Entertainment For Lively Minds
Anyone else plainly ignorant of the line-ups of their favourite bands?
Posted by Andrew F on 27 July 2009 - 11:28am.
It's recently occurred to me that, despite having an appreciation of a great many bands, the vast majority of the time I couldn't tell you the slightest thing about their line-up. Even when I do know the names of the individuals concerned, I can very rarely pinpoint who plays what. In fact, the only band I can think of where I could tell you, with any certainty, exactly who plays what instrument is probably the Beatles.
Is there anyone else in this situation, or am I alone in not paying attention to these things and just concentrating on the music...?
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Singer & drummer the same person, who knew?
I went to see The Lucksmiths, one of my wife's favourite groups, a few weeks back, and we were both surprised to see the singer standing up front with just a snare, high hat and large tom. Neither of us had ever really thought about the line up before.
Thinking about it, I'm listening to The Hold Steady as I write, and I've no idea how many people make up the group - I just know they're from Minnesota and the singer's bald....
Makes quite a difference to me
I like to know a little about who is producing the music I listen to.
I'd definitely be a fan of Oasis and Van Morrison but they're total cocks, so I'm not.
Alas there's not even a glimmer of hope for Johnny Borrell
But don't you think
the days of knowing, or at least recognizing all the band members are long gone? Would many of us know the bass player from Coldplay or the drummer from Muse (both huge unit-shifting bands) if they walked past us in the street?
To be honest
I suspect that if the bass player from Coldplay went home for Sunday lunch and took the rest of the band with him his own mother would say, 'Who's that with Chris?'
Thankfully they are.
Otherwise my friend Steve wouldn't have been able to get into all those clubs in California by saying he was the drummer from Coldplay.
Similarly
I now have no idea what any of band's songs are called and refer to them by the track number.
The Curse of the Sleeperbloke
Anyone else with easy recall of The Libertines drummer or bass player?
Anyone know the names of Kasabian's rhythm section or anyone in t'Arctic Monkeys aside Alex Turner? The Blockheads aside Chaz Jankel?
I blame Louise.
Oh come on...
Blockheads: Norman Watt-Roy who played all the bass on Frankie Goes To Hollywood records and The Clash's funky bits...Mickey Gallagher who played Hammond organ on tour with the Clash and errr...
Still, not bad eh?
Blockheads: Norman Watt-Roy who played all the bass on Frankie G
He didn't have to play much.
Wasn't that reckoned to be the best-paid session ever?
NW-R walks into studio. Plugs in bass. Goes "donk" once into Trevor Horn's Syclavier. "Spot on" sez Trev. Exit Norman, on a percentage of sales..
Davey Payne did the two saxes at once thing
Sorry, John
but to me the Blockheads come from an that era when you might well know all the band members. Adam & The Ants made it easy - Marco, Merrick, Terry Lee...etc.
Probably true....
I did like the Ant Rap usage....
I remember my Mum reading the lyrics out from the back of the 7" over tea and cringing when she said "Sexy South"...
Micky Gallagher
also, I believe,co-wrote 'Show Me The Way', with Peter Frampton, with guitarist Johnny Turnbull was a member Skip Bifferty, Bell+Arc etc.
"My name....is...Wilko...."
"...and I'm Ian, and, guess what?"
"I Want to Be Straight" helped a lot in identifying The Blockheads. Perhaps every band should do a song like that?
Blimey, it looks like the Blockheads
are turning out to be the most recognisable band going!
Johnny, Joey, Dee Dee - Good Times
Although the Ramones all get name checked individually (at least the original members are) in someone else's (The Human League) song. I would guess that there are very few, if any, other cases of this apart from novelty songs.
R.A.M.O.N.E.S.
by Motorhead namechecks them too, a track that the Ramones later covered so that they ended up namechecking themselves - probably helped.
They also did it in Ramona...
...on 'Rocket to Russia'
"Hey Johnny hey Dee Dee
Little Tommy, Joey
You know we're going over
Sweet, sweet, little Ramona"
I'm similar
I tend to know about my favourite bands but as soon as you get to the layer below that I have no idea - it's even worse these days with downloads because you have to actively seek the information if you want to know. I consider myself an Arctic Monkeys fan but apart from Alex Turner I haven't a clue who else is in the band. I've just zipped through the albums on my ipod and there are lots of similar examples and many, especially solo artists where I wouldn't even know them if they walked in the room.
Half Man Half Biscuit
any advances on Nigel Blackwell in the current line up?
Downloading to blame
Haven't seen an inlay card in 5 years. Only people I know the names of are solo artists.
Track names
I'm the same but I struggle with the songtitles as well.
Same here
I've said this before in these parts. No effort goes into packaging MP3 downloads does it? The thing that bugs me is the lack of decent cover art, sleeve notes and band/writer info.
There must be lots of possibilities for making cover art more interesting in an MP3 file. animation, hyperlinks etc?
What about sleeve notes? I don't know anymore who wrote or played on the recordings I've downloaded, and there's no easy way of finding out. Aren't we missing a trick with MP3 tags? Why aren't the MP3 tags populated properly by the record companies with composer info, lyrics, notes, hyperlinks to websites, promotion of other recordings?
I would have thought this would be a serious problem for most artists and writers how are people going to know who you are?
Maybe nobody cares anymore, but I can't believe that.
Once upon a time
I could have told you who played what and when in favourite bands, what albums they played on and what difference their replacements made to the essential sound. I think it was all down to poring over the album covers in those far off halcyon school days.
We did not have so much choice of music, nor the money to buy it. We also had more time to anticipate the next release of a favourite band and pour over it in our bedrooms. It also helped that the print was actually big enough to read!
Surely the NME, Sounds, MM played a part too
In the time I read NME Pete Wylie, the Au Pairs or Crass were afforded multi-page interviews in which their opinions on everything from the Tories to 'Rockist tendencies' were sought...even the drummer got to talk about his musical influences at great length every Thursday. But yes downloading and Spotifying have almost erased the need to find out anything about the musicians as a listener.
But That Then Means We're More Reliant on Media Filters...
....if you can't walk into a shop and look at inlay cards and realise that x has played on this or they've recorded a cover of y.
Most of us on here are using this site and the mag as a filter to point the way but where else do the Massive get their pointers from?
Age and LPs
I use to know the names, instruments, favourite colours and inside leg measurement of my favourite bands and its members.
Now a mixture of not getting the same thrill looking on-line or at a CD inlay card as one did with a lovely LP and being older means I really don't know who people are or what they do. When I was younger Look-In/Smash Hits/NME/Record Mirror used to provide me with all the trivia I needed, but I'm simply not as interested as I was when I were a girl.