A BRIEF HISTORY OF

“. . . If there's an answer I don't even care,  if there's a heaven we'll find it somewhere,  because time and my heart carry on til the end . . . I'll spend every day trying to win you again” (from ‘Christie’, c1985. 3rd verse which was not recorded on the original version)

  This is the short story of a rock band.  It is a fairly unremarkable story, it has a beginning, several middles and a very nice ending.  Like every band, 805 worked hard, had fun, had fights, tried to make it...our stab at the big time landed us just below the status of "One Hit Wonder," which is arguably better than being one.  It began almost 30 years ago and keeps going.

  Dave Porter had a college band called 805 for a brief period in the early '70s.       (See photo #1 for the story of how 805 got its name)  The name was reused and the group was ‘born again’ (no, not like that) in 1977.  With a goal to play progressive rock in a multi-media, theatrical stage setting, the band set off on a club circuit that stretched from Thunder Bay, Ontario to Greensboro, South Carolina. The music was always upper level rock - covers by Genesis, Yes, Pink Floyd, Steely Dan, Peter Gabriel, Thomas Dolby, King Crimson, Level 42, even the occasional Weather Report or Yellowjackets.

                                (List of all members over the years is included at end)

  The Group’s stage show became well-known for its innovation and excitement.  A barrage of special effects - all homemade for lack of funds: flame throwers,  flash bombs that quite often blew out windows or ceiling panels at smaller shows, black lights, strange costumes (Ron once played an entire set with a huge cellophane bag of popcorn squeezed onto the top of his head - looked like a sort of surreal Pope), films projected on a screen with an 8mm projector duct-taped to the stage, aircraft landing lights glued onto long plywood strips, and a large python that was brought out once a night for shock value and otherwise was a huge pain in the ass. 

  Physically, it was a total cob job and oddly enough, it usually ran like clockwork, thanks to the tireless efforts of a tech crew who always did whatever it took to make the show go on - be it climbing a telephone pole to tap AC power, or running the whole front end off the monitor board when the main board accidentally "drank" a pitcher of cheap beer and 2 shots of schnapps.

  The band wrote and recorded original songs tirelessly, and eventually in December of 1980 an engineer at Electric Lady Studios (famous at the time for recording much of Jimmy Hendrix’s music) by the name of Tom Bush saw 805 by chance at a dive of a club in Little Falls, NY.  He started a long process involving production companies and lawyers and musical arrangers and demos and publishing companies and finally enough A&R and promo guys at RCA records were behind the project that the band was signed. A 7 album deal ! (Of course it could be canceled at any time by RCA (they had way better lawyers than us)  The weirdest thing of all was that Tom Bush, the guy who had discovered the band and worked his butt off for it was, in the end, negotiated totally out of the picture, much to our dismay but powerless to do anything - our fates were in the hands of record execs...two notches below used car salesmen.

  The band left for Lyndon, Washington in March of 1982 to record the "Stand inLine" album.  The producer RCA had picked, Dennis Mackay, chose the odd location - the mansion and studio of Randy Bachman of "Bachman Turner Overdrive" (remember? 'buh buh buh baby, you ain't seen nuttin yet').  The place was gorgeous, at the foot of the Cascade Mountains,  full time cooking staff, big screen TV, indoor heated swimming pool (which we got up to 104 degrees (F),  Dennis had his girlfriend with him, and he was on vacation for sure.  Even the record company A&R guy thought the production was poor,  and we spent weeks and more of their money re-recording, overdubbing, and re-mixing at a studio in Manhattan.

  The record came out in June and went right to #1... in Central New York, making 805, as Ron Cunningham would've put it, 'a medium fish in a very small pond.'  RCA did nothing to promote the album.  Then it started doing well in Pittsburg, and San Francisco and RCA did nothing to promote the album.  Then it was #33 nationwide on the radio airplay charts and guess what...RCA did nothing...

  Anyway come to find out, by the time "Stand in Line" came out, everybody at the record company that had championed 805. . . had left or been fired, and the new people had their own pet projects.

  Finally, in mid September, our production company on Long Island talked RCA into putting up $17,000 for a video.  Just for reference, $17,000 is less than the cost of the gecko's litter box on a Geico commercial shoot.  Filmed in less than a day on 3/4" video tape,  it was the Motel 6 of rock videos.  Anyone hanging around got a part - the director's secretary played a nun, the director himself portrayed an angry father, they dressed Porter in a vest and red tuxedo shirt "for color" and presumably to make him look more like Tom Jones, and when they ran out of people they dressed up mannequins.

  They did, however, manage to get the 1982 Penthouse Pet of the Year to appear in the video and yes, she was beautiful but the bed scene was about as erotic as a 'Depends' commercial and even if she had bared her 42D's it couldn't have saved this videonightmare.  We shot 7 performance segments, but the one that made it to the final print was, of course, the take where Creamo gets hit in the face with the neck of Porter's guitar.  As bad as it was, MTV actually did play the video a couple dozen times. Go, medium fish.

