[x] What if...

... a band lose their drummer? They are at the start of recording a new album but the drummer has not done any recording yet. Work goes on on the new album without any drummer for some time. Much later they get a drummer and complete the album. The band obviously could not and (let's assume) would not wish to release an album with no drummer so the band as a recording unit effectively didn't exist while they had no drummer. They would not have conceived or sanctioned the release of a drummerless album. Do we decide for the band that there were 2 line-ups? Or do we accept that the band only became a band again once the drummer was recruited?

This can happen with current bands but is even more relevant with archive releases. The 'band' didn't release these - if someone finds a demo set in a cupboard from 1969 with only Page & Plant on it but it gets released either as a Led Zep set on its own, or some tracks get credited to the band on a remastered, expanded Led Zep I - has a new line-up just been created?

I've been thinking about this lately as well. For your first example, our old, old approach used to be that transition lineups didn't count, such that we would recognize only the most "complete" lineup that appeared on the recording. I've never really liked our usual approach of documenting transition lineups.

For your second example, if the the Page/Plant lineup material were released on its own with no material by the full lineup, I suppose we would/could/should have a two-person lineup. There would be an even more compelling argument for this approach if the material were recorded before the other two members joined the band.

I agree with the first (although have probably done differently in the past). As for the second, I think it's a case by case thing but I am concerned that compilers of archive releases / re-releases are not (and rightly so) catering to us. In my hypothetical example the sleeve doesn't need to say "by a band consisting of Jimmy Page and Robert Plant that had no name and certainly wasn't Led Zeppelin because Bonzo and JPJ hadn't joined yet". It goes without saying. But we work on a kind of "if it wasn't said" basis. Problems probably already exist and will doubtless resurface...

This is now a live issue (if it wasn't before). An archive Atomic Rooster album (recorded 1981/82) has just been just released entitled 'Homework'. It was recorded by John Du Cann entirely on his own it seems (Vincent Crane may appear but certainly then-drummer Paul Hammond is replaced by a drum machine). This was never intended to be released at the time - it was demos for an album that never came to be. How should we record it? I'm very unhappy at the thought of a line-up of AR that is DuCann only - that was never anyone's intent. But he is the only player. Again - I wonder if we need some sort of functionality that would allow 'ghost' players - keeping line-up integrity intact in these oddball cases, but not conferring connectivity where that would be an issue.

Views?

Bump. Views?

FWIW, this [http://www.recordcollectormag.com/reviews/review-detail/2326] says Crane did the drum programming so it could maybe be classed as a duo - perhaps reflecting the core duo responsible for the band's reformation in the first place.
it does seem a shame that Hammond isn't included even though he seemed to be a member at the time, but it won't look bad having him excluded from the lineup since he didn't appear on anything before it anyway.

this might solve this problem but i still don't know how to solve further problems. i just added a bunch of Grey Daturas stuff and they appear as a trio except on a collaboration with Yellow Swans on which the drummer doesn't appear. so there's gonna be a weird point in the lineup where they're a two peice. but i figure they still chose to name the band Grey Daturas instead of calling the collaboration something else and even though i know that duo has played together under different band names (Datura Duo, etc..). so i would have to say that Grey Daturas was legitimately a duo on this recording. this is a bit different than in your case as this wasn't a demo that wasn't intended to be released...

I agree - the difference is that someone made a choice at the time vs. someone marketing some demos 25 years later.

Hammond, by the way, WAS drummer on several Atomic Rooster albums both before and after this one (In The Hearing Of (1971) and Live (1983) for starters....

Let's continue this elsewhere.