Bandmembers Who Changed Everything

Fair enough, I'm thinking of records rather than live shows. That really widens the scope of the question.

― Halfway there but for you

yeah, when YouTube became a thing I was struck by how much of their live sound (and studio presumably) depended on Ferry's keyboards; Eno handled the FX and more outlandish sounds.

Doug Gillard. Both times he joined Guided By Voices.

Jannick Top really changed Magma's sound, in fact he's responsible for a certain strain of Zeuhl, specifically the more grindy bass-heavy stuff

― frogbs

he did, but what _really_ changed them IMO was when the "jazz" players left... ok, look, i'm a huge bootleg nerd, and that 1001 degrees centigrades period, very jazz, and all through that time you have this thing that started as "mekanik kommandoh" growing out of it, and what comes out of that, to me, the first time you hear it is at the chateauvallon festival in august 1972, something that is clearly recognizable as the "mekanik destruktiw kommandoh" on the album, with the vocals taking center stage. like if you listen to them playing it less than a month before in avignon, it's still this very funky, jazz kind of thing. and at chateauvillon it's not, it's more martial. and teddy lasry, jeff seffer, faton cahen, they're all about to leave.. ... they play no more of a role, really, than they do on the album version. they're ornamental. and right after that show they players leave, i can't remember why, the nature of that dispute.

and the period after that which you have is very interesting, it's this very skeletal group, kind of what you'd hear on "Wurdah Itah" but without Top involved. to me the big influence you have here is the organist, Jean-Luc Manderlier, who isn't seen as a major member but who I think had a major influence during this time period. Because you also hear him at Chateauvallon, which is where this big change to MDK happens, and it's the keyboards that are really leading the music here, without Top involved. And Rene Garber, he's also, I think, a big name, a close collaborator here, even though you don't necessarily hear him play much. And of course Klaus Blasquiz, but he's a singer, not an instrumentalist.

Top is a big influence - you can hear over this time K.A. evolving into Kohntarkosz, and Top is a big part of that, and you have particularly this _incredible_ transformation of "Sowiloi", a piece which dates back to at least '71, into something even greater than what you can hear on the "Inedits" album - it's really an exceptional piece, and Top is key to that. And then you have kind of the slow collapse of the band, that legendary tape from the end of the year that's held within the inner circles, the weird occult fascist shit that goes on, this might be around the time when Nico got them all addicted to cough syrup, I don't know.

But the thing is when you have the '75 band come together a couple months later, it doesn't sound like a new band, even with the tremendous influence of Didier Lockwood. They sound like a continuation of that same sound, even though it's Bernard Paganotti (who I love so much, BTW, he's my personal favorite of Magma's bass players - listen to his solo on MDK on the Reims '76 release, plus of course Weidorje) on the bass instead of Lockwood.

So if there's any one person I'd name as a key influence, I'd say that I'd say it would probably be, oddly enough, Jean-Luc Manderlier. That he was the one whose presence coincided with this sea change in Magma's sound.

Ernie Isley joining the Isley Brothers made a _huge_ difference for them.

Chris Jasper + Ernie joined at the same time and Jasper's keys/synth and songwriting was a huge game changer for them.

Bernie Worrell joining Funkadelic, though his influence grew over the years.

Steve Shelley joining Sonic Youth, for sure.

Another drummer who added muscle: John Weathers of Gentle Giant.

hah - I knew we had someone big into Magma bootlegs around here. I agree the biggest change was whatever happened after 1001 Degrees but I never knew if that was due to lineup turnover or if it was just Vander starting to realize his creative vision. certainly the seeds of it were there on the first 2 albums, but he's not the only songwriter. I might be wrong here but I thought Jannick Top was the only one past that who actually got a songwriting credit on a Magma album - at least, up until their latest one

off the top of my head, i think rene garber got a cowrite credit on "eliphas levi"? an early version of which was on his unreleased "heart music" album. which by the way is terrible, it's a bad album, and the version of "eliphas levi" on there isn't nearly as good as the _merci_ version either.

No, the aforementioned jazzers wrote stuff on the first two albums.

(xp) Oh sorry, misread you.

ah, you're right. Paganotti also has a credit on "Weidorje" on Udu Wudu.

looking this up informed me to the fact that Jannick Top has a son named Jimmy Top, not to be confused with Jimmy Pop of the Bloodhound Gang

Steve Shelley joining Sonic Youth, for sure.

Yeah, when I revisited their first decade of work recently, I really wondered what they might have become if Richard Edson had stuck around on drums. They could have been like Konk with clanging guitars! But really, Shelley was the drummer they needed (and he seems to be a primary force behind their wave of archival releases).

Guess the inverse of this is when 3/4 members are replaced but the band still sounds the same

I think this is kinda true for The Stranglers where the only original band member left now is the bass player, but their work and performances remain strong & consistent with their sound and overall variety. They found an amazing frontman with Baz. Of course, this is discounting the Paul Robert years (which certainly had its moments as well but also a couple of their weakest albums, can't help but see Paul standing in the shadows of Hugh and Baz).

Cake were like that too, I think the entire lineup minus the singer and trumpet player turned over after their 2nd album. They didn’t exactly sound any different

And of course The Fall, who regularly turned over the lineup but for Mark E Smith and yer gran on bongos, but always sounded the same.

Well they didn't really tbh

Dunno if that’s the band members themselves as much as it is MES finding people willing to do what he wanted, iirc most ex band members say he wasn’t really a fan of their creative liberties

ah, you're right. Paganotti also has a credit on "Weidorje" on Udu Wudu.

― frogbs

oh yeah, i forget that's technically a magma song. it's more of a stealth pilot, like that time mork and mindy appeared on, uh... was it laverne and shirley?

Happy Days