      (The 805 MTV video is on the "Live From the Dark Past" DVD)

  But alas, the MTV video did little to further anyone's career, although on the strength of her performance, the Pet of the Year landed a part in "Spring Break," a serious drama about teenage boinking.  And with no tour support from RCA, 805 spent the next few months touring their usual club circuit as big "RCA Recording Artists" so the clubowners could charge twice as much for the same band.  Also, alot of writing and demo recording for the second album was done.  But RCA passed on the second album - nobody there even knew who we were.  So the group went to other record companies and made more demos, all to no avail. 

           (Some of those demo songs are on 805's anthology CD, "End of Light")

    Meanwhile, we were performing nothing but original material at live shows, and as 1983 rolled on, the RCA album hype was losing its impact and more and more of the Genesisgabrielpinkfloydheads were not showing up.  Less gigs, less crowds, less money, no album deal, and a huge commission debt (which our agent, David Rezak was an absolute Saint about - it wasn't fully repaid until late in 1988).  As a disgruntled drunk had yelled at a club once,  we were "8-0-Nuthin".

  But 805 had fallen just far enough to be miserable, not to die, and after considerable reality checking we set off to do three things:  to start doing cover medleys of the bands we used to be known for,  to add a second guitar player for greater versatility,  and  to record and release a second album on our own.

  Marc Viscosi, a very talented lead guitarist from Gloversville, NY  fit the bill and was worked in quite quickly.   We started reclaiming the club and concert circuit with new medleys of Genesis, Steely Dan, etc.  And  "A Question of Tomorrow," the group's second album, was written, recorded, and released in the Summer of 1985.

  "Christie" from the second album, got good airplay regionally, and the cassette sold well from Buffalo to Albany.  But without a major label,  we couldn't get distribution or radio play outside of our own area.  Shopping the tape to record companies again proved fruitless without some heavyweight's foot kicking the door open.  And our attempt to rebuild the club circuit was gutted by New York State's new drinking age of 21.  Plus, Marc had to leave the band for family reasons.  He was replaced by a handsome blond guitarist named Bill McDermott, but it disrupted any momentum we might have had going.

  So by August of 1986 band moral was once again lower than a well-hung dachshund, and Frank, Ed, and the fledgling Mr. McDermott all bailed out.

 The remaining two guys, Creamo (Greg Liss) and Dave Porter, sat down and drank heavily and decided to keep the band going, kinda for lack of anything better to do...it would most certainly be better than a day job. 

    So, three new guys came on board - Brad Wiley on guitar, Carl  Goodhines, who could recite the entire "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" word for word, on keys.  And Gary Briggs, Frank's younger brother, who had filled in on the drums for all the auditions, ended up getting the third spot.  He didn't play exactly like his brother, but he did play like 805.  And the band rehearsed and started doing shows again and there was much fun.

  It was a lighter approach to serious rock,  playing the same kind of music,  but with a carelessness and sense of humor that even old friends found refreshing.  And for three more years and then 2 half-years after that, the group continued to play and have fun and make a living, not a very good one but way better than those guys who make charcoal out of cow shit and then sell it.  

  805's third album, "The Edge of the World",  released early in 1989, was a powerful final entry, both musically and lyrically, and is the only one of the three albums which is actually still available thanks to the digital master in our possession. It was totally financed by fans of the band, who all got producer credits and badges and got to sing and make funny noises on the album's last track. 

  Eventually 805 stopped playing in late 1989.  Then played some more in  '91 (under a different name so we could play some blues and other non-progressive rock stuff) and again in '92.  And in the summer and fall of 2003, 805 went out and toured again and just had the best time.  The final performance of 805 was on Thanksgiving Eve, 2003 at the 1000-seat Turning Stone Showroom in upstate NY, and it was probably the best show the band had ever done in its entire 27 year run.  Ed V and Frank sat in on a couple old originals,  Gary and Creamo just kicked ass on drums and bass,  there was great video and lights,  alot of laughs and alot of great music. We also hired a camera crew and 48 channel hard disc audio crew, and made a most excellent DVD of the show that is available through this website.

People have been writing,  reminding us that 2007 / 08  will be our 30th anniversary and asking for another reunion.  The last one was SO good and so enjoyable,  especially the last show . . . we will all gladly leave it at that.

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Personnel

Dave Porter            Guitar, vocals   1977 - '89, '91, '92, '03

Greg Liss                Bass, Chapman Stick  1977 - '88, '03

Ed Vivenzio            Keyboards  1977 - '86

Ron Cunningham    Guitar, vocals  1977 - 1980

Jim Lucas                Drums  1977 - '78

Frank Briggs           Drums, percussion  1978 - '86

Jon Eisenhart         Guitar  1980

Marc Viscosi            Guitar  1984 - '85

Bill MacDermott      Guitar  1985 - '86

Gary Briggs             Drums  1986 - '89, '91, '92, '03

Brad Wiley              Guitar  1986 - '89, '91, '92, '03

Carl Goodhines       Keyboards  1986 - '88, '91, '92, '03

Gary Davenport       Bass, Chapman Stick  1988 - '89

Tracy Russell            Keyboards  1988 - '89

Tony Colabelli          Bass  1991, '92

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