| Apollo 440 |
| Background information |
| Origin |
Liverpool,
England |
| Genre(s) |
Electronica
Electro rock
Big
Beat
Techno
House
Dance |
| Years active |
1990 – Present |
| Label(s) |
Sony BMG/Stealth Sonic/550 Music/Epic |
| Website |
http://www.apollo440.com/ |
| Members |
Trevor Gray
Howard Gray
Noko |
| Former members |
Mary Mary
Paul Kodish |
Apollo 440 (alternately known as Apollo
Four Forty or @440) are an English musical
band formed in 1990 in Liverpool by brothers Trevor
and Howard Gray with fellow Liverpudlians Noko and James Gardner, although
Gardner left after the recording of the first album. All members sing
and add a profusion of samples, electronics, and computer-based sounds.
The name comes from the Greek god Apollo and the frequency of concert
pitch — the A note
at 440 Hz,
often denoted as "A440",
and the Sequential Circuits
sampler/sequencer, the Studio 440.
After relocating to the Camden area of London, Apollo 440
recorded their debut album, Millennium
Fever, and released it in 1994 on their own Stealth
Sonic Recordings label (distributed by Epic
Records). They have successfully invaded both the pop charts
and the dancefloor with their combination of rock, techno,
and ambient.
They also changed the writing of their name from Apollo 440
to Apollo Four Forty in 1996, though switched back for their latest
album.
The band had been most known for its remixes until the release
of Liquid Cool in the UK. However, it was not until
the success of the singles Krupa and Ain't Talkin' 'bout Dub
that their own musical efforts were brought to international attention
— particularly the latter contributed greatly to pushing Apollo 440
into the spotlight.
Currently, the band resides in Islington,
London, having once again moved its headquarters (affectionately
labelled Apollo Control).
In 2007, the band played a tribute gig to the late singer
Billy MacKenzie and decided to go on after that. They plan for several
more gigs and an album that should be out in 2008.
|
Contents
- 1 Discography
- 1.1 Albums
- 1.2 Singles
- 1.3 Soundtracks
- 2 Vocalists
- 3 Tributes
- 3.1 Jean
Baudrillard
- 3.2 Marcel
Duchamp
- 3.3 Alcor
- 3.4 Omega
Point
- 4 Covers,
remixes, reprises, samples etc.
- 5 Trivia
- 6 External
links
|
Discography
Albums
- Millennium Fever
(1994) #117 UK
- Electro Glide in Blue
(1997) #62 UK
- Gettin' High on Your
Own Supply (1999) #20 UK
- Dude Descending a
Staircase (2003)
Singles
- Lolita (1991)
- Destiny (1991)
- Blackout (1992)
- Rumble E.P. (1993)
- Astral America (1994) #36 UK
- Liquid Cool (1994) #35 UK
- (Don't Fear) The Reaper (1995) #35 UK
- Krupa (1996) #23 UK
- Ain't Talkin' 'bout Dub
(1997) #7 UK
- Raw Power (1997) #32 UK
- Carrera Rapida (1997)
- Rendez-Vous 98 (with Jean
Michel Jarre; 1998)
#12 UK
- Lost in Space (1998) #4 UK
- Stop The Rock (1999) #10 UK
- Heart Go Boom (1999) #57 UK
- Promo only: Cold Rock The Mic / Crazee Horse
(2000)
- Charlie's Angels 2000
(2000) #29 UK
- Say What? (with 28 Days; 2001) #23 Australia
- Dude Descending A Staircase (feat. The
Beatnuts; 2003)
#58 UK
Soundtracks
Apollo 440's music is often found featured in various
soundtracks of all sorts: movies (notably the reworked theme to the
movie Lost in Space), games, and
shows. The list of soundtracks they have contributed to is long -
accordingly, this list only includes soundtracks which are exclusively
done by Apollo 440.
- Rapid Racer (1997), format: PlayStation
CD (Audio CD plus game data track). The soundtrack
was also available as an extra CD, as part of the limited edition
double cd single release of "Carrera Rapida"
- EyeToy: AntiGrav
(2004),
format: PlayStation 2 DVD
- Gran Turismo 4
(2005), the PS2 video
game, featured two exclusive tracks. They were "Hold The Brakes" and
"Start The Car".
- FIFA 2000 (1999), featured "Stop
The Rock"
Vocalists
Apollo Four Forty have a history of working together with
various vocalists to achieve their musical goals. Whilst their debut
album, Millennium Fever, was sung almost
exclusively by Noko,
the Liverpudlian
has since withdrawn from his vocalist status in the band to make way
for various guest appearances, including, but not limited to:
- Billy MacKenzie
on Pain In Any Language (Album: Electro
Glide in Blue), coincidentially the last song Billy recorded.
