I’ve been on something of a Squeeze listening binge of late, and can’t help but notice from liner notes (and following on, Wikipedia) that they’ve been through an excessively large amount of bass players, eight in total. Reading the great ‘Song by Song’ book, no real reasons have been given for Squeeze four-stringers moving on up to 1999, unlike the dirt on drummer Gilson Lavis hitting the sauce and getting a p45 – twice. Since then, the amazing Yolanda Charles lasted one album and her predecessor Lucy Shaw (long-termer of Tilbrook’s solo band) even less time. Add Sean Hurley and Owen Biddle and it makes four in the last six years.
I know the Grateful Dead got through an inordinate amount of keyboard players, and of course the mighty Tap were forced by misfortune and accident into getting multiple drummers.
Are there any other acts that have one particular instrumentalist who never gets a gold watch?
Here are ver Squeeze with the great Keith Wilkinson:
Roxy Music had a bit of an issue with bass players.
Wikipedia lists nine but I think there might be ten in total if you count Guy Pratt who played on their comeback shows.
Including Gary Tibbs, whose career in Not Lasting took him from The Vibrators to Roxy Music and then to Adam and The Ants, surely the strangest string of consecutive moves by any bass player, unless you count Buggles to Yes to The Man Who Invented The Eighties. But at least Gary got a mention in Ant Rap.
The disturbing thing about this, Chiz, is that you already knew this without looking it up on Google.
Well if it’s unGoogled Gary Tibbs trivia you’re after H, he’s also the bassist in Breaking Glass, the band from the 1980 film of the same name, with Sam Lowry from Brazil on sax and Jim Carver from The Bill on guitar. They were managed by Jimmy from Quadrophenia and produced by Uncle Monty from Withnail.
and Charlie from Casualty was their booking agent.
*faints*
My favourite Squeeze bassist was John Bentley, who actually was a member 3 times, and had the right “look” for the band, even if Keith Wilkinson’s bass on Cosi Fan Tuuti Frutti is fabulously and eccentrically all over the shop, particularly in the middle pair of tracks, Last Time Forever and No Place Like Home.
John Bentley has featured in the fabulous live band in the Mick Ronson biographical show, Turn And Face The Strange, which I would urge everyone to see when such things are possible.
JAMC make drumming for Spinal Tap seem like the epitome of job security. Here’s a list of their drummers:
Murray Dalglish (1984)
Bobby Gillespie (1984–1986)
Martin Hewes (1986)
James Pinker (1986)
Dave Evans (1987–1989)
Richard Thomas (1988–1990)
Steve Monti (1990–1995)
Barry Blackler (1992)
Nick Sanderson (1993–1998)
Geoff Donkin (1998)
Loz Colbert (2007–2008)
Brian Young (2012–present)
Surely the drum machine also deserves a credit?
2012-present!? Fuck me, they’re not still going are they?
Their last album, 2017’s Damage & Joy, is actually pretty good.
The Searchers played continuously from 1962 up until retirement in 2019. In that time, they had 10 members, and 5 of them were drummers.
Rolling Stones similar length of time (and still going), 7 official members, 3 of them guitarists.
ZZ Top. 3 at the start, still the same 3.
– apart from those two guys on their debut single back in 1969, yes!
I saw the Searchers in around 2005 and it was one of the best gigs I saw. Great band.
Have to say….
I saw them probably around that time as a work colleague was a rabid member of the SAS (Searchers’ Appreciation Society, of course). He was liable to hyperbole (“Will Young is the best singer this country has seen in 50 years” was one of his better ones, and held Pink Floyd in utter contempt) so I was a little unsure what to actually expect.
The gig itself was very good indeed. A band who had the tunes, the stagecraft and the musicianship to make a very nice noise indeed. And to cap it all off, the local Rotary Club did a raffle, while the band were onstage. Magic moments.
The drummer in question was Eddie Rothe, the current Mr Jayne MacDonald.
Like Clem, I immediately thought of Roxy Music – a string of utterly anonymous bass players in a band of otherwise well-known personalities. Strange.
Utterly anonymous… really, Colin? That’s extremely harsh on Graham Simpson who featured on the seminal first album, and John Wetton in particular, who apart from Roxy is also an alumnus of King Crimson and is extremely well respected. John Gustafson played on three of Roxy’s finest ‘phase one’ albums, and is immortal for the bass run in Out Of The Blue alone. John Porter is hardly anonymous either, becoming a noted producer after his Roxy days. My Roxy-centric mates and many other music fans would be highly bemused by your dismissal of these great musicians.
Graham Simpson worked with Ferry on some of his earliest songs and they were in a band together pre-Roxy.
I wonder if Bryan wasn’t too bothered about who was on bass after that? It does seem strange that the bass player changed so much considering some of the musicians they had in the chair for a short time. Anyone know why?
Patrick Moraz survived an album and a tour with Yes. I thought he added a good new sound to them, and would still be better then Geoff bloody Downes.
Richard Bona was fabulous as a multi-instrumentalist in the Pat Metheny Group when they toured in 2002; his bass solo was a show-stopper (and you don’t say that often). But he was out after that.
Y’know, I am jealous, being a root note plodder and all but I find stuff like that somehow unmusical, almost joyless . It’s just me I know!
Squeeze have form when it comes to keyboard players, too. Eight, by my reckoning. They’ve also had at least five drummers, including the current one.
Considering they also tour without Chris Difford, they’re starting to resemble Trigger’s broom..
Ha! Yes they are!
Dr Feelgood and Soft Machine are long-term holders of the Trigger’s Broom Award.
I think they take turns with it.
The Feelgoods have been their own tribute band since Lee Brilleaux passed on. He did a great job keeping it going after Sparko and Figure retired.
