801 were an English progressive
rock band
that were originally formed in 1976 for three live concerts by
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Contents
- 1 History
- 2 Discography
- 2.1 801
Live Track Listing
- 2.1.1 Side One
- 2.1.2 Bonus Tracks added to 1999 Reissue
- 2.1.3 Side Two
- 2.1.4 Personnel
- 2.2 Listen
Now
- 2.2.1 Track listing
- 2.2.2 Personnel
- 2.3 Complete
801 Live at Manchester University
- 2.3.1 Track listing
- 2.3.2 Personnel
- 3 References
- 4 See
also
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History
In 1976, while Roxy Music had temporarily
disbanded, 801 (also referred to as THE 801) got
together as a temporary project and began rehearsing at Island Studios,
Hammersmith, about three weeks before their first gig. The name of
the band was taken from the Eno song "The True Wheel", which appears on his
1974 solo album Taking Tiger
Mountain (By Strategy). The refrain of the song
-- "We are the 801, we are the central shaft" -- reportedly came to him
in a dream.
801 performed three critically highly acclaimed concerts: in
Norfolk, at the Reading Festival and the final
concert on September 3 at London's Queen
Elizabeth Hall. This last concert was recorded live and released as the
album 801 Live. The music consisted
of more or less mutated selections from albums by Manzanera, Eno, and Quiet
Sun, plus a full-scale rearrangement of Lennon-McCartney's
"Tomorrow Never Knows" and an off-the-wall excursion into The
Kinks' 1964 hit "You Really Got Me".
Released at the height of the punk rock revolution in the UK, the LP was
not a major commercial success, but it sold well throughout the world,
particularly because it gained rave reviews from critics, both for the
superb performances by the musicians and for its groundbreaking sound
quality.
Although live albums were by then becoming increasingly
sophisticated in their production -- thanks to the advent of portable
multi-track recorders and mobile studios -- most were hampered by
relatively poor sound quality. Up until this time, the standard
procedure for both front-of-house mixing and live recording was capture
the sound of amplified intruments such as guitars by placing
microphones in front of the amplifiers. Although many superb
performances were captured, the results were still markedly inferior to
studio recordings and live recordings often suffered from a range of
problems such as distortion, noise, sound "leakage" between
instruments, poor separation and intrusive audience sounds.
801 Live set new standards for live
recordings because it was one of the first live LPs in which all
outputs from the vocal microphones, guitar amps and others instruments
(except the drums) were fed directly to the mobile studio mixing desk,
rather than being recorded via microphones and/or signals fed out the
front-of-house PA mixer. This so-called "Direct Injection" (DI) method
had been used for years in the studio but this was one of the first
instances of the method being successfully used to record a live album.
801 Live became a significant cult success
in many countries, notably in Australia, where it was heavily promoted
by the ABC's new 24-hour rock station Double Jay (2JJ), which had opened in
January 1975. Although based in Sydney, the station could be heard
widely around New South Wales and was relayed nationally after midnight
via the ABC's national AM network. It is notable that 801 Live
received virtually no commercial radio airplay, it had no music video
to promote it, and it was originally not even locally released in
Australia. Despite this, the album became the highest-selling import
album of the year in Australia in 1976 and demand for it as an import
item eventually forced the Australian distributors to release it
locally.
In 1977, hoping to capitalise on the success of 801
Live, the band recorded and released Listen
Now, a studio album with additional collaborating
musicians including Tim Finn of Split Enz,
but without Lloyd Watson.
In late 1977, 801 reformed as another live group around
Manzanera and MacCormick for a promotion tour for the album Listen
Now. Their concert at Manchester University was finally
released as the album 801 Manchester in 2001.
Discography
801 Live, Listen
Now and Manchester University have been
re-released on Manzanera's Expression label with additional tracks, the
track listings and album covers below refer to those re-releases.
801 Live Track Listing
Cover of the 801 Live album re-release
(1976)
Side One
- "Lagrima" (Manzanera)
- "TNK (Tomorrow Never Knows)"
(Lennon/McCartney - The Beatles)
- "East of Asteroid" (Manzanera/MacCormick)
- "Rongwrong" (Hayward - Quiet
Sun)
- "Sombre Reptiles" (Eno)
Bonus Tracks added to 1999
Reissue
- "Golden Hours" (Eno)
- "Fat Lady of Limburg" (Eno)
Side Two
- "Baby's on Fire" (Eno)
- "Diamond Head" (Manzanera)
- "Miss Shapiro" (Manzanera/Eno)
- "You Really Got Me" (Davies)
- "Third Uncle" (Eno)
Personnel
Listen Now
Album cover of Listen Now
(1977)
Track listing
- "Listen Now"
- "Flight 19"
- "Island"
- "Law and Order"
- "Rude Awakening" *
- "Que?"
