Indispensable band members

At the time, the loss of Syd was seen as the death knell for the group. Now, most people haven't even heard of "Piper at the Gates of Dawn."

So Syd wasn't necessary.

After 1977 or so, Waters pretty much defined what Pink Floyd was all about. Aside from a few memorable(ish) guitar solos and vocal chores on a handful of songs, Gilmour might just've well been a session man -- which by all accounts the band essentially was by "The Final Cut" anyways. After a couple of esoteric solo albums, "Amused to Death" sounded a lot like what a latter-day Waters-dominated Pink Floyd album would sound like.

So Gilmour wasn't really that necessary.

After Waters left the group and Gilmour churned out a few more records that people ate up in droves. His new solo album is being devoured for sounding "Floyd-like."

So Waters wasn't really that necessary.

I don't think anyone would argue that the other two were ever very necessary in the first place.

So there you have it. Pink Floyd is utterly dispensable.

On the other end of the spectrum, Secret Chiefs 3 would not exist without Trey Spruance.

Beatles could have survived Ringo leaving. The movies wouldn't have been the same afterwards though.

I guess there, they are the indispensibe core. One member = a core-um.

Hard to make an argument once you get north of three people. There are precious few indispensible bass players. (That's another thread -- I nominate Paul McCartney, Phil Lesh, Les Claypool, Jack Bruce.)

Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Tich.

I tend to think that all of The Decemberists except for Colin Meloy are faily dispensable, and indeed they've gone through several lineup changes.

In the case of The Shins, at least Marty Crandall seems fairly integral to the band, and perhaps the other members as well.

Mike Watt too, I say.

Ow.

(ducks)

(rights self)

too much love for bassists: John Paul Jones was the one member of Zep that coulda been phased out...

and as an example of a large band with NO indispensibles, look at Yes: each member of the original band was a virtuoso (oh how they never let you forget that), but they've released stuff 'oer the years without each member, and it's been no better nor worse than anything else they've done...

NO FUCKING WAY. JPJ is the secret weapon of the band - he's probably my favorite member!

Jefferson Airplane may take the prize for largest band where everyone was truly indispensible -- taking away any of Slick, Kantner, Balin, Kaukonen, Dryden, or Casady would have changed (did change) too much. Honestly, I don't think Dryden was that distinctive, but his arrival coincided with a huge step up for the band and his leaving coincided with an enormous drop in quality, so you have to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Everyone in The Band was great, too, but I'm not certain they couldn't have found someone else to play piano and sing high harmonies (Richard Manuel seems to have been pretty dysfunctional for a lot of the band's existence), or to play bass and sing ballads (I love Rick Danko, but I've been listening to them a lot recently and his singing was not as good as I thought at the time).

Bassists: I'll certainly buy Flea as indispensible, but (a little sadly) not Entwhistle or JP Jones, cool as they were. I'll have to take your word for Mike Watt. Adam Schlesinger is indispensible in Fountains of Wayne, but not so much as a bass player. And see above re Jack Casady and Rick Danko.

The Pixies' drummer seems to be their only indispensable member but I'm just saying that because I can never remember his name.

And speaking of which, re bass players, Kim Deal and Kim Gordon both seem pretty indispensable to their respective bands.

Eye seems pretty indispensable to the Boredoms.

Ditto for Blixa and Neubauten.

-- Jessie the Monster (scarymonsterrr...), June 7th, 2006 9:13 PM. (scarymonsterrr) (later) (link)

Bleh...for some reason I thought this thread was about DISPENSIBLE band members. YAY FEVERS.

Good call.

Indispensible = John Darnielle re: Mountain Goats.

No need to imagine. There are albums available.

I mean come on... A Bezless Happy Mondays. Imagine.

except manuel did far more than just sing "high harmonies" -- how's about his lead vocals on "tears of rage", "georgia on my mind," "king harvest," "across the great divide," ... he was the band's greatest vocalist. plus, his drumming (yes, drumming) on "ain't no more cane" and "rag mama rag" is endearingly sloppy.

fwiw, billy preston assumed manuel's piano duties in the band for a time in the early 90s.

-- Johnny Fever (sidewaysou...), June 8th, 2006.

I submit that Brainicide totally went south after Ripper Owens left...

Aztec Camera without Roddy Frame
Prefab Sprout without Paddy McAlloon
Scritti Politti without Green Gartside
Squeeze without Difford and Tilbrook
XTC without Andy Partridge
OMD without Andy McCluskey

likewise, without severin, you couldn't exactly call it siouxsie and the banshees. (i mean you could try ... and it's less about his proficiency as a bass player, which is fine anyway, and more about being integral to the band's existence.)

Maybe more in the case of Joy Division than New Order.

Martin Gore - Depeche Mode
Steve Malkmus - Pavement
Angelo Moore - Fishbone
Any of the Beastie Boys
Johnny Greenwood - Radiohead
Matt Tong - Bloc Party (can't think of a recent drummer who's meant more to his band)

As a wise man once said, "Bitch, you without me is like Harold Melvin without the Blue Notes. You're never going platinum!"

Teddy Pendergrass, on the other hand...

Good call on Harold Melvin and The Blue Notes. Also, would anyone have cared if J. Geils had left The J. Geils Band? Spencer Davis and The Spencer Davis Group? (Who was Spencer Davis?) How essential was Paul Butterfield? What, exactly, did Delaney Bramlett do?

Ditto John Mayall and Manfred Mann.