Should bands continue?

[Annoying Twit]

It really is complicated, as the way that bands end up with few original members, or whether or not the original members are the most important, happens in different ways.

For The Guess Who, I think that the way that the ownership of the name was acquired was a bit underhanded. Hence, I personally think it's a bit off that they continue as they do. They do have two original members, Jim Kale (bass player), and Gary Peterson (drums). However, they didn't really contribute much to the songwriting. And, as I mentioned, the method by which the name was acquired doesn't impress me.

For 10cc, the band split in half. You can't really have two bands with the same name, and Goldman/Stewart released an album with the name first. Even before Stewart left, the albums they released became less and less interesting, and I wouldn't have gone to see them live recently. Now that Stewart has left and only Goldman remains, then I don't think it's wrong for him to call himself and his backing band '10cc', but I wouldn't want to see them. Which I can prove as they came to Leicester and I didn't go see them. I'd see a reformed original 10cc in a shot. They do have members such as Rick Fenn who has been a member of the band for a long time, but I'm not aware what he has contributed artistically to the band. I've nothing against what Goldman is doing.

Deep Purple has only one original member, their drummer Ian Paice. However, they have three members from one of their glory periods who contributed artistically to the band. Ian Gillian, Roger Glover, and Paice. Other newer members Don Airey and Steve Morse contribute artistically to the band, but I've not really enjoyed the recent DP albums, so probably wouldn't go see them. They have even fewer original members than The Guess Who, but I think DP continuing is on much firmer ground.

Fleetwood Mac is a special case, with personal changes and reinvention of the band being central to what the band is. But, the personnel changes stopped working later on, with the songwriting suffering with Christine possibly becoming less motivated, and new members contributing songs that didn't stand up to the Rumours era songwriters. (In my opinion.) Hence, the reformation of the Rumours lineup makes sense. If they had released the Buckingham McVie album as FM, I would have found that entirely reasonable. But, I understand why they didn't; they wish to keep Nicks onside for live tours.

I will say that it's entirely reasonable for anyone to decide that they do or do not want to see a band, and that no explanation of any such decision is necessary. However, whether bands should continue is mostly up to the band members themselves. When new members are brought in and act as more than just sidemen (e.g. Deep Purple, Fleetwood Mac), then I think that their artistic investment in the band justifies them having choice over what happens. And in such cases, it can be quite reasonable for bands to continue even with few or no original members.

BTW: I thought that Mick Jones had left Foreigner, and that there were no original members left.

EDIT: I'm listening to 'Jeff Lynne's Electric Light Orchestra' album 'Alone in the Universe'. It's about as solo an album as it can get. Jeff Lynne played all the instruments and provided all the vocals, apart from a few backing vocals and a bit of percussion. His reason for using 'ELO' in the title is that he said that many people have been using the ELO name for tribute bands etc., so why shouldn't he?

[chaim]

I agree about 10cc. As for Rick Fenn, there's one song I can remember that he wrote for 10cc: "Don't send we back". Gouldman's 10cc was here in Finland a couple of months ago and I didn't go. Of course I'd go see the original 10cc, but I might even go if Kevin Godley or Lol Creme came here with some project. I love those guys.

To be fair, Gouldman's 10cc isn't just a greatest hits show - they performed Sheet Music in its entirety, which I thought was pretty cool.

[Annoying Twit]

Just correcting an error above. Mick Jones left Foreigner in 2012 for health reasons. When his health improved, he rejoined the band and is currently a member.

I listened to the Rick Fenn song, and note that he co-wrote another on the Lock Hear album with a member other than Stewart/Goldman. But, I didn't find those songs memorable. Which classic 10cc always was.

[UndertheWire]

I don't see the problem with ELO. Roy Wood left early on to form Wizard and that left Jeff Lynne and the drummer. I've always wondered why they formed ELO rather than just continuing as The Move.

Talking of drummers, I see that Carl Palmer will be doing a tour called "Carl Palmer's ELP Legacy". I don't have a problem with that, though I wonder how it will sound without Keith Emerson on keyboards/Moog.

[Annoying Twit]

I don't see the problem with ELO. Roy Wood left early on to form Wizard and that left Jeff Lynne and the drummer. I've always wondered why they formed ELO rather than just continuing as The Move.