- Ewan
MacFarlane on Electro Glide in Blue
(Album: Electro Glide In Blue) and numerous tracks
on the Dude Descending a Staircase album
- Xan
on Something's Got to Give (Album: Dude
Descending a Staircase)
- Jalal Nuriddin on Children of
the Future (Album: Dude Descending a Staircase)
- The Beatnuts on
Dude Descending a Staircase (Album: Dude
Descending a Staircase)
- Elizabeth Gray on Christiane
(Album: Dude Descending a Staircase) and Stealth
Mass (Album: Electro Glide in Blue)
- Mary Mary (Ian Hoxley) on Ain't
Talkin' 'bout Dub, Raw Power (Album: Electro
Glide in Blue) and Stop The Rock (Album: Gettin'
High On Your Own Supply).
Tributes
Jean Baudrillard
The album Millennium Fever is a tribute to
the French postmodernist Jean
Baudrillard. Since the release of that album, other references to Jean
Baudrillard's works have popped up.
- The track Astral America, references
Baudrillard's America essay, where the term
originates.
- The track The Perfect Crime, references
Baudrillard's book of the same name.
- The lyrics of Stealth Requiem reference
the Baudrillardian concept of hyperreality. At one point a female voice
says "Ravishing hyperrealism ... Mind blowing", and later quotes
directly from America (1988): "The exhilaration of
obscenity; the obscenity of obviousness; the obviousness of power; the
power of simulation."
Marcel Duchamp
The album Dude Descending a Staircase has
a cover as tribute to Nude Descending a
Staircase No. 2 by Marcel Duchamp.
Alcor
The song Liquid Cool (released as a b-side
in 1993, as a single in 1994, and featured on the Millennium
Fever album) is a tribute to Alcor, a company
focused to pursue research into and the organization of cryonization.
The topic is also referenced in the title-song Millennium
Fever, which includes the "I've been dreaming of
freezing my mind in California" where
Alcor was based until 1994. Contact details for Alcor subsequently
appeared on the sleeve of the single Don't
Fear The Reaper (a cover of the Blue
Öyster Cult song).
Omega Point
The song Omega Point references the concept
of the same name, and features a quote from Barrow and Tipler's "The
Anthropic Cosmological Principle" (p676): "At the instant the
Omega Point is reached, life will have gained control of all matter and
forces not only in a single universe, but in all universes whose
existence is logically possible; life will have spread into all spatial
regions in all universes which could logically exist, and will have
stored an infinite amount of information, including all bits of
knowledge which it is logically possible to know."
Covers, remixes, reprises,
samples etc.
- Ain't Talkin' 'bout Dub uses a sample
from a popular hit of hard rock band Van Halen, Ain't Talkin' 'bout Love.
- For the Depeche Mode tribute album For
the Masses, Apollo 440 covered I Feel You.
- Liquid Cool seems to include a Blondie
sample (from the song Fade Away and Radiate in Parallel
Lines).
- They covered the "Theme From Spider Man" for the first Spiderman
Video game on the Playstation one.
- Stop the Rock's guitar riff comes from Caroline,
originally played by Status Quo and the howling theremin comes
from The Beach Boys Good
Vibrations (heard
from 0:25 to 1:41); both these claims are unconfirmed.
Trivia
- Stop the Rock (particularly portions
containing the lyrics "can't stop the rock") is
played after each goal scored at home games of the Toronto
Rock Lacrosse
team.
- The sample Take us back to the rock and see at
four-forty is from the movie 'The
Andromeda Strain' after a book by Michael
Crichton
- Howard Gray, along with Art
Brut/Razorlight producer John
Fortis, produced Assembly Now's Apollo
Control Demo at Apollo 440's London-based recording studio
Apollo Control.
- The band's original logo was set in the typeface "Astral
America", also used as the name for a track on their album Millennium
Fever.
- "Can't Stop The Rock" has become a fad on the spoof site ytmnd.com.
YTMNDs generally set the refrain "You can't stop the rock/Can't stop
the rock" to a clip of Indiana Jones running from a boulder in Raiders of the Lost Ark
- As part of the 1998 FIFA World Cup celebrations, Apollo
440 performed an open-air concert with Jean
Michel Jarre
- Apollo 440 were accused of using a Status
Quo sample in "can't stop the rock". The band refuted this,
saying that it was a riff that they had recorded themselves, although
it is very much in the style of Status Quo.
External links
