And some may laugh, but the manic drumming and keyboard riffing here reminds me much of 1973-era Deep Purple jams, featuring Jon Lord and Ian Paice, yet about four years earlier. Add in some screeching rock vocals and fast melodic riffs on a Stratocaster, and you'd swear this SM track is Blackmore and Co.
Very interesting video post. First, I'm surprised at how intense, vigorous and nuanced Wyatt's drumming was (even though I have those first two albums, I never listen to them). I'm an enormous fan of the "Third" album through about Soft Machine "Seven." They lose me a bit in the fusion years, but I still can appreciate some of even that. In this track, I can see the Genesis of explorations they would later make with Ratledge's keyboard-driven explorations, albeit without their jazz influences.
Robert Wyatt was epic! How does one have such a vocal range? In the beginning he's singing really high & then starts singing in a "normal" pitch. Not to mention the fact that he was such an amazing & underrated drummer. It's so unfortunate that he was effectively rendered unable to drum by his accident.
This must be the most demented, aggressive prog rock song ever! I like Soft Machine in their many different incarnations including the Allan Holdsworth era, but the Robert Wyatt - Kevin Ayers era was their most enjoyable for me.
I picked up the they're 1st record and never heard of them before ,except heard they had open up for Jimi Hendrix experience back in the day. all i have to say i appreciate the these video clips there awesome!
These times call for us making and appreciating this horrible sort of music AGAIN. Sweet voiced commerce music will kill itself if we massively stop being stupid. The fucking heart is stronger than ratio.
Three of these guys used to give me the same musical high that I got from listening to six members of the original Grateful Dead play. I think the musicianship of this band was incredibly high and entertaining at the same time.
I'm also trying to understand the one or two derisive comments made about Ayers and his playing. To me it sounds great. He's simultaneously holding down the rhythm with Wyatt yet, along with Wyatt, is going balls to the wall in terms of creatively mixing it all around. That, with Ratelidge's organ on top, makes for a great stew of sound. Hearty.
That said I honestly can't understand why people think Ayers' performance is anything but great.
I think it's because the role of a bassist is underrated. Kevin does give some nice performance hear, but I'm pretty sure that he could have done much better if he wanted to.
Great ending with some rather excellent bass work. Love how it sort of "rumbles" in the lower cords. A hollow body for you. Something one can't get out of an solid body instrument.
One of my favourite videos posted here on youtube.
This Version of "Why Im so short" is so good.. i can taste the sweet music thats made with love, but the "Jet Propelled Photograph" album version with Daevid allen on guitar is clearly better in psychedelic ways. any way its lovley to sit here for a while and easly find this jewel on the net and blow my mind with the natural high that this music brings you with a smile.
I find it sad that most people from 60's didn't listen to this kind of music unless they were doping up. This was one of several bands my father liked back in his day.I love this kind of music, anything different, experimental fusion. I don't need experiemental drugs to get a high off the enjoyment of what sounds and feels great.
I'm not sure what you mean by "this kind of music." If Alan Holdsworth was doping up while listening to the band he would later join he must have had a lot of extra non-doping hours in his day in which to practice guitar, b/c otherwise there's no real way he learns to play like that sitting around doing bong hits. Ditto John Marshall, Karl Jenkins, John Etheridge, and a lot of other guys who joined in the early 70s. P.S., "fusion" is an insulting way of characterizing what they're doing here.
Please whoever has them, please, please post more of the earliest Soft Machine. I droppe dout of university 20+ years ago because of this album & cocaine. I'd really like to see some more!
Neither You, Nor Wetbedsheet have right : Kevin Ayers A Good Bassist with cool lyrics, Yes it's True But Compare To Hugh Hopper We Cannot Say that he's A Good Bassist To The Technical and Experimental point naturally
I used to listen to their first album with these guys in the band and liked them WAY MORE than the Cream... I still do. They were more psychedelic than some of the West Coast bands back then. Kevin Ayers may have influenced Jaco more than he knows...
I'm 36 & LOVE music from the 60's: Hendrix, Cream, Jefferson Airplane, Janiss, Traffic, Grateful Dead...we'll u the the idea. I started to listen to them when top 40 started to suck in my late teens. Even today music like this blows away ANYTHING that radio tries to cram down us today. AMAZING!! Is any of Soft Machine's stuff on DVD?
Great musical performance, but a unusually bad video production, even for the era. It was kind of funny seeing those hippies throwing balls around, and what could be groovier than a psychedelic light show in black and white!
I saw them with Hendrix and the Electric Flag - Mike Bloomfield's group, at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, 1967. It was a great show. Bloomfield used a Twin Reverb and Les Paul - was brilliant. So was Hendrix, of course.
Yes, it was Mark Boyle doing the light show, sadly he paseed away last year, a great guy. The Boyle family made these amazing works of art; 6ft x 6ft very realistic, they used to put a pin on a map blinfold then go to that place and copy it!
That music Film is without Ayers and played much better without him!That song is from their first LP as a trio in 1967 "The soft machine" which is the best LP ever for LSD experience!
