Soft Machine Legacy

[Scroobius]

Last night I went with a couple of like minded old hippies to watch Soft Machine Legacy (featuring JOHN ETHERIDGE: electric guitar ROY BABBINGTON: bass guitar JOHN MARSHALL: drums and percussion
THEO TRAVIS: tenor sax, flute, fender rhodes piano).

Man was this a good set the quality of the playing was superb we had a stonking good evening, one of the best evenings of music I have had for years. The Softs are touring the UK but also have gigs in Europe. If it is your type of music or if you like jazz don't hesitate go and watch them.

Paul

[JohanZ]

Hi Paul,
One of my most favorite bands. I've seen them several times in the Netherlands. Last year in the "Boerderij" Zoetermeer. They are from the Canturbury music scene. A lot of very good bands!

Best regards

Johan

[Stanray]

Caravan, National Health, Hatfield and the North. Cool bands 

[JohanZ]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canterbury_scene

[Scroobius]

Caravan, National Health, Hatfield and the North

Yes indeed and music I was raised on. So great to see some of those great musicians live (and particularly "alive"  )again.

The first three of the Soft Machine Legacy CD's have arrived (Soft Machine Legacy and Live at the New Morning 1/2). They are on the Dansette now and I am very much enjoying.  What I really like is that the live performance and the "Legacy" albums are very much new interpretations with hints of the past. It is not at all just gong over old stuff. And with musicians of this calibre - just great music.

Happy bunny I am.

P

[PeterSt]

It is not at all just gong over old stuff. And with musicians of this calibre - just great music.

Is Gong on your Dansette too ?
hehe

Peter

[Scroobius]

Gong is on the Dansette - absolutely !!!!  or at least it will be when I have worked my way through the new Soft Legacy albums.

[JohanZ]

Don't forget Henry Cow!

[PeterSt]

Some deep inhereted nature pops out of you guys !

It feels a bit strange, because I have been a deep Progressive Rock lover (way too few of that available in digital format) but did not ever reach out to Soft Machine and all that gang. I recall a few Gong albums and certainly Caravan (and Camel may it suitable somewhat) but really all of these others - none.
It is even so that only a few weeks back I tried a few Soft Machine albums, but I just couldn't like it. Otoh, this is very very difficult because PR stuff like Van der Graaf Generator I also can't play any more. Anyway, that will be personal (or perhaps not the best SQ), so my point remains : why was something like Soft Machine not in my vocabulary back then. Worse : it was. But I just never obtained it. Or nobody around me had it.

Haha, the latter reminds me of Supertramp. That I had many years (4 or so) before their first single came about and they got famous (that should be School - (from Crime of The Century).
See below for their first. Really King Crimson like or anyway Progressive Rock as Progressive Rock should be (in my view).
Sorry to be !
Peter

[Stanray]

Two lesser known prog rock gems 

[Scroobius]

Really King Crimson like or anyway Progressive Rock as Progressive Rock should be (in my view).

Ha!!  Theo Travis is a long collaborator of Robert Fripp (Mr. King Crimson himself) but now is with Soft Machine legacy. 

King Crimson were (are?) right up there at the very top. We are very lucky they appear in Aylesbury each year, so we see them regularly. This year though, not sure about their foray into "metal", but when they got that out of the way (this summer) the remainder of the performance was as usual stonking brilliant.

IMHO Soft Machine were key in the development of rock. With founders like Robert Wyatt and Kevin Ayres what more can you say. Robert Wyatt is a mega hero and is still producing music of the very highest quality. He is a national treasure. Wyatt was the drummer in Soft Machine but has produced fantastic music over very many albums for many years !!!!!   Then there was Syd Barrett with whom on his first album the original Soft Machine members performed shame what happened to Syd Barrett we can only imagine what he could have produced !!

P

[PeterSt]

I tried to play a few Gong tracks last night and I now see / recall what is wrong to these ears and this music : they mess up underway. I recall the same from Soft Machine.
Each track starts out brilliantly and you can see how coherent all is being done and how some plan really exists. But in each and every track the guys get wild an throw of their basses and guitars and everyting and they all grab flutes and make a wild mess of it. That sort of thing.

