Manzanera’s 801 Live Gets Deluxe 2-CD

Groundbreaking Prog album now to include unreleased tracks.

By Blurt Staff

On August 11 Roxy Music guitarist Phil Manzanera's Expression Records will release The 801 Series, comprising 801 Live Collector's Edition, 801 Manchester, 801 Live @ Hull and 801 Latino. All four albums have been digitally remastered and repackaged with extras. The original classic album, 801 Live, is presented in a book form with an extra CD containing previously unheard rehearsal footage from Shepperton Studios as well as new photographs and text.

 
Phil Manzanera explains the origin of the series: "Over the years I've been sent photos from these gigs, which led me to go back to the original concert tapes, and then [fellow band member] Bill MacCormick came across yet more photos and struck gold with the audio of the 801 Shepperton Studios rehearsals.  So that was the impetus for this 801 Live  Collectors  Edition and series."

801 Live was originally released in 1976 to rave critical reviews and an enthusiastic reception by Prog fans and Anglophiles. It boasted material penned by Manzanera and MacCormick as well as songs by Brian Eno (then a member of the group), the Kinks (a Prog-rock take on "You Really Got Me") and the Beatles (likewise, with "Tomorrow Never Knows").

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.

The original sextet included Manzanera, Brian Eno, Bill MacCormick, Francis Monkman, Simon Phillips and Lloyd Watson, and after a warm up show in Cromer in Norfolk, that line-up played just two gigs - at the Reading Festival (with John Peel acclaiming them 'the musical high point of the weekend') and at London's Queen Elizabeth Hall. This memorable concert was subsequently released as '801 Live'.

Appearing 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, due 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 to capture the sound of amplified instruments 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.)

As Melody Maker put it at the time, "During the concert, these people collectively reached a point where virtually anything is possible. The music seemed to me to embody all the virtues of the very early Roxy Music, with the freedom to try and the freedom to fail. Except that now they're more confident, more able, more eloquent. Manzanera, Eno, and the rest of the "school" to which they belong have, if they wish, a lengthy and increasingly fascinating creative life ahead of them. As the words of ‘Tomorrow Never Knows' suggest, "801 Live" may well be simply the end of the beginning."

 

Track listing:

CD 1 - Lagrima, T.N.K, East Of Asteroid, Rongwrong, Sombre Reptiles, Golden Hours, The Fat Lady Of Limbourg, Baby's On Fire, Diamond Head, Miss Shapiro, You Really Got Me, Third Uncle.

CD 2 (Recorded at Shepperton Studios during rehearsals Aug 23rd 1976) - Lagrima, T.N.K, East Of Asteroid, Rongwrong, Sombre Reptiles, The Fat Lady Of Limbourg, Baby's On Fire, Diamond Head, Miss Shapiro, You Really Got Me, Third Uncle, Lagrima (Reprise)