Gazarri's on the Strip, played high school dances, The Starwood, Troubador, Whiskey, Pasadena Civic, etc.

Me and some buddies rode our BMXers out to Glendora for a backyard "kegger" (man, them was the DAYS...). The older guy in our group said the band was supposed to be incredible, so we jumped a fence in the back of this huge backyard to see. Mind you, this was right before I picked up guitar, but I'd been playing brass in school for years. I didn't really know much about heavy rock at the time, just from what my brother had in his lp collection, so I don't remember being blown away by the band. They were doing covers: KC/Sunshine Band, Ohio Players (doing the horn parts singing!), and other AM hits from the time. I think I recognized a Zep song or two and, "Tush"/"Just Got Paid", and that's ALL I remember. I'd love to brag about how it, "changed my life, yadda yadda", but I was unaware as to what I witnessed. We left before the county Sheriffs broke it up.

 

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Hey Guys,

Just kind of checking out this forum again after awhile and saw this question.

I saw them both. Saw Randy twice 1981 Palladium NYC and a few months later at Nassau Coliseum on Long Island

Saw Eddie 5 times 82, 83, 84, and twice in 2015 including the last show at The Hollywood Bowl

In my book Eddie was /is better. He did more with a guitar than anyone I've ever seen, Randy was great but seemed to be

copying Eddie's moves somewhat. Just my opinion.

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20 hours ago, The Shark said:

Forgive me, if I didn't read every other post.  But....

MICHAEL SCHENKER!!!

Great player love ufo....in the the book van halen rising vh open for ufo I think at the golden west and schenker was so drunk & pissed because Eddie was on fire and played great that night . He thought eddie showed him up. 

Here the link from vh 

http://www.vhnd.com/2015/08/19/van-halen-rising-vhnd-review/

 

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3 hours ago, iownit4 said:

Great player love ufo....in the the book van halen rising vh open for ufo I think at the golden west and schenker was so drunk & pissed because Eddie was on fire and played great that night . He thought eddie showed him up. 

Here the link from vh 

http://www.vhnd.com/2015/08/19/van-halen-rising-vhnd-review/

 

Yeah, I always thought Michael would die young.  But he's still around and still playing better than ever.  I don't think we can say that for the OP's duo...

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When we got the first VH album my bandmates and i thought we had Eddie's tapping all figured out...

It was a harpsichord plugged into a Distortion pedal into a cranked Marshall.

There really wasnt any other way we could think of... at the time. It's a silly idea now, but back then it was inconceivable it was a guitar.

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On 6/19/2020 at 11:04 AM, joshoowah said:

I was born in '78, so my first LP and cassette were "Thriller" - Does Eddie's solo on "Beat It" get me a pass? 😆

That actually may be mine too.  Wasn't everyone in North America basically mailed a copy of that in 1983?

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On 6/20/2020 at 10:43 PM, The Shark said:

Yeah, I always thought Michael would die young.  But he's still around and still playing better than ever.  I don't think we can say that for the OP's duo...

I saw him live for the first time last year in a small theater in Richmond, VA that was only 2/3 full.  He (and his band) blew me away.  It was the tour with 4 of his old singers, who all did a good job on the songs from their respective eras and the new stuff but IMHO Graham Bonnet was the best.  He's a tiny guy and I've seen lots of live footage of him sounding awful, but the night I saw him he just killed it!  Michael had some "lost years" for sure but he is on top of it now, I can assure you.  If you get a chance to see him, don't miss it!

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2 hours ago, tommy p said:

I saw him live for the first time last year in a small theater in Richmond, VA that was only 2/3 full.  He (and his band) blew me away.  It was the tour with 4 of his old singers, who all did a good job on the songs from their respective eras and the new stuff but IMHO Graham Bonnet was the best.  He's a tiny guy and I've seen lots of live footage of him sounding awful, but the night I saw him he just killed it!  Michael had some "lost years" for sure but he is on top of it now, I can assure you.  If you get a chance to see him, don't miss it!

Yeah, we didn't get a show any closer than Atlanta.  I wanted to see Barden, Bonnet, McCauley and Doogie.  There are a couple good shows and clips on YouTube, so I'll have to be satisfied with that.  He is playing great these days.

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Sorry, I know we're getting off track here (see below) but I saw that show last year when they came through ATL and thought it was great! I thought the camaraderie between the singers was fantastic, each giving the others their space. I thought they were all good at their own thing, but I tend to like Graham Bonnett a lot. It really looked like they were having a blast! Michael was just fantastic, hopefully his demons have been tamed and he keeps on a good track. He did his whole bad mouthing his bro thing which doesn't win people over that well regardless of how true it may or may not be, who knows? Anyway, so talented!

OK, back to EVH. Back in the day, I use to fast forward a cassette (remember those?) from solo to solo through various hard rock/metal CDs. I was all about the solos, especially those which were like songs within a song. Did anyone else do that or just me? But, on a VH album I would just let it play through as his playing was so complete; his riffs, rhythm, fills were so awesome I just couldn't pass them up. Then you had a killer solo as well, just a complete player!

