Ultimate Classic Rock

Big thanks to Ultimate Classic Rock for mentioning the Van Halen Encyclopedia twice this week. Readers noticed and appreciated it, as did I.

New Newsletter

I started up a newsletter to email updates to the site. Sign up here. Of course, if you're into RSS, there's a feed for that as well.

Added Contributors Page

I added a page to acknowledge all the contributors to the book and site, and updated it with the latest contributors. Thanks to all!

Evolving

The site got a little facelift today courtesy of a new logo designed by Aaron Mahnke. I've also changed the homepage, temporarily, to give an index of ongoing updates as more of the book gets ported to the web. It'll change in the future as some custom updates are made to the way search results are presented and individual pages are added for major categories of updates. In other words, lots of work lies ahead!

The Van Halen Encyclopedia Returns

More than 10 years ago, I published the original Van Halen Encyclopedia book. In 2001, the second edition was published. At the time, it seemed like so many updates were coming in, I'd never catch up for a third edition. I pretty much gave up trying until (and I made the mistake of publicly saying this) "the band puts out a new original album." Who knew it would be such a silent decade? If you believe the rumors, the band is about to finally put out a new album; but that's not why I'm bringing the book back.

I didn't want to leave things as they were with the second edition book. I didn't like its design, its cost and its limitations. I knew eventually it would have to come back. But what a daunting task!

A few weeks ago, I started porting the book over to the web, starting with the album and song entries. Each entry is being touched up and/or added to along the way and linked up to whatever is already published. As more and more of the book is added, more will be linked up. Give it a little time to grow and keep checking back. For a little while, not much of the band's history past 2001 will be guaranteed up-to-date - for that I'll need a few months and some trusted allies. Until then, I'll be posting about my updates here and on Twitter. Thanks!