Van Halen: How They Made It Project

**Reckless Fable** · 12.14.20, 11:31 AM

I have an idea that could be a lot of fun for our VH community. I'd love to see an open sourced project where we can list all the details that went into making a VH song. Regular Wikipedia does a lot of VH tunes, but it's more about where it charted, the music videos and the narrative around it. I'd love to open a project to this crazy community that knows way too many details about VH to put together WHAT went into make that tune. It could be an amazing archive and one built by the community.

There's so much misinformation out there, lots of forums discussions here and elsewhere, and some of it was misdirection by Eddie himself! So it could be fun playing detectives going through and trying to figure out what equipment was used, where and with whom.

For Example:

Hot For Teacher

WHERE

5150 Studios

EQUIPMENT

Eddie:

Guitar: 1958 Gibson “Flying V” (Picture if can be found)
Amp: Marshall Plexi 1959SLP 100W (Picture)
Pedals: Roland Echo Unit for clean tone and neck pickup

Mike:

Al: (insert kit he used) - four base drums for intro - two for rest of song.

Oddball notes:

Vocals:

Lead: DLR
Background: Eddie, Mike, Dave and Ted Templeman

Sources:

Guitar World March 1984 Issue: Eddie (blah blah blah)
Matt Bruck: Interview (youtube)
Other Stuff

This is just a basic idea/example, but we could really dive deep here and let the format evolve as the project grows. But we'd do this for every song. Studio, live and side projects.

Thing is, I don't think the "Forum" format is the best tech do this project. It probably needs to be a Wiki like page because it will constantly evolve as new info comes to light. I'm sure a Links thread can be used to discuss and hash things out, for sure. But ultimately, there should be a page where the information keeps updating as new things come to light and old stuff, old assumptions can be changed. I also like the evolution of learning and perhaps making that part of the story. Like "it was assumed for years that Eddie used X guitar, but he used Y according to SOME DUDE WHO WAS THERE."

It seems like there are still a lot of people living who have first or secondhand knowledge of these things. Time is ripe to tap into them as we can.

Also, I'd there should be an owner of this project and that it should live here at the Links with current Mods who are down for managing this project. This isn't for any ego reasons, but 1) because we can hash out all the bullshit and keep the thread to the facts vs the standard "editorializing" that comes with most discussion about VH and 2) we can put parameters around it so it doesn't fly off the rails into nonsense. And I don't want to be that guy! But if there is the desire for this project, I'm absolutely sure that someone would be down to manage this.

I think this would be really a fun way to keep the VH spirit alive and have a living archive of everything that went into making each VH song.

What do you guys think?

**Jedi McFly** · 12.14.20, 11:54 AM

I love this idea. I’ve been thinking we need at least a catalog of what guitar Ed used on various songs. This could be part of it.

@Brett - wasn’t there a Wiki component of the site built at one point? Could be useful. I’m on Tapatalk, can’t see it right now.

**Reckless Fable** · 12.14.20, 12:09 PM

Originally Posted by Jedi McFly

I love this idea. I’ve been thinking we need at least a catalog of what guitar Ed used on various songs. This could be part of it.

@Brett - wasn’t there a Wiki component of the site built at one point? Could be useful. I’m on Tapatalk, can’t see it right now.

Exactly!

**fudd** · 12.14.20, 12:14 PM

Originally Posted by Reckless Fable

Exactly!

I’m closing this.

Kidding. Welcome the fuck back RF!!!!

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

**Reckless Fable** · 12.14.20, 12:22 PM

Originally Posted by fudd

I’m closing this.

Kidding. Welcome the fuck back RF!!!!

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Hahaha. Thanks brother!

**Number 47** · 12.14.20, 12:25 PM

Originally Posted by fudd

I’m closing this.

Kidding. Welcome the fuck back RF!!!

Wow! That was funny, but it made me gasp at first... bastard!

**Brett** · 12.14.20, 12:26 PM

We had a wiki but it really wasn’t going anywhere so I just kind of stopped doing it and shut the pages off. We can always bring it back if people want to try to get it going.

**Reckless Fable** · 12.14.20, 12:28 PM

Originally Posted by Brett

We had a wiki but it really wasn’t going anywhere so I just kind of stopped doing it and shut the pages off. We can always bring it back if people want to try to get it going.

Was it for this purpose? Or something else? Maybe there's a good start there?

Man, I must have missed that in all the years of being around here!

**Brett** · 12.14.20, 12:51 PM

It never really got very far I just started putting in some random album information. It was just a lot of work and I just kind of burned out on it pretty quick. So frankly we can do whatever we want with it there is no real direction with it. So any ideas anyone has or wants to add we can do something with it.

**Reckless Fable** · 12.14.20, 01:23 PM

Cool. Let's see if there's any enthusiasm for it. Either if there's someone or a small core who are REALLY gung ho and wants to jump in, or a larger collective enthusiasm. My guess is, over the years here, an open sourced project would be something the diehards would really love to contribute to. The level of knowledge and detail coming from some folks is remarkable. I've always been astonished at how people have found info over the years.

**DFVH5150** · 12.14.20, 03:15 PM

The Van Halen Encyclopedia would be a helpful resource for this, too. There's a lot of what instrument(s) he played for most of the song entries (all the way up to VH3) for those who don't already know this.

**Brett** · 12.14.20, 03:21 PM

If the diehards here would want to contribute and build this wiki area of the site I would be more than happy to open it up to everyone to add whatever they want to it, within reason of course. I just didn’t see much enthusiasm for it before so I just kind of let it die.

If we see enough people here who would consider contributing to it we’ll go from there. I’m not really holding my breath RF.

**PassingBy** · 12.14.20, 05:54 PM

Couldn't this be done on Wikipedia ? I don't know, I never wrote something there, but it would be the first place where I would look

**DFVH5150** · 12.14.20, 06:29 PM

Originally Posted by PassingBy

Couldn't this be done on Wikipedia ? I don't know, I never wrote something there, but it would be the first place where I would look

Yeah, shouldn't WE be doing their Wiki page?

**Reckless Fable** · 12.14.20, 08:05 PM

Originally Posted by DFVH5150

The Van Halen Encyclopedia would be a helpful resource for this, too. There's a lot of what instrument(s) he played for most of the song entries (all the way up to VH3) for those who don't already know this.

Yeah, there's some good stuff in there, but definitely think we could improve upon it.

Started this thread to see if there was any enthusiasm for doing this. I think the answer is....not so much.