Reg you see what you've gone into is a blues versus rock thing.

Actually I just went right to the blues guys because I thought you really dug them. The thing is I like a boatload of rock players more than I like Eddie too...well that's not fair really because I don't like Eddie at all. In fact I think you are correct, he did sort of give birth to some new directions for the guitar and it's players but Madonna also gave birth to Britney Spears and friends...the point is SO WHAT!

I really don't care how many notes he can cram into a solo or how he orders them, if it's got no soul it don't rock 'n' roll. Eddie is the king of Noodle Rock, or as some may like to call it Leotard Rock.

I mean come on, for pure glove sniffing, power chord, blow up the amps, monster rock Van Halen is a fart in windstorm compared to folks like Led Zeppelin, The Who, Jimi Hendrix...do I really need to go on? Eddie is boring...technically interesting maybe for a guitar nerd...but in terms of soul, EMPTY! Null and void. It doesn't help that his band never recorded a decent song...leaving all his guitar pyrotechnics sort of dangling there amongst the flatulence of his band mates.

Perhaps there in the Shire there's something exotic about Van Halen and friends but here that music just reeks of spilled beer and upper middle class young republican frat boy vomit.

I'd rather hear John Lennon play his guitar or Neil Young rip through one of his ragged three or four note solos...because they say more with three or four notes than Eddie has in his entire career.

As someone else already pointed out, Dave Davies had it nailed...Eddie's boring...a flat out snooze.

I just watched the Who in the film "The Kids Are Alright" the other day and enoyed the hell out of it. I laughed several times too, having seen Spinal Tap so many times. I had not seen it in more than 20 years. I love the scene where John Entwistle walks through his house full of guitars and his bass collection and proceeds to tear some of the gold records off the wall, takes them outside and starts shooting at them. First with a shotgun, which frustrates him because he keeps missing then with a machine gun. Later when asked about how he felt shooting up his gold records he replied "Oh, those were Roger's."

Then there is the fantastic scene where Moon is dressed up in and surrounded by S&M gear and is getting flogged by a young woman wearing little more than a leather vest. All while being interviewed. You have to admit, these guys knew more about glove sniffing than that snotty little Van Halen punk ever could. So while Keith Moon was up to all that Eddie was busy trying to squeeze into this:

You gotta ask yourself why...don't you?