Yes, yes they did, they even wrote a song about it, called "Have You Ever Bean Green?" Where they say "Thank you Noel and Mitch" and "Thank you jim, for exposing us to the crowds."
For some reason this band and the "flaming groovies" were always just out of reach for the public to hear what they sound like. I saw their records all the time, but know one I knew had their albums and the freeform fm stations back in the late 60's and very early 70's (as far as I know) didn't play them. Go figure.
Now, if you're gifted at neither, well then,your last resort is to contemplate a career as a guitar hero! :-D
Being more comfortable with singing while having been
involved with the drums for only a period of three years -and that happened ten years ago!!!- I sincerely hope I'm not sounding too pretensious here!...
If it's the singing you are naturally gifted or good at , just try and let go of your vocals totally, and trust your gut instinct while drumming, slipping your vocalizing into the background to the point you're not even aware of what you sound like - just trust the audience on that one! ;-) and plainly focus on the drumming part!... It might just do the trick!...
...So here is my humble advice: Try and keep your drumming style somewhat simpler than the original (depending on whom you are trying to emulate, of course!) while, at the same time, keeping your drum licks snappy and interesting!!!... and then, decide what's your stronger asset: singing or drumming?...
True, it's rather hard... but Robert's drumming style was also very complex and elaborate (in my opinion!) making it virtually impossible to combine both!
The way he achieved it was bordering on the line of pure genius! But even HE sometimes took a break from the drumming to indulge in those soaring and delightful vocals of his!...
To MADROCKS212 and all of those aspiring singing-drummers-the way-RW-does it! ;-)
Well, apparently, when referring to the book "Wrong Movements" -RW biography- even Robert admits that the drumming and singing combo is a very difficult thing to achieve - like two horses pulling a cart in opposite directions-!...
just checked out that vid and its amazing, im a drummer of 22 years and theres no way i could play and sing at the same time the way robert does its simply amazing....
Don't know where you live, but Daevid Allen and his gang of (what? 20 bands?) is touring like the whole world. I'm talking Mother Gong, University Of Errors, Brainville 3, System 7 etc..
They're going through all of Europe and a bit of Israel. U.S. too ofc.
re: Egyptian-eyed glory -- I replied (sort of) though not directly to you, about a "futuristic Beatles" rock press descritpion of Soft Machine ... are you aware of who might have written that around '68?
"Egyptian-eyed glory" I figured you made up. What I was seeking additional info on was a 1968, 69 or thereabouts press description of Soft Machine as "futuristic Beatles." Don't know who said it, do you? I think it was a British journalist though am not sure.
'pparently Jeff Mangum was a huge fan of these guys. Especially Robert Wyatt. I can see where he got inspiration for the fuzz.
thedroogfulable 3 days ago
And some may laugh, but the manic drumming and keyboard riffing here reminds me much of 1973-era Deep Purple jams, featuring Jon Lord and Ian Paice, yet about four years earlier. Add in some screeching rock vocals and fast melodic riffs on a Stratocaster, and you'd swear this SM track is Blackmore and Co.
philipatoz 1 month ago
Very interesting video post. First, I'm surprised at how intense, vigorous and nuanced Wyatt's drumming was (even though I have those first two albums, I never listen to them). I'm an enormous fan of the "Third" album through about Soft Machine "Seven." They lose me a bit in the fusion years, but I still can appreciate some of even that. In this track, I can see the Genesis of explorations they would later make with Ratledge's keyboard-driven explorations, albeit without their jazz influences.
philipatoz 1 month ago
2:00 un sacco di palle!!! XD XD
notnowjon 1 month ago
Robert Wyatt was epic! How does one have such a vocal range? In the beginning he's singing really high & then starts singing in a "normal" pitch. Not to mention the fact that he was such an amazing & underrated drummer. It's so unfortunate that he was effectively rendered unable to drum by his accident.
Lurtzman1 1 month ago
what paralysed him . . .?
tapsahtip 4 months ago
@tapsahtip he was drunk and fell off a balcony
softmachine42 3 months ago
Yup, definitely the best drummer ever.
Adamboms 5 months ago
altro grande pezzo del loro repertorio........ immensi, irraggiungibili
nomenklaturahippie 8 months ago
This must be the most demented, aggressive prog rock song ever! I like Soft Machine in their many different incarnations including the Allan Holdsworth era, but the Robert Wyatt - Kevin Ayers era was their most enjoyable for me.
marcfedak 1 year ago
@marcfedak
You are perfectly right
om108able 10 months ago
Great effects and camera work in addition to the band.
Splitskirts 1 year ago
This looks like the UFO Gig
thepassion10 1 year ago
This looks like the UFO Gig
thepassion10 1 year ago
I picked up the they're 1st record and never heard of them before ,except heard they had open up for Jimi Hendrix experience back in the day. all i have to say i appreciate the these video clips there awesome!
sundancefan1 1 year ago
These times call for us making and appreciating this horrible sort of music AGAIN. Sweet voiced commerce music will kill itself if we massively stop being stupid. The fucking heart is stronger than ratio.
ReyZame 1 year ago
fuck sake, cant believe its taken so long to realise this band exists
hobonotboho 1 year ago 2
this is great!
themarsvoltafan1215 1 year ago
Psychedelic rock for shure man.
MrFigueroa007 1 year ago
the music is dead in the 1973. ...and The soft machine when Hugh Hopper left the band...
dantefontana66 2 years ago 2
I Love Soft Machine I am 17Ratelidge's phrasing in his solos are very good !
angmar11 2 years ago
holyshit¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡ cosmic sound, psichedelic rooms in minds
ArbOLDEAIRe 2 years ago 3
beautiful instrumental part of the song..3:55 hehe!
385052 2 years ago
How about 3:48-:49 :D ?
bowdlerizer007 2 years ago 2
This song gives Robert THE POWER.
its0Nah 2 years ago 5
Three of these guys used to give me the same musical high that I got from listening to six members of the original Grateful Dead play. I think the musicianship of this band was incredibly high and entertaining at the same time.
mikimcal 2 years ago 4
I really wish the 1969 trio kept playing this. I wonder what Hugh would have done with this, seeing as its his song...
BassLudeman 2 years ago
Musical wow.
studdingsails 2 years ago
I wish I could find live music like this today -_-;
Cwal 2 years ago 19
Brilliant, every member is on fire here.
I'm also trying to understand the one or two derisive comments made about Ayers and his playing. To me it sounds great. He's simultaneously holding down the rhythm with Wyatt yet, along with Wyatt, is going balls to the wall in terms of creatively mixing it all around. That, with Ratelidge's organ on top, makes for a great stew of sound. Hearty.
That said I honestly can't understand why people think Ayers' performance is anything but great.
MadJohnEscapes 2 years ago 7
I think it's because the role of a bassist is underrated. Kevin does give some nice performance hear, but I'm pretty sure that he could have done much better if he wanted to.
bowdlerizer007 2 years ago
Great ending with some rather excellent bass work. Love how it sort of "rumbles" in the lower cords. A hollow body for you. Something one can't get out of an solid body instrument.
One of my favourite videos posted here on youtube.
Keep up the good work.
ministercreek 2 years ago 4
good music
Geni909 2 years ago
Psychedelic
FeatureLengthFilms 2 years ago 2
yes yes yes yes!!! I love you MANUQUADROS!
xxxnxc 2 years ago
Robert Wyatt = Greatest drummer ever. Huge loss when he was paralyzed.
SovietTelevision 3 years ago 23
@SovietTelevision How did he become paralyzed?
Dantr51 1 year ago
@Dantr51 He fell out of a window in a tall building while he was drunk.
SovietTelevision 1 year ago
@SovietTelevision 4th floor - at Gilli Smyth's 40th birthday party
micheljch 5 months ago
This Version of "Why Im so short" is so good.. i can taste the sweet music thats made with love, but the "Jet Propelled Photograph" album version with Daevid allen on guitar is clearly better in psychedelic ways. any way its lovley to sit here for a while and easly find this jewel on the net and blow my mind with the natural high that this music brings you with a smile.
SoftMachine forever.
EricBlueDeer 3 years ago 4
Either one loves this stuff or loathes it; "I'm Not In Love."
lumpagogo 3 years ago
¡que organo! como suena me refiero.
Abrohill 3 years ago 3
just phantastic!
Early Soft Machine are soooooo great!
Karautkopf 3 years ago 3
I find it sad that most people from 60's didn't listen to this kind of music unless they were doping up. This was one of several bands my father liked back in his day.I love this kind of music, anything different, experimental fusion. I don't need experiemental drugs to get a high off the enjoyment of what sounds and feels great.
standasone37 3 years ago 4
Yha i usually stick to the normal kind too.
DaArbiter 3 years ago
I'm not sure what you mean by "this kind of music." If Alan Holdsworth was doping up while listening to the band he would later join he must have had a lot of extra non-doping hours in his day in which to practice guitar, b/c otherwise there's no real way he learns to play like that sitting around doing bong hits. Ditto John Marshall, Karl Jenkins, John Etheridge, and a lot of other guys who joined in the early 70s. P.S., "fusion" is an insulting way of characterizing what they're doing here.
dantean 3 years ago
better knowing a pure concept of rock ever existed (useful thought when agonizing)
Averabarrios 3 years ago
Please whoever has them, please, please post more of the earliest Soft Machine. I droppe dout of university 20+ years ago because of this album & cocaine. I'd really like to see some more!
PPPPedro43 3 years ago 2
This comment has received too many negative votes show
It's a good thing they changed bassists. The guy with the makeup stinks.
bootheavy 3 years ago
thumbs down to you, thumbs up to kevin ayers
wetbedsheet 3 years ago 3
This comment has received too many negative votes show
your reply isn't that much better than that guy's playing.
bootheavy 3 years ago
Neither You, Nor Wetbedsheet have right : Kevin Ayers A Good Bassist with cool lyrics, Yes it's True But Compare To Hugh Hopper We Cannot Say that he's A Good Bassist To The Technical and Experimental point naturally
DaