Category talk:Backing Band Members

Distinction

I don't really like the distinction between "backing band members" and "guest artists." I kind of understand what the difference is, but how do you choose who goes where? And several of these people could be considered to be part of both categories. There are people who have only recorded with them, people who've only played on stage with them, and people who've done both. --badqueso 06:31, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

I see what you're saying, and I've kind of had some of the same concerns as well. Although, I didn't feel that it was right to lump people like Dan, Dan, Dan, Marty, etc into the same group of people that maybe sang with them on an album song or two. Maybe we should keep the backing band concept, but break apart the "Guest Artists" to two categories -- "studio musicians" and "touring musicians", or something along those lines. For example, Lisa Klapp would fall under "studio musicians", and someone like Stan Harrison would fall under both. Too complex? If anyone has other ideas, please chime in! --Duke33 17:01, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

I see that at the top you have the current touring band; I feel this should be extended to show former bands, listed by era. For example, 2004-present: Dan, Danny and Marty. 1998(9?)-2003: Dan, Danny and Dan Hickey. We could use older bootlegs to figure out who played in the band in 1998, 1996, 1992, etc. And I'm talking about a constant touring band, for example the current horn section would be a separate category since they don't play at every show, whereas in the 1994 touring lineup, the horn section was there consistently. Does anyone have this info on-hand or have an idea of how to list it? --Oddjob 18:02, 19 November 2008 (UTC)

I was giving this a little more thought today. If the main issue is that we don't want to lump Dan, Danny, and Marty in with the guest artists, maybe we can just narrow the scope of this category a little to "Current Band Members." This kind of hits on another point, which is that I don't really like the phrase "backing band." If we were to keep it as it is, including all past band members, I'd suggest renaming it to just "Band Members." As John and John are currently listed as "band members" in the template, they would move into the "They Might Be Giants" row.

Anyway, I don't have any qualms with putting past band members in the Guest Artists category, though others might. And I like the idea of a band lineup history as Oddjob suggested. Wikipedia has several examples of lists like this that we could cop from (Or at least it used to, I can't find any now.) and it would fit well on this category page. --badqueso 05:56, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

Not that anyone here likely cares anymore after nearly five and a half years, but Flansburgh has addressed this issue in a recent post on the TMBG Are OK tumblr. Read it here. --MisterMe (talk) 10:34, 5 February 2014 (EST)