Soft Machine
| Soft Machine | |
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| Background information | |
| Origin | Canterbury, England |
| Genres | |
| Years active | 1966–1968, 1969–1984, 2015–present 1999-2002 (as Soft Ware) 2002–2004 (as Soft Works) 2004–2015 (as Soft Machine Legacy) |
| Labels | ABC Probe, Columbia, Harvest, EMI, Major League Productions (MLP) |
| Associated acts | Caravan, Pink Floyd, Matching Mole, Nucleus, Gong, Isotope, Adiemus, Soft Heap, Soft Head, Soft Bounds, The Police |
| Members |
John Marshall Roy Babbington John Etheridge Theo Travis |
| Past members | See: Members |
Soft Machine are an English rock and jazz band from Canterbury, named after the book The Soft Machine by William S. Burroughs. They were one of the central bands in the Canterbury scene. Though they achieved little commercial success, they are widely considered by critics to have been very influential in rock music, with AllMusic describing them as "one of the more influential bands of their era, and certainly one of the most influential underground ones."
Soft Machine (billed as The Soft Machine up to 1969 or 1970) were formed in mid-1966 by Robert Wyatt (drums, vocals), Kevin Ayers (bass, guitar, vocals), Daevid Allen (guitar) and Mike Ratledge (organ) plus, for the first few gigs only, American guitarist Larry Nowlin. Allen, Wyatt and future bassist Hugh Hopper had first played together in the Daevid Allen Trio in 1963, occasionally accompanied by Ratledge. Wyatt, Ayers and Hopper had been founding members of The Wilde Flowers, later incarnations of which would include future members of another Canterbury band, Caravan.
This first Soft Machine line-up became involved in the early UK underground, featuring prominently at the UFO Club, and subsequently other London clubs like the Speakeasy Club and Middle Earth. Their first single, 'Love Makes Sweet Music' (recorded 5 February 1967, produced by Chas Chandler), was released on Polydor Records in February, backed with 'Feelin' Reelin' Squeelin' (January 1967, produced by Kim Fowley—rumored to have Jimi Hendrix, who was recording "Hey Joe" in the same studio, playing rhythm guitar). In April 1967 they recorded seven demo songs with producer Giorgio Gomelsky in De Lane Lea Studios that remained unreleased until 1971 in a dispute over studio costs. They also played in the Netherlands, Germany and on the French Riviera. During July and August 1967, Gomelsky booked shows all along the Côte d'Azur with the band's most famous early gig taking place in the village square of Saint-Tropez. This led to an invitation to perform at producer Eddie Barclay's trendy "Nuit Psychédélique[]", performing a forty-minute rendering of "We Did It Again", singing the refrain over and over, achieving a trance-like quality. This made them instant darlings of the Parisian "in" crowd, resulting in invitations to appear on leading television shows and at the Paris Biennale in October 1967. Upon their return from their sojourn in France, Allen (an Australian) was denied re-entry to the United Kingdom, so the group continued as a trio, while he returned to Paris to form Gong.
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