Btw this is not much different from how I myself jammed back in the days, where the music itself sweeps you up and you dare - and can do more and more when time goes by (adrenaline level rises). So in the end all is too wild and no plans can exist any more. Meanwhile it is a mess and the only ones who enjoy it are you and your co-musicians. De audience has left the buiding.

Do I make sense ?

Listen to Syd Barett albums and experience the same; it looks like he put the tracks on such an album in chronological sequence of creating them, and where the first track is superb and brilliant (!), the second still is that but the third already less and after that you are sure he smokes too much. After that you (OK I) shut off the album.

For fun compare with Echoes (Meddle). Starts out easy, winds up hardly and ends easy. And 20 minutes boring it is not.

Still, when listening to Gong yesterday, I thought of what I have been saying 25 years ago already : the days of long tracks (like a full LP side) are behind us and it is a shame. So with that music those days are back again. Well, obvious because nothing changed for albums from back then, but the difference is that for me these albums were new and with all the senses from back then.
Anyway it gave me a sheer feeling of those were the days.

Peter

[Scroobius]

Do I make sense ?

No! 

De audience has left the building

Not last Thursday -  the audience wouldn't leave !!!

For fun compare with Echoes (Meddle)

Now I do realise I am in great peril of being moved down the waiting list for BA'SS ( ) but I do not get how a comparison between the Floyd and Softs works, so different is the music. IMHO the Floyd did not produce any decent music after Syd  :-(  Maybe OK as "supermarket" music ha ha.  Having said that I know a lot of people did like it and it was a good influence of rock generally.

. Starts out easy, winds up hardly and ends easy. And 20 minutes boring it is not.

"Hardly" is the right word ha ha  -  and 20 minutes ? I could not last that long.

Anyway great that you like King Crimson a truly wonderful band.

Anyway in a later post I will reveal my (accidental) connection with Pink Floyd.

P

[PeterSt]

Paul - Oh ... if Syd Barett wouldn't have existed then Pink Floyd wouldn't have been Psychedelic as they started out and nothing would have come from them.

After my last post I realized that I possibly could have kicked against some legs, which is not my intention at all. A small apology could be in order.

but I do not get how a comparison between the Floyd and Softs works,

I wasn't really comparing them, but since you brought up Barett you can just as well try to find the recordings from PF from before they produced some real stuff. This was not really different from Progressive Rock as such, but it added the mystic of Phychedelia.

OK, I am talking from my *ss because I am trying to do this in aftermath, while I sure was there at the time. One small note : you *are* a few years older than me, which can just make the difference. I stem from In-a-gadda-da-vida at the age of 11 and my first bought album "Black Sabbath" at the same age, playing that on my self-made turn table through my also self made stereo composed of old lamp radios. King Crimson was the only Progressive Rock as such of which I had the idea that I found that myself as the only person looking at all around me (same with mentioned Supertramp), but the era was Rock like Grand Funk Railroad for the hot stuff, or Deep Purple for some less.
It can well be that the Soft Machines of those times just did not make it over to Holland because there was too much flower power else, including Hendrix and even Cocker. Or Rare Earth.
One problem with this all : at each and every party it was me who took care of the music so it was me who spread mentioned music. This contained no Beatles and no Stones. A lot of Child in Time though.

haha

Peter

[PeterSt]

I am listening to the Tom Robinson Band (referred to by Alain), and this comes to mind :
The music from my younger years had to be "danceable" - normal or "slow". If it did not suffice for that it was out of the vocabulary. Now, you might say that Tom Robinson Band is not that, but if you think that, try it. Same with many other "rock" (up to hard rock), just see you hairs swing, even if you don't have them any more. And if not that, easily think of "I talk to The Wind". And when bored with that revert to Child in Time again and be bored with that. I was never bored with it as long as the girl did not run out.

So for me it was something like that which formed me back then.

Peter