- "City of Light"
- "Initial Speed"
- "Postcard Love"
- "That Falling Feeling"
- "Blue Gray Uniform" *
- "Remote Control" *
- * Songs not included on the original LP release
Personnel
- Phil Manzanera (guitar,
acoustic piano, Hammond organ)
- Eno (guitar treatment, chorus
piano, synthesizer)
- Simon Ainley (lead
vocals)
- Bill MacCormick (bass,
vocals)
- Ian MacCormick (vocals)
- Tim
Finn (vocals)
- Kevin Godley (vocals,
percussion)
- Lol Creme (vocals)
- Billy Livsey (clarinet, Wurlitzer
piano, Fender Rhodes)
- Mel Collins (soprano saxophone)
- John
White (tuba)
- Eddie Jobson (acoustic piano,
Fender piano)
- Eddie Rayner (acoustic piano)
- Francis Monkman (Fender
Rhodes, synthesizer)
- Rhett Davies
(Hammond organ)
- Simon Phillips (drums,
percussion)
- Dave Mattacks (drums)
- Alan
Lee (background vocals)
Complete 801 Live at Manchester
University
Album cover
of "801 Manchester"
(1977, released 2001)
Track listing
- "TNK (Tomorrow Never Knows)"
- "Flight 19"
- "Listen Now"
- "Law and Order"
- "Que"
- "City of Light"
- "Initial Speed"
- "That Falling Feeling"
- "Diamond Head"
- "Out of the Blue"
- "Remote Control"
- "Miss Shapiro"
- "You Really Got Me"
Personnel
References
See also
| v • d • e Brian Eno |
| Discography |
| with Roxy Music Roxy
Music | For
Your Pleasure |
| Solo albums: Here Come the Warm Jets
| Taking
Tiger Mountain By Strategy | Discreet
Music | Another
Green World | Before and after Science
| Music for Airports
|Music for Films
|Ambient
#4, On Land |Thursday
Afternoon | The
Shutov Assembly | Nerve
Net | Neroli
| The
Drop | Another
Day on Earth |
| with Robert Fripp: Fripp & Eno
(No Pussyfooting) | Evening
Star | Air Structures (bootleg)
| The Essential Fripp and Eno | The
Equatorial Stars | The Cotswold Gnomes |
| with Cluster: Cluster
& Eno | After
the Heat | Begegnungen
| Begegnungen II
| Harmonia: '76: Tracks and Traces |
| Other collaborations: June
1, 1974 | 801
Live | The Plateaux of Mirror
| Day of Radiance
| Fourth World, Vol 1: Possible Musics
| Fourth World, Vol 2: Dream
Theory in Malaya | My Life in the
Bush of Ghosts | Apollo:
Atmospheres and Soundtracks | Music For Films Volume 2
| Textures | The
Pearl | Hybrid
| Music for Films III
| Wrong Way Up | Wah Wah
| Spinner | Original Soundtracks 1
| Music for Onmyo-Ji | Drawn
from Life |
| Installations/Compilations etc: The
Great Learning | The Portsmouth Sinfonia Plays the
Popular Classics | Hallelujah! The Portsmouth
Sinfonia Live at the Royal Albert Hall | June
1, 1974 | Peter and The Wolf
| Working Backwards 1983-1973 |More
Blank Than Frank/Desert Island Selection | My
Squelchy Life | Robert Sheckley's In a Land of
Clear Colours | Box I | Box II
| Headcandy | [Generative Music 1
| Extracts from
Music for White Cube | Lightness:
Music for the Marble Palace | I
Dormienti | Kite
Stories | Music for Civic
Recovery Centre | Compact Forest Proposal
| January 07003-Bell Studies
| Curiosities Volume 1 | Curiosities
Volume 2 | 77
Million Paintings |
| Publications |
| A Year with Swollen
Appendices | I
Dormienti |
| Related
Articles |
| Art
Rock | Stewart Brand | Ambient
music | Electronic Music | Fluxus | Generative
music | Glam
rock | Improvisation | Long
Now Foundation | Russell Mills | No New
York | Oblique Strategies | Robert
Sheckley | Peter Schmidt | War
Child | Windows
95 |
| Related
Artists |
| Laurie Anderson | Michael
Brook | David Bowie | Gavin
Bryars | Harold
Budd | David Byrne | John
Cale | Robert Calvert | Cornelius
Cardew | Cluster | Coldplay
| Devo | 801 | Roger
Eno | Bryan Ferry | Robert
Fripp | Peter Gabriel | Genesis
| Jon
Hassell | Icehouse | James
| Daniel
Lanois | Laraaji
| Phil Manzanera | Michael
Nyman | Passengers | Portsmouth
Sinfonia | Roedelius | Roxy
Music | Scratch Orchestra | Paul Simon
| Slowdive
| J Peter Schwalm | Talking Heads | Ultravox | U2 | Jah
Wobble | Robert Wyatt | Zvuki Mu |