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There’s one thing about Randy Rhoads I would like to point out and that I think we‘ve overlooked here:

Back then, everybody wanted to be EVH and every single American rock guitarist followed/copied him up to some extent. However, Randy Rhoads managed to be himself and to become influential under his own terms, without jumping in the EVH bandwagon. That makes him HUGE to my eyes. 

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1 hour ago, zorrow said:

There’s one thing about Randy Rhoads I would like to point out and that I think we‘ve overlooked here:

Back then, everybody wanted to be EVH and every single American rock guitarist followed/copied him up to some extent. However, Randy Rhoads managed to be himself and to become influential under his own terms, without jumping in the EVH bandwagon. That makes him HUGE to my eyes. 

I agree with that perspective; he was truly what I felt some listeners/fans portrayed Blackmore to be.  I never really bought into the concept of Blackmore as a neoclassical shredder.  I liked his playing just fine; it just wasn't really neoclassical to me. Rhoads sounded more like a formally trained rock guitarist who cleverly weaved well-honed "classical" modes and runs into his playing. There's a difference, methinks. 

IMHO, Jake E Lee was as interesting and novel in his playing as Randy, and Jake had several unorthodox techniques in his bag of tricks that are still quite impressive nearly 40 years later.

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3 hours ago, zorrow said:

There’s one thing about Randy Rhoads I would like to point out and that I think we‘ve overlooked here:

Back then, many wanted to be EVH and some American rock guitarists followed/copied him up to some extent. However, Randy Rhoads managed to be himself and to become influential under his own terms, without jumping in the EVH bandwagon. That makes him HUGE to my eyes. 

FIFY.

As an American guitarist is his teens during VH's heyday, I can assure you that while Eddie's influence was HUGE, there were many who made a conscious effort NOT to copy him. There were a lot famous players that embraced the OFR, but the smart ones never tried to copy Eddie's schtick.

And, yes, RR did cop a few moves from the VH playbook.

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I really loved the first two Ozzy albums. My favorite bands were Deep Purple and Rainbow and I always checked out what other stuff the individual musicians did (not easy to find out pre internet). So, I bought Black Sabbath's Mob Rules and Blizzard of Ozz at the same time. Randy Rhoads' playing was good, but so was Tony Iommi's. Van Halen I heard for the first time when my cousin played me the Women and Children First album. I can say 1981 was the year when I discovered most of the music I still listen to, it was the same time I seriously wanted to play guitar. But somehow I tried to keep up with all the music I missed in the 70's (or just vaguely remembered), same with 60's music. Most music I started with was by british bands, and while I loved Van Halen and also Journey, it didn't inspire me as much as others. VH's first album was out by 3 years when I first listened to it, so to me it had to compare with lots of stuff that came after. As for guitar inspiration, of course I did try to play VH stuff, also RR and YJM in my beginnings, but if there would be a player I would like to play like it would be Steve Lukather, another would be Martin Barre.

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18 hours ago, RobB said:

FIFY.

As an American guitarist is his teens during VH's heyday, I can assure you that while Eddie's influence was HUGE, there were many who made a conscious effort NOT to copy him. There were a lot famous players that embraced the OFR, but the smart ones never tried to copy Eddie's schtick.

And, yes, RR did cop a few moves from the VH playbook.

I did generalize, so my bad. :) I should’ve said what you said: “the smart ones never tried to copy Eddie’s schtick”. But then I should’ve also mentioned that RR was one of the smartest ones. I mean, he might have copied some EVH moves, but musically he did become influential on his own terms... even under the shadow of EVH!

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On 6/23/2020 at 12:50 AM, killerteddybear said:

It just occurred to me that in addition to the Van Halen debut album we had Mark Knopfler give us Dire Straits

To my ears, an incredible debut album. Opened my eyes to the world of fingerstyle.

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I remember reading (maybe in Ozzy, Bob Daisley, or Rudy Sarzo's books) that Randy was worried people would think he was ripping Eddie off in his solo spots when he played live because he did some tapping stuff.  Of course, like a lot of guitar solo spots, some of it was just standard rock licks played at blinding speed.  He didn't feel like he had his own thing.

I feel like they BOTH did.  When they started out both were striving to be innovative;  Randy with the classical influences in his melodies, licks, and progressions and Eddie with tapping and whammy stuff along and all manner of other weird sounds.  Each VH album seemed to have some new twist. VHI took tapping to a new level with Eruption and had all the crazy fills, VHII added some cool volume swells and acoustic tapping, W&CF had stuff like the intro to And the Cradle Will Rock and the craziness at the beginning of Everybody Wants Some, Fair Warning had the Mean Street intro, and even Diver Down (which I love but I know others don't) had Cathedral, Intruder, the Little Guitars intro and showed off another side to Eddie with Big Bad Bill.  He never surprised us again at the level of those first 6 albums IMHO.

I still "like" Eddie better but I give them both a LOT of credit.  We're still talking about them 38 YEARS after Randy's death and 36 since Eddie's best period which ended with 1984 IMO.  They both absolutely made their mark.

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