For the type of music that they were aiming at, 'Electric Light Orchestra' is a much better name than 'The Move', IMHO.

[Annoying Twit]

I've listened to the most recent 10cc live album. I think they are a very competent band, and they gave a good performance of the songs. However, with just Graham Gouldman from what I interpret as the classic 10cc, I still wouldn't see them live. If I won a free ticket I'd go and would expect to enjoy myself. But otherwise, no.

However, referring to discussion further up, there could be people who discovered 10cc during the Stewart/Gouldman years, when Paul Burgess and Rick Fenn were members of the band. Hence, those people for whom Stewart/Gouldman are the classic 10cc, the band would look more 'complete' to them than they do to me.

[chaim]

About 10cc...My theory is that most people who go see them now expect to hear Rubber Bullets and I'm Not In Love and can't tell Gouldman from Stewart. They probably can't tell the "classic" lineup from the Gouldman/Stewart lineup.

Incidentally, Gouldman said a few years ago that he has a few rather crazy songs (I don't remember the exact adjective he used - it wasn't "crazy", but something with a similar meaning) written, but he won't record as 10cc as "that wouldn't be right".

[Annoying Twit]

About 10cc...My theory is that most people who go see them now expect to hear Rubber Bullets and I'm Not In Love and can't tell Gouldman from Stewart. They probably can't tell the "classic" lineup from the Gouldman/Stewart lineup.

I'm not sure that this is true. I read some 10cc threads on some music forums, and the people who were posting that they'd seen 10cc in concert were long-time fans of the band who did know exactly what they were getting and who wasn't there. However, they often said that while it was sad that the original band had become Gouldman + hired hands, that it was still an enjoyable concert. It was comments like that which made me listen to the band online.

I did notice that some of these were people who had found the band after 1976, so that they were primarily interested in the Stewart/Gouldman version. However, there were quite a few fans of the band from earlier times as well.

Incidentally, Gouldman said a few years ago that he has a few rather crazy songs (I don't remember the exact adjective he used - it wasn't "crazy", but something with a similar meaning) written, but he won't record as 10cc as "that wouldn't be right".

He says something similar here: http://magazine.100percentrock.com/i.../201510/140834

[chaim]

Yeah, I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure a lot more people go see them live than post in an internet forum. Those who go to hear Rubber Bullets don't necessarily post in an internet forum. I probably wasn't very clear with what I said. I didn't mean that big fans of the band don't go to see them anymore, but that perhaps there are more casual fans ("gimme Rubber Bullets"!) in the audience than big fans.

Who knows, maybe the current band is even better live than the original one. Their early albums were very "studiolized" and they were also all over the place in terms of who played what. So it wasn't necessarily easy to reproduce that stuff live as they weren't "musician's musicians" as players. The current guys are probably better performers technically than Godley and Creme are even today - let alone in the 70's.

[Annoying Twit]

Yeah, I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure a lot more people go see them live than post in an internet forum. Those who go to hear Rubber Bullets don't necessarily post in an internet forum. I probably wasn't very clear with what I said. I didn't mean that big fans of the band don't go to see them anymore, but that perhaps there are more casual fans ("gimme Rubber Bullets"!) in the audience than big fans.

Who knows, maybe the current band is even better live than the original one. Their early albums were very "studiolized" and they were also all over the place in terms of who played what. So it wasn't necessarily easy to produce that stuff live as they weren't "musician's musicians" as players. The current guys are probably better performs technically than Godley and Creme are even today.

It's a difficult question to answer, unless someone went to a concert and polled the people there. However, some of the forums I was looking at were active general music forums, not specific 10cc forums. E.g. 'Music Corner' of the Steve Hoffman forums. And those that said they had gone to the concerts seemed to be the knowledgeable ones, while there were still others posting that they didn't know the band or had only recently discovered them.

BTW: I listened to Graham Gouldman's most recent solo album 'Love and Work'. It is full of very competently written and well performed and arranged songs, but I didn't find it engaging at all. THere was nothing wrong with it or the songs on it, but I just couldn't get into it and found it a bit boring.