801 (band)

801
Origin	England
Genres	Experimental rock, art rock, progressive rock
Years active	1976–1977
Labels	Expression, Polydor
Associated acts	Quiet Sun, Roxy Music
Members	Phil Manzanera Bill MacCormick Simon Ainley Paul Thompson Andy MacKay David Skinner
Past members	Brian Eno Francis Monkman Simon Phillips Lloyd Watson

801 were an English experimental rock band that were originally formed in 1976 for three live concerts by

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 (although it has also been noted that "Eight Nought One" acrostically spells his name).

801 performed three critically highly acclaimed concerts: in Norfolk, at the Reading Festival and the final concert on 3 September 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 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.

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