[x] Solo Reworkings

We have the situation whereby an artist assembles a collection of what is (effectively) solo works. One or more of those solo pieces were originally released on an album credited to a band of which this artist was a member, but it was a "solo work" for that artist.

There are several examples in the DB of such solo work on band releases, e.g. "Mood for a day" by Steve Howe off Fragile and Yessongs, both by Yes, neither being credited to just Steve Howe. There's "Songbird" by Christine McVie, credited to Fleetwood Mac. There's the whole of the studio half of Pink Floyd's "Ummagumma" which are solo works from all members of the band (similar efforts: E.L.P. "Works Volume 1", the abovementioned Yes "Fragile", others abound).

Now, when that artist, in this case Dave Brock, picks up (in this case and others) "Some People Never Die" from Church of Hawkwind, an album credited to the 4-man lineup at the time, appears to have been created solely by Brock and Martin Griffin. When Brock lifts it, with some reworking, and includes it on "Spacebrock", which to all intents and purposes is near-as-dammit a solo album, does this track get credited to just Brock and Griffin (as they're the only ones who actually play on it) or to all 4 of the band members who appear on Church of Hawkwind, even though Lloyd Langton and Bainbridge never *actually* played on the original track "Some People Never Die"?

My view is that SPND on Spacebrock should be credited to Brock and Griffin only, and not to the full band, regardless of how it was originally credited on Church of Hawkwind. However, others disagree. So, what's the consensus?

I confess to being the 'others' Matt mentions. He lays out the issue precisely and I'll only add that neither solution seems very handsome. We either create a line-up of Hawkwind which never existed (i.e. Brock and Griffin only ever worked together on this track as part of the 4-man line-up) or we give credit on an album on which people don't play (Langton / Bainbridge).

If we do say "It's credited to the band, therefore it goes in but only those who play on it can be members" all sorts of oddities will appear and make our info look odd. This album, for example, establishes a no-singer-included line-up of Van Halen: [www.amazon.co.uk] http://www.amazon.co.uk/Best-Guitar-Album-World-Ever-Vol-3/dp/tracks/B0000AQVHX/...
[en.wikipedia.org] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eruption_(song)

Here you get a singer-less Deep Purple:
[www.dustbury.com] http://www.dustbury.com/music/wb583.html

My view is that if it makes the info "look odd" then so be it. Accuracy over aesthetics every time.

Besides, one lineup more or less makes little difference to Hawkwind's 30+ lineups over the course of their career (they're still touring, BTW, still producing records, complete with new lineups) - and what's the problem with new lineups?

I also don't see the problem with a singerless Deep Purple etc. If a track extracted for a compilation has a subset of a lineup, then document that subset. The only problem we *do* have is determining the lineup order - does it come before or after the full lineup if the recording date is short on precision?

I wonder: might the problem be that we haven't been accurate enough with our original line-ups for (e.g.) PXR5. Have the extracted tracks simply shown that for the parent album we cannot lump together various line-ups that worked and existed at around the same time?

We'll have to disagree about the singerless DP line-up. I think it would be a fundamental error that would hugely devalue our information if we were to deliberately allow invalid line-ups into our dB; it seems to me the underlying purpose of the site would be defeated by that aproach.

It was put together over a period of time in which the band itself was somewhat unstable and various members were in and out sporadically. Hawkwind were never known for longevity of lineups, and some albums were patched together from recordings made over an extended period from several lineups.

Just taking [en.wikipedia.org] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PXR5#Personnel and
[myweb.tiscali.co.uk] http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/hawkwind/disc_pxr5.html at face value:

A Calvert/Brock/King trks (1) 1978-01
B Calvert/Brock/Shaw/House/King (2) 1978-01 (3)1977-10 (6-7) 1977-09
C Brock/King (4) 1978-06
D Brock trk (5) 1978-06
E Brock/Shaw/House/King (8) 1978-01

So possibly 5 line-ups:

Let's presume that Calvert / Shaw / King are all part of the band through the whole of the Jan '78 sessions but just don't appear on certain tracks.

Let's also assume that King & Brock worked together in June '78 as Hawkwind since King was still drumming through into the Hawklords-era immediately afterwards.

That would leave just two distinct line-ups (chronologically):
A Calvert/Brock/Shaw/House/King tracks (3) 1977-10 (6-7) 1977-09 (ie the live line-up from the tour) and (1,2,8) 1978-01 Studio recs
B Brock/King (4-5) 1978-06

It's just a suggestion...

I'm prepared to concur.

My take on Matt's very first post:

Don't we already handle this gracefully? In other words, if the lineup of Hawkwind as defined on Spacebrock is just Brock, or just Brock and Griffin (I can't quite tell which you're arguing for), then what's the problem? The "lifted" tracks are remade (in other words, not the same recordings as before), and recredited (to a different album than they originally appeared, by a different band), so there's no need to credit anyone who doesn't appear on Spacebrock itself on these tracks. There is no problem here.

