[x] Rule 6b

I have issues with Rule 6b.

There are circumstances, cynically exploited by record company decision-makers, whereby a currently fashionable artist, call him "Flashy Starr", joins a not-so-fashionable band, call them "The Mondo Men", in a non-leading role. The aforesaid decision-makers therefore consider reimaging that band by releasing their record under the name "Flashy Starr and the Mondo Men". However, they can't *really* do that, because Flashy Starr merely plays jews-harp and/or harmonica with them and it's not really "his" band. So what they do is release the album under the name: "The Mondo Men with Flashy Starr", and everyone's happy: all the teenyboppers scamper out to the stores and fork out their hard-earned pocket money because wow! it's got Flashy Starr in it! and lo and behold, a hit.

However, because of the rules of b2b, this release (which is of course a major rock classic, all the critics said so after all) would not be eligible for inclusion, as although Flashy is indeed a solidly incorporated member of the band, the "with" suggests he's merely guesting after all.

So here's another question: how do you go on "Featuring"? Another manifestation of the same effect. An example of this is "Kick off your Muddy Boots" by "The Graeme Edge Band Featuring Adrian Gurvitz":

[www.ginger-baker.com] http://www.ginger-baker.com/pages/Baker_disco_LP4.htm#GRAEME
Graeme Edge - drums, backing vocals,
Adrian Gurvitz - guitar, lead vocals,
Paul Gurvitz - bass, backing vocals,
Mike Gallagher - keyboards

... which may or may not be an important piece of rock history (probably not in this case as the GEB already has an entry on the db with a similar lineup.

My take on it would be that "The Graeme Edge Band" would be the name of the band, and "Featuring Adrian Gurvitz" (whose real name, incidentally, is actually Adrian Curtis, same applies to Paul) would be a mere description designed to sell records.



Another issue: The Zappa Effect.

I contend that "Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention" is *not* a collaboration between a solo artist and an established band (yes I *know* they are no longer excluded, that's not the point of this comment) - it's a band name change. The Mothers Of Invention *already included* Zappa - therefore does not fit into the categories of Rule 6.

What about (another hypothetical situation) Rudy Deepthought, who released "Nursery Rhymes" at the age of 12. Several years later he joined the Grannymuggers as guitarist for their third album "Bloodspatter". So great are Rudy Deepthought's talents that not only does Bloodspatter go multi-uranium, but at the same time the re-release of "Nursery Rhymes" becomes No. 1 in 14 countries. So, by the time the Grannymuggers go into the studio to record their fourth album "Pretty Little Flowers", they've been calling themselves (or the record company decision-makers have been billing them on their live tour as), predictably, "Rudy Deepthought and the Grannymuggers". During this time, of course, they've changed drummer (the old one exploded on stage in the de rigueur rock 'n' roll manner), and the new one is the *only link* to the Frigley-on-the-Wreake folk music scene. But, of course, "Pretty Little Flowers" does *not* get included on the db, as according to Rule 6a, it would be excluded.

I tend to agree. "The Graeme Edge Band" is the band name, the rest is not part of the artist name, it's just on the cover. In your first example I'd consider Flashy Starr to be a member of the band "The Mondo Men", who is the band producing the release in question. The cover art has extra text to sell records, not to create a new band called "The Mondo Men With Flashy Starr".

I don't know about your final hypothetical example. It seems clear to me that the name of the band has been changed to "Rudy Deepthought And The Grannymuggers", but that that is a band name. On a different but related note, I don't know how to clearly codify the slippery difference between a collaboration of otherwise independent artists and a true band formed from previously established artists. Nothing precludes Bob Famous and Jim Big Star from forming a real band. Hmm.

Check out Blind Faith, supposed to be the first "supergroup".

We've done our best to make the rules as mechanical and non-subjective (aside from the logic behind their creation) as possible. The goal of Rule 6 is to allow the separate billing of an important band member like Frank Zappa and also to allow a solo artist with her/his supporting band, but to disallow true collaborations between pre-existing bands/artists. Obviously one "solution" might be to make an entirely subjective rule instead of a handful of technical rules.

I think that if we ahdered to the spirit of the rules although not necessarily the letter, most of the situations Matt describes would be allowed into the tree. And, subjectively speaking, I agree with Mr. Pomp that The Sutherland Brothers & Quiver could/should be considered a "new" single band instead of a collaboration between two bands. But Kevin and I really try to stick to these rules so things don't eventually fall apart.

In response to the Zappa Effect, we don't currently consider FZ & MOI to be a collaboration under rule 6a. As far as "Featuring..." language goes, I suspect that we have been handling that on a case-by-case basis. Most of the time we consider it to be language used to highlight one of the band members (e.g., [bandtoband.com] http://bandtoband.com/index.php?Page=Search&AlbumId=370 ), but I'm sure there have been exceptions.

I'm not sure where all this stands in light of the discussion re: allowing true collaborations into the tree, as collaborations.

Doh, I didn't even address that. Given the points you all made in the past week on the other thread, I've got more things to ponder before I can say anything else.

As the rules stand now, we interpret "featuring" to highlight a recognized band member and "with" to denote a guest musician. Once we come across a release for which this approach clearly fails, we'll add an exception clause to Rule 6. We may add an exception clause to the rules on what constitutes a collaboration at some point as well.

The first Racer X album has "Racer X with Paul Gilbert" on it. Paul is a founding member of Racer X so he's absolutely not a guest musician.

[www.rockdetector.com] http://www.rockdetector.com/assets/img/covers/32553.jpg

Haha, that was fast.

Good one. We changed the language of rule 6b a bit.

... I still think you haven't covered the Zappa Effect in the example given in 6b concerning the Mothers.

The fact that "Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention" aren't a "collaboration" is not surely because he never released anything prior to their association, but due to something completely different: namely, that he had *already* been on a release while part of a band that did *not* bear his name in the title. Whether he had released anything before being in the Mothers *ought* in this case to be irrelevant, as he had already participated in Mothers work before the supposed "collaboration".

Therefore I would split this particular rule into a new case: the artist who appens his name into a band he is already "part of".

Instead of adding a new rule, I believe we could fix the FZ & MOI example by changing 6a back to its original language:

"A collaboration is defined as two independent parties, who have both previously released material..."

I understand your point about providing a better explanation for why something is NOT a collaboration. But that's not really necessary is it? As long as we properly define what a collaboration is, we should be okay. Yes? No?