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Soft Machine

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The Soft Machine: Hammersmith Palais, London

Live Review by Miles, New Musical Express, 3 July 1976

IT WAS a surprise to see so many people in the heat and the gloom of the Hamersmith Palais to see Soft Machine, because in ...

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2500 Ball at IT Launch

Report by uncredited writer, International Times, 31 October 1966

IT ISN'T SO cool to rave about your own party, but the IT Rave-Up at the Roundhouse two Saturdays ago was such an event we ...

Pink Floyd, Soft Machine et al: The 14 Hour Technicolor Dream, Alexandra Palace, London

Live Review by Nick Jones, Melody Maker, 6 May 1967

TECHNICOLOUR DREAM STIRS UNDERGROUND ...

Love, Beauty, the Fuzz and the UFO

Report and Interview by Chris Welch, Melody Maker, 17 June 1967

THE IN CLUBS: CHRIS WELCH takes in the London club scene — beginning with UFO ...

U.F.O. — in front of what's happening!

Report by Hugh Nolan, Disc and Music Echo, 24 June 1967

AS FAR as London is concerned, the hippies' paradise known as U.F.O. — stands for unidentified flying object, the non-own-up official term for flying saucers ...

The Flower Game

Report by Maureen O'Grady, Rave, September 1967

What do flowers mean to you? To the Flower People (the Gentle People, the Beautiful People) they signify love, freedom, goodness, fun and new experiences. ...

Rock & Roll Crusader: Detroit

Report by uncredited writer, The Warren-Forest Sun, 1 March 1968

DETROIT IS turning into ROCK CITY before our eyes, and we love it! All over the country groups are being "discovered, " and cities like ...

An Electrocuting Jimi Hendrix Experience: Jimi Hendrix/Soft Machine: Auditorium Theatre, Chicago

Live Review by Camille Davis Russo, Skyline, 14 September 1968

I have given over my column this week to my daughter Camille Russo. She 
is almost 17, and has a good ear, has studied the ...

Jimi Hendrix, Vanilla Fudge, Soft Machine, Heir Apparent: Hollywood Bowl, Los Angeles CA

Live Review by Pete Johnson, Los Angeles Times, 16 September 1968

THE JIMI HENDRIX Experience was too much for the ushers who have managed to confine spectators to their seats during the summer series of rock ...

The Soft Machine: The Soft Machine (ABC)

Review by Miles, International Times, 29 November 1968

SEVERAL exotic people were sitting on the floor at an Indica Gallery opening in 1966, the tall one with the Dr Strange cape was called ...

Soft Machine

Interview by uncredited writer, Beat Instrumental, December 1969

"INDEPENDENCE" and "freedom" are words much used today to justify any act from dossing down in Piccadilly to running naked through Trafalgar Square, but Soft ...

Soft Machine: Fairfield Hall, Croydon

Live Review by Richard Williams, Melody Maker, 10 January 1970

IT SEEMS to me that this just might be Soft Machine's year. Having done things the unconventional way by finding first fame on the Continent, ...

Robert Wyatt: A Child of the Pop Scene

Interview by Richard Williams, Melody Maker, 14 February 1970

ROBERT WYATT is the member of the Soft Machine you're most likely to be watching while you listen to their music. Tousle-haired and athletic behind ...

Soft Machine: Ronnie Scott's, London

Live Review by Richard Williams, Melody Maker, 25 April 1970

THOSE WHO imagine that Ronnie Scott is selling out by inviting the Soft Machine to play for a week at his club are in for ...

Soft Machine: Third (CBS 66246)

Review by Rob Partridge, Record Mirror, 4 July 1970

'Facelift'; 'Slightly All the Time'; 'Noisette'; 'Slightly All the Time'; 'The Moon in June'; 'Out-Bloody-Rageous'. ...

The Softs, the Proms and drummer Wyatt

Interview by Richard Williams, Melody Maker, 5 September 1970

IT'S NOT long since Robert Wyatt announced that he was vacating the drum stool with Soft Machine in order to pursue a career with Kevin ...

Soft Machine: Inside the Mind of a Machine

Interview by Michael Watts, Melody Maker, 2 January 1971

Michael Watts talks to Soft Machine drummer Robert Wyatt ...

Robert Wyatt — an out of work singer currently on drums with Soft Machine

Interview by Roy Carr, New Musical Express, 16 January 1971

WHEN SOFT Machine aren't packing concert halls across America and Europe, their extremely good humoured drummer Robert Wyatt, and part-time Centipede luminary, can often be ...