They only go without Chris for Far East/Australasia, as he doesn’t do 20 hour flights. UK/Europe/North America he’s always there.
Keyboard players I’ve seen with Squeeze, in order:
Jools Holland
Paul Carrack
Don Snow
Guy Fletcher (Difford & Tilbrook band)
Jools & Chris Holland
Jools & Andy Metcalfe
Jools & Matt Irving
Don Snow & Carol Isaac
John Savannah (actually Don Snow under another name)
Paul Carrack
Steve Nieve
John Savannah
Glenn Tilbrook (Nick Harper on lead guitar – ghastly)
John Savannah
Chris Holland
Stephen Large
I think Yes went through three keyboardists in their imperial phases (probably anothr half a dozen since), while Teenage Fanclub are on to their third drummer, on his second stint having formed the band with them.
A special ‘actually lasting the distance, eventually’ award should go to Ron Blair, bassist with Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers. Kicked out in 1982, he rejoined 20 years later, replacing his replacement.
PiL have been through 10 drummers (5 of them in their first couple of years) – current incumbent Bruce Smith has stayed on the stool for 33 years (even if PiL were dormant fro 20 of those years)
Anybody playing any instrument for The Fall.
The Fall had instruments?
Apart from yer granny on bongos, of course. She’s been ever-present.
Mike Scott delights in the revelation that there have actually been more Waterboys than members of The Fall.
The current Wilco line up have been together for 17 years, before that there were 6 other line-ups in 9 years. Two guys were in all of them Jeff Tweedy and bass player John Stirrat, who was also (briefly) in Tweedy’s previous band Uncle Tupelo.
New Order, of course, have had two singers. Sort of.
When Gillian left, MarionBloke came in to replace her on second guitar and keys. Then she came back again but MarionBloke stayed and the singer stopped playing guitar.
When Hooky left, Whatsisname joined.
The only one who hasn’t changed at all is the drummer.
Incidentally, Hooky is 65 today!
Deep Purple have had a few members over the years. Steely Dan must have had the equivalent of 14 completely different bands play with them over the years.
Let’s face it the Dan had 14 different bands on each album.
The Dan were only ever really Becker and Fagan, using the session men they felt fitted the song they were recording best.
Up until Skunk Baxter and Jim Hodder quit they were a band.
Very much Becker and Fagen’s band and right from the start they would quite happily bring in “specialists” for particular recordings, but they kept the same lineup, pretty much, for quite a few years. Katy Lied is where it truly became a session-player thing.
As with Elliott Randall reeling in the solo on said track.
Of course Fairport Convention was a revolving door before settling on the longer lasting versions from Maartin Allcock onwards, though even then Allcock left to be replaced by Leslie and Mattacks by Rowland.
By Gerry Conway. Rowland replaced Mattackks at the end of his first tenure with the band, before Mattacks rejoining for their 1980s reincarnation.
Maartin Allcock, aaaarrrrhhhhh.
Or to reverse the idea of the original post, the one member who stays the course must be Ashley Hutchings and his various Albion incarnations.
I think overall the Albions have had more members than the Fall IIRC.
You’re forgetting when he left, leaving the band and the name to his son, Blair Dunlop.
But nothing much happened after that.
True. Bar the revived Albion Christmas Band, booting the youngsters back out.
The Moody Blues only ever had one Denny Laine. They were crap when he left.
I prefer North Laine.
My Grandpa lived in North Laine before it was fashionable. When it was a slum.
It were all still pretty rough up behind the station in the 60s. My mother wouldn’t let me go to that side of North Street even a decade later. (Mind you, given yer pa’s age, it would have been more cutpurses than poor people, my mothers main worry. Or common, as she called them, herself of barefoot tinker stock in Stornaway)
I don’t know anything about rockonomics, however I presume that most musicians who are on the periphery of a band do not get a retainer when the band are not on tour.
Musicians seem to get teaching jobs or other ways of earning a crust during the quieter times of the year. So it’s not at all surprising that a band will get though a lot of bass players.
If I buy a ticket for Giant Sand, for example, I know that I will be getting Howe Gelb along with whatever musicians he has recruited for this tour,
Roxy Music is a good example of a combo where the members all have such high profiles, that I would feel disappointed is one was missing.
Similarly, if I went to see Bill and Ben and there was no Weed, I’d be gutted.
You could always try smoking banana skins instead.
Hey – what about a list of bands with names from kids’ TV?!
– The Flowerpot Men
– Pugwash
– Tir Na (Noggin The) Nog
– John Craven’s Newsround
… er …
What jinks!!
Rainbow
Magpie
Watch with Mother (one song on Spotify)
Blue Peter (innovative Toronto Underground band)
The Railway Children
and best of all..
Belle and Sebastian
The Soup Dragons.
“Hohoho I see a rainbow rising! Look Zippy, look there on the horizon!”
Cracker (jack)
What an odd coincidence, Hubert!
I am currently reading ( and enormously enjoying) Sweet Sorrow by David Nicholls.
The teenage boys do just that.
The Sparks Brothers have had quite a few tubthumpers in their long and varied career. Take a bow
Harley Feinstein
Dinky Diamond
Hilly Boy Michaels
Ed Greene
Keith Forsey
David Kendrick
Tammy Glover
Steven Nistor
On drums for the Go-Betweens (including 4 different ones in 1978 and 3 different ones in 1980!)
Bruce Anthon – (1978, 1979–1980)
Dennis Cantwell – (1978)
Lissa Ross – (1978)
Tim Mustapha – (1978–1979)
Steven Daly – (1980)
Claire McKenna – (1980)
Lindy Morrison – (1980–1989)
Matthias Strzoda – (2000)
Janet Weiss – (2000)
Glenn Thompson – (2001–2006)