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should bands carry on when there's only one original member?


PaulWarning

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Two of my favourite bands have been down to one, founding, member each and been just as impressive .

Graham Crabb reformed Pop Will Eat Itself with various other people. He had full blessing form all the other original members. Then a couple of years ago all the other original members joined back up, bar Clint Mansell.

And The Wonder Stuff made it all the way down to just Miles Hunt as an original member. But now Malc Treece has rejoined and they're back up to the maximum number of original members possible. The other two are no longer with us.

 

What I find weirder are when a member of a band is not an original member, but has been in the band for longer than the person they replaced. And there's still people who don't see them as being a proper member of the band.

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Stooging around at a local leisure centre the other day I found myself scrutinising posters for a range of upcoming musical attractions which ran the full gamut of 'authenticity' from some to none.

* Gordon Haskell - alive and actually himself performing in a solo capacity; will prob not be playing any King Crimson covers
* The Dreamers - one guy from a slightly later 1960s incarnation of the Freddie and The Dreamers band which toured the USA
* An Everly Brothers tribute - one's dead and the other one's alive but he's not in the act
* Elvis - obviously dead and therefore not the original artist
* A Buddy Holly act - exceptionally dead and not currently touring

Two things struck me:

* Haskell apart, the absence of anything after the 1960's. Who goes to see these bands (not that people shouldn't)?
* The extraordinary number and variety of wigs, apart from The Dreamers who clearly eschew such fripperies whether on the grounds of economy or of good taste

 

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On the same night last year I saw Herman’s Hermits (only the drummer was original). The Fortunes (as far as I could tell no originals) and The Foundations, with one original member who lived locally rejoining them, and a very early replacement lead singer, so almost an original.

But the best band of the evening was The New Amen Corner, obviously none of the original A C, but performing their songs.

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1 hour ago, BrunoBass said:

There are no original members at all left in Napalm Death.

 

This is an interesting one since it depends which lineup you're considering. For example, their influential album Scum basically had two different lineups, one on the A side and one on the B side. They've had so many lineup changes and members, even on the same record, that you're never going to get the "original" lineup because such a lineup doesn't exist!

Looking at the current lineup they still Shane on bass who has been with them since From Enslavement to Obliteration, and Barney and Mitch Harris have been around since Harmony Corruption. That's pretty much as good as you're gonna get without getting in Bill Steer or Lee Dorrian. Also Jesse Pintado is no longer with us either, sadly.

 

I think someone mentioned this earlier but it gets even more confusing when you have bands that split up and then one group of people gets to keep the old name, but one gets a slightly different name to carry on the project. Like Venom and Venom Inc, Terrorizer and Terrorizer LA, Entombed and Entombed AD, Nocturnus and Nocturnus AD, etcetera.

Really makes it a minefield when one of them is coming to play a gig! Is it worth going, is it not, do they play old stuff or new stuff and how well do they do it?

 

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5 minutes ago, SH73 said:

Annihilator.. underated trash metal band. Saw them two years back opening for Testament, should've been the other way.

They play in London in October 🤘

Wrong thread? 😉

But, bloody hell are they still going? I had their first album!

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Just now, BreadBin said:

Wrong thread? 😉

But, bloody hell are they still going? I had their first album!

I saw them at Bloodstock a few years back, Jeff Waters is still around but the rest of the lineup is all new. They put on a good show actually, good amount of classic tunes which is always nice.

I remember doing a cover of one of their tunes in rehearsal with a band I was very briefly with and playing the bassline to Alison Hell fingerstyle, god knows how I managed that!

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11 minutes ago, razor5cl said:

I saw them at Bloodstock a few years back, Jeff Waters is still around but the rest of the lineup is all new. They put on a good show actually, good amount of classic tunes which is always nice.

I remember doing a cover of one of their tunes in rehearsal with a band I was very briefly with and playing the bassline to Alison Hell fingerstyle, god knows how I managed that!

Woah, we tried but never managed it and decided we probably weren't good enough!

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28 minutes ago, jezzaboy said:

But he doesnt. It`s a Status Tele he plays now.

Andy Bown has been in the band since 77 ish and Rhino since 85. Good enough for me.

Still miss Rick though.

yep, better to have a Rossi only Quo than no Quo at all (some may disagree) the Frantic Four tours were great though, it's special when all the originals get back together

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5 hours ago, dmccombe7 said:

Had to google that one. Obviously i'm not a huge YES fan and didn't realise the musicians before Howe, Squire, Wakeman, Anderson, White / Bruford era. 

No idea that Squire was the only original :hi:

Dave

Although the drummer has been there since 72 without a break, so thats not too bad.

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