Waiting Rooms, Bells, Bands, Cars and Chocolate.

Have you ever seen that quite famous experiment?

The one where a chap goes into a waiting room. Said chap thinks it's a genuine waiting room, perhaps for a job interview or hair transplant consultation, but in actual fact it's a fake one.

So he goes in and finds three or four people already seated and he takes a vacant chair. After a few minutes a bell rings and all three or four of the others, who are all in on this, stand up for a few seconds then sit down again. Our chap looks on with interest, wondering why they're doing this.

Then, some minutes later the bell rings again and the same thing happens; the actors stand up and sit down after a short time. You've probably guessed the next bit. After a while our chap follows suit and stands when the bell rings with the others.

Then, one by one, the people who were in the room already start filtering out as they get called to whatever it is they are there for. And new fellows have started coming in too, all of whom have joined in with the standing for the bell thing. These are new fellows who are as ignorant as our chap, but have joined in because they think it's what has to be done.

Eventually we are left with our chap and a waiting room full of new people, all of whom stand up when the bell rings and then sit down a few seconds later. Yet none of them have the foggiest why they're doing it, they've all just been copying the people who were in the room when they arrived.

I've seen it used by Derren Brown, the very famous hypno / mind manipulation bloke, as a means of identifying people who are more likely to follow the herd rather than think independently, as there are some who don't join in and stay seated looking with bewilderment at the others.

But it's an age old demonstration of how humans and animals will often follow the herd or adopt a learned behaviour without knowing for themselves exactly why.

Why are many of us instinctively scared of snakes? I don't know about you but I shit myself at the thought of snakes. I've never been attacked by one, I've only ever seen a few, but my skin is slightly crawling even as I type this. Well take it from me, it's because of that waiting room with the bell, or something along those lines.

There's a band here in the UK that I'm quite keen on called King King. I came across them a couple of years ago and they're largely a good old fashioned Blues band who, in recent times, seems to have veered towards more middle of the road rock (think Whitesnake in their prime). I'm down with the kids me.

As with most music I discover my initial attention was grabbed by their drummer; a magnificent groover by the name of Wayne Proctor. And I've sought out lots of his other music and would go so far as to say he's influenced my playing rather a lot in the last couple of years. I've been trying to nick his blues licks and triplet based grooves as much as my meagre ability will allow!

King King are a 4 piece band, led by a guy who sings and plays guitar and woud appear to be the main man. And shortly after I got into them the keyboardist left, to be replaced by someone else. I really like the first guy, a rather brilliant Hammond player, but that seemed to be that.

Then, maybe a year later, the bassist, as far as I know one of the founding members, also quit. This was just after the announcement that the band had signed a big management deal for the US, and it looked like big things were on the horizon.

The talk on the forums and Facebook fan pages etc was that the bassist had left because he had family committments and didn't want to be going off doing stateside tours with everything else in his life. Quite understandable and he was replaced by another low frequency thumper.

Lo and behold a few weeks later and very surprisingly our man Wayne announces he's left. It seemed sudden and I know not what the story is but I suspect there may have been a falling out of some sort. A new drummer has yet to be announced.

So now we're in a situation where, out of four people who were in the band when I first came across them, three of them are different. And it got me thinking. If the singer / guitarist was to leave and be replaced (which I admit is almot unthinkable), would it be the same band?

Thin Lizzy, may all time favourite band, are currently out on tour. But there is not a single one of the original members in the current line up. Admittedly Scott Gorham, their longest serving guitarist who joined in the very early stages, is in, but he wasn't in the band to start with. They go out doing gigs, playing the same old songs that they used to play but as far as I'm concerned they're not Thin Lizzy.

If Brian Downey, the original drumer was involved, I'd see then happily, though probably accept them as nearly Thin Lizzy.

I was chatting to a friend about this last week and his response was that it's like branding. These days there are very few consumer items that contain their original heritage or product DNA. Sure you can buy Cadbury's Dairy Milk or a Mini Cooper, brands that are as British as The Beatles or Colonisation.

But they're not British are they? Cadbury is owned by Mondelez International, an American F+B Company and Mini is a wholly owned subsidiary of BMW.

Minis all over the world with Union Flags covering their roof and rear lights cleverly made to look like Union flags make all of us think of the swinging 60s and the Kings Road but it takes the Germans to rescue the ailing brand and make it profitable.

We support a football club yet everything about it may well be totally different to when we first started. Different players, different manager, perhaps different ownership or stadium. The name stays, but everything else moves on.

Where do your boundaries lie with this sort of thing?

The only thing I know for certain is that there are no objective rules. Except I suppose, there must be legal limits. I'm sure Scott Gorham somehow has the legal right to tour with the Thin Lizzy name, as Mondelez International is legally entitled to use the Cadbury name.

Is it as simple as that now?

If you own the name you can use it!!? It kind of makes me sad.