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Posts: 2487
| Just a couple of songs from a band I once tried (unsuccessfully) to compete with back in the day.
These men were real musicians in every sense and should have climbed the ladder much higher than the music industry and life allowed them. Great bunch of guys as well, had a lot of fun on occasion with this band.
Anyway this might not be your style but listen to the drums,keys,bass,guitars and the whole package. Very talented group of local musicians. found this vid and it brought back my youth....hope you enjoy... "805"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYcHN6bTx-I
Dave Porter, the front man, used to be very partial to Guild Guitars. Can anyone tell me if the walnut colored guitar he is using is a Guild? and perhaps what model if it is?? Thanks |
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Posts: 109
Location: Alabama | Looks like a Gretsch Super Axe http://gretschpages.com/guitars/7682-super-axe/
The intro reminds me of Rush - I kinda like it. |
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| That's it, very good. Thanks mystery solved......
If I may rant for a minute.........you guys love it don't say you don't......
Yeah these guys covered a lot of bands, did Genesis like Genesis. Squonk, Firth of Fifth, Dance on a Volcano right into Elephant Talk by King Crimson, Big Time, Peter Gabriel and so much more. Three CD's worth of original stuff. They'd add new stuff each month to the set list and they became so incredibly tight they were just the "hands down", "best band" that ever came out of my area of upstate NY. We were all glad to take a seat or two behind these guys every time. I was in Awe to be honest...... Their originals were to progressive for the time, they were about 5 years to late to do what they did.......
The Punk Bands and The Billy Squire crap and the techno beebop crap was hitting the scene in the early 80's and this was what was selling on all the juke boxes at that time. Chicks liked to dance all freekin night and listen to silly easy to understand lyrics and repetative junk music. They did not want to sit down and let the spotlight shine on a band for a few minutes, they wanted the attentions on the crowd not the band... and if you don't draw the girls to the clubs you don't draw the guys and you don't make any money. (not girl bashing just making an honest observation of my experiences) The record sales reflected what people listened to on the weekends out so if your band did not change over to this top 40 kind of shit (whatever the flavor was that week) you were lost to time. All the good music was instantly unpopular, and the lesser bands could talk this music down and feed the feeding frenzy so these "same" lesser musicians could get their time. The only way some of these guys could ever even get a gig...IMHO. No more local guitar heroes, no more trying to increase your musical knowledge to play better, no difficult practices, over and over to get it right and be professional. No more competition from these better bands to worry about anymore, they all got torn down. And the lesser musicians rushed in to claim their little pieces of the weekend spotlight. Fuc''N Vultures!
All the guys I worked with (as well as myself)got lost to time, bars were not paying as much because so many bands could play music from the CARS and this simple stuff there were a thousand of them competeing now and it was these types of bands that worked all the time now. For peanuts! It has not changed a lot since then actually.
Only the biggest names survived this era. The new guys who might have hit the big time got swallowed up. 805 was one of them. I know there are a lot of guys who don't listen to this type of music, I don't listen to a lot of good stuff from other genres' myself but like guys like Roy Clark and so many others I recognise talent when I hear it. These guys rocked!
With their dreams up in smoke, back then, a couple a dozen smaller local bands with the same aspriations went up in smoke right with them. We just did not know it at the time it was happening. Looking back at it now we were good but we never reached 805's level of musicianship. but we tried and we did not sell out to crap like
Too too shy shy ........Hush Hush eye to eye
Too too.. shy shy hush hush.........
if you see my point.
Randy
Randy |
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Posts: 1484
Location: Michigan | Sounds like a fusion of The Yes / Chic Corea / John McGloclan & The Mahavishnu Orchestra / Electric Light Orchestra. Very good musicians.
What year was that?
I enjoyed it but found it very hard to Dance to.GWB |
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Posts: 2487
| They were at this level and toured the northeast from about 79-85, after this it kinda started falling apart. This recording was done at the turning stone casino near Syracuse in 03. they did a reunion three day concert series. They still holed the fastest sell out for this venues 5,000 seat capacity theater. All three days 7 concerts... You should get the video they did of this concert if you like this at all they had it all going on there is a first time ever drummers cometition/talent show off contest between Frank Briggs the original drummer for 805 and his little brother who is in the vid I posted. They do some of the most amazing speed and technically challenging duop stuff you have ever seen. No lie! better then Chester Townsend and Phil Collins! they do some of the gnesis stuff I mentioned in a medley form and it is killer stuff sub bass pedals shaking the walls and all. Large screen TV in the bacground has some programed videos to go with one of their big song hits like Defense.....written 25 years ago and its about terrorists and how dangerous and vulnerable we all are. Great song too. |
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Location: Cicero, NY | They were an absolutely GREAT band in every respect and, as NoCountry pointed out, should have risen MUCH higher. Absolutely one of the best to come out of CNY ever. |
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Location: enid, ok | John McGloclan? |
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Location: South of most, North of few | Great band with some crazy time signatures. GWB was right about the dancing part. You would look like Elaine dancing on Seinfeld if you tried that song. :D |
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Location: big island | excellent musicians. i agree with one of the comments made under the clip that the back-up vocals needed some tweaking though. |
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Location: west | The Yes? ?? You mean "YES"
Don't think it's a Guild. Pretty thin axe. Looks more like a custom made one off... On Guilds isn't the lettering on the headstock in a chevron shape? the lettering on this guitar is straight across... Wish I could see a closeup of the headstock.
Hey I could be wrong....
my two centavos in a nickle world |
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February 2004
Posts: 2487
| It is a Gretsch. Nice guitar, would love to try one out. bgm found it.
This is just two songs from their repertoire. Just wanted you guys to enjoy music from the guys I admired locally many years ago.
Randy |
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January 2002
Posts: 386
Location: nyc area | Absolutely KILLER band! I use to see them at Allen's in scotia for $3 beer night.... That era of upstate ny bands was a huge musical influence on setting the bar high in live music... At that time there was Harpy (pre 805) Talas, NY Flyers, Atlas... an incredible scene... I got tp know Mark Viscosi, 805 guitarist who unfortunately passed not long ago.... thanks for bringing this here!!! |
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Posts: 4389
Location: Capital District, NY, USA Minor Outlying Islands | I saw them in Buffalo. Good lord that was a lifetime ago. They were pretty good, though not my cup of tea. |
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February 2004
Posts: 2487
| Matt, there were some great musicians up here in those days. You should see it now! I have been forced to do solo work just to play some of the music I still love. The bands have just gone to the dogs around here. There is still Punk and southern rock and metal and thats it. You can't buy a keyboardist, you can't buy anyone who will actually learn the parts correctly to make a cover band sound like it should. If anyone has originals they will not share them amongst the other members to work on to perhaps turn them into something special for fear of theft. It is driving me out of my what little mind I have to begin with. Been like that for 25 years. That's why I got out, not sure if I should have returned, I have yet to keep a band together long enough to do a gig. Were all 50 now and to much shit going on.
Yes Marc Viscossi. Great guitarist, I went to his funeral this past year. He had every local musician "most who no longer play" there. Dave Porter and Greg Liss from 805 made the trip out for this as well. It was very sad.
Funny I remember them as Harpy as well, Allens was a great bar! We most likly have bumped into each other more than once when we were younger. Hope to make one of your lessons Matt.
Randy |
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