Soft Machine: Gaslight, New York NY

Live Review by Ian Dove, Billboard, 17 July 1971

ORNETTE COLEMAN'S presence in the audience was no coincidence — there's mutual admiration between the CBS group and the avant jazzman. It's also apparent in ...

Soft Machine: Interview with Hugh Hopper

Interview by Ed Jones, Cracker, January 1972

WELL, YA KNOW HOW IT IS ON SATURDAY EVENINGS. The rain was terrible, and I couldn't get a bus and, well, by the time I ...

Pink Floyd/Soft Machine: Rainbow Theatre, London

Live Review by Chris Welch, Melody Maker, 10 November 1973

PINK FLOYD and Soft Machine stunned fans with two sensational shows at London's Rainbow Theatre on Sunday night. It was a splendid evening of rock-co-operation, ...

Kevin Ayers: Keeping the ’67 faith

Profile by Simon Frith, Let It Rock, February 1974

It begins with a blessing (but ends with a curse)Making life easy (but making it worse)... ...

Soft Machine, part 1

Retrospective by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 25 January 1975

CLASS OF '61 at the Simon Langton School, Canterbury – an exclusive, private establishment for the sons of local artists and intellectuals. Very free, emphatically ...

Soft Machine, part 2: The End of an Ear at the Proms

Retrospective by Ian MacDonald, New Musical Express, 1 February 1975

IN LAST week's issue, Part One recounted the history of the Softs from their schooldays to the break-up of the group following the recording of ...

Soft Machine: Parc des Expositions, Paris

Live Review by Karl Dallas, Melody Maker, 22 March 1975

PARIS. DEAR Comrade. Here is my report on the delegation of British musicians to the rally of French Communist youth in the Parc des Expositions ...

Ike and Tina Turner, Caravan, John McLaughlin et al: Startruckin' 75

Report by Charles Shaar Murray, New Musical Express, 23 August 1975

WHERE THE HELL is Lou Reed?Good question, if a trifle academic, but eminently suited for whiling away times in the coach by discussing. ...

Kevin Ayers/Soft Machine: Edinburgh Playhouse

Live Review by Miles, New Musical Express, 18 September 1976

AN INTERESTING booking, Kevin Ayers – one of the founding members of Soft Machine – playing on the same bill as their present, 14th, line-up ...

Kevin Ayers

Interview by Dave Schulps, Trouser Press, September 1977

BACK IN TP 16 Myron Bretholz wrote a lengthy run-down of the life and times of Kevin Ayers, English eccentric, banana artiste and wine connoisseur ...

The Things You Should Know About Robert Wyatt

Interview by Dave DiMartino, Creem, January 1987

IT'S DIFFICULT to call it more than coincidence. ...

Who Was That Masked Voice?

Report and Interview by Chas de Whalley, Vox, April 1993

So what if Elvis Presley isn't available for commercial breaks these days? Just get someone in who can impersonate him — the Hofmeister bear, for ...

Soft Machine

Retrospective and Interview by Rob Chapman, MOJO, June 1997

Oh what larks they had. Psychedelic poesy with a May Ball beat. Jolly Japes with Jimi Hendrix. Frolics with the Floyd. Soft Machine: a very ...

We Have Lift Off!

Retrospective by Johnny Black, MOJO, February 2004

In less than one year, London's UFO (pronounced "you-foe") club became the nocturnal haunt of the '60s counterculture, gathering place for the Beatles, Stones and ...

Graham Bennett: Soft Machine: Out-Bloody-Rageous (SAF Publishing)

Book Review by Jon Newey, Jazzwise, February 2006

HOT ON THE HEELS of Sony's recent two CD anthology, also titled Out-Bloody- Rageous, Robert Wyatt's Mojo Lifetime Award and a growing reappraisal of its ...

Kevin Ayers: An Interview

Interview by Mike Barnes, unpublished, Fall 2008

2013 NOTE: The interview was ostensibly for the "Hello/Goodbye" feature in MOJO 184 (March 2009), on Ayers's time in Soft Machine, but was opened out ...

Daevid Allen, 1938-2015

Obituary by Adam Sweeting, The Guardian, 13 March 2015

Founder member of the psychedelic rock groups Soft Machine and Gong. ...

see also Kevin Ayers

see also Gong

see also Wilde Flowers, The

see also Robert Wyatt

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