On a completely different point, we should absolutely not invent band lineups based on compilation appearances. There is no lineup of Van Halen's "Eruption" (in its original form) that excludes David Lee Roth just because the song appears on a compilation. The band lineup is established elsewhere. Plenty of bands have released instrumentals, or a cappellas; we've said over and over that doesn't imply new lineups. The fact that an instrumental or a cappella is a band's only contribution to a particular compilation shouldn't change that.

AJ -
What about an instrumental version of a hip hop album? See -
[bandtoband.com] http://bandtoband.com/index.php?Page=Search&AlbumId=15333
[bandtoband.com] http://bandtoband.com/index.php?Page=Search&AlbumId=15060

No problem, because it's a different album. If Slug either is not credited, or doesn't appear, then he's not in that lineup.

If the instrumentals were, say, tacked onto the end of the original "Seven's Travels," then it would depend on how they were credited, I would think. If there were no separate credits for them, then there would be one lineup, and if there were, then we'd note that.

I know that we consider compilations to be "different albums," but I'm arguing above that since the lineup for "Eruption" is already established, its appearance on a compilation doesn't change that. (Or shouldn't, at any rate.) If it's a track that doesn't already exist credited to Van Halen, say, a version of "Jamie's Cryin'" with the vocals stripped, then maybe there's a new lineup.

Let's say Van Halen today releases an album called "Instrumentals" and releases all the existing instrumental Van Halen songs on one disc (all I can think of are "Eruption" and "1984," but I'm sure there are others), and the credits list only Eddie, Alex and Michael. *That* release definitely represents a new singer-less Van Halen lineup, and maybe *then* we have the problem of which lineup represents "Eruption" on a compilation.

However, let's say such an "Instrumentals" album is released under the band name "Singerless Van Halen." Then it's just another band being credited for the "Instrumentals" release, and "Van Halen" remains intact, even for "Eruption."

ajw : You said "In other words, if the lineup of Hawkwind as defined on Spacebrock is just Brock, or just Brock and Griffin (I can't quite tell which you're arguing for), then what's the problem? The "lifted" tracks are remade (in other words, not the same recordings as before), and recredited (to a different album than they originally appeared, by a different band), so there's no need to credit anyone who doesn't appear on Spacebrock itself on these tracks. There is no problem here."

The problem is that Brock has taken previously released Hawkwind material and tinkered with it - not re-recorded it. They are not "remade"; they are modified. The underlying Hawkwind tracks remain to some degree intact and therefore, the argument runs, so does the line-up. The line-up at the time Spacebrock was released may have been just Brock, but that doesn't negate the recorded contributions made by other erstwhile members that are on that album.

Remade or modified, the point is still that they're credited on a new album to a different version of Hawkwind, and there's no claim that the people who were credited on them the first time still appear on these recordings.

This follows my Van Halen "Instrumentals" album example, I think. New album, new credits, no involvement from unnamed participants = no credits for those participants in b2b for that album.

Your VH 'Instrumentals' album raises a different point although even then I think context may outweigh your precise logic. By your reading a 45 containing only a VH instrumental would also create a new 3 man line-up and I don't think that's correct. These songs were made as part of a larger piece of work by a 4-man line-up: to excise one track for a different use is not to negate that line-up.

As for the Hawkwind album under discussion - it absolutely *is* contended that the original participants appear on these recordings and that Brock overlaid additional work on to the first efforts.

OK, so Matt's original post said that the track in question "appears to have been created solely by Brock and Martin Griffin." I inferred from this that the two other members of Hawkwind on Church Of Hawkwind had no involvement in this track. Is the question whether Martin Griffin should be credited on Spacebrock, or all three of them? Is Griffin not credited?

A 45 containing only an existing VH instrumental, with no contradictory crediting, would be a four-person VH recording. It's only if the band recredited it purposefully to a three-person lineup that it would become a three-person VH recording.

Back to Spacebrock: In general, how is it credited? I can't tell from the entry.

Sorry - my reply was over-simplistic: there appear to be at least 3 different prior versions of Hawkwind who have had their work taken into Spacebrock. As regards the track from 'Church of Hawkwind' - it's fair to say that we think only Griffin and Brock appear on it (the other members at the time were Bainbridge and Langton). To my mind, that still doesn't enable anyone to later take a track (or a snippet, or a sample) and expunge the context in which it was recorded - as a 'group' effort.

I still disagree about your Van Halen example (and by extension this): there is a difference between crediting for the sake of clarity about who played what and 'membership'. In your example, Roth's membership might be silent and it might be unnecessary to list him as a participant - that makes him no less of a member of the band that recorded the music.

Let's continue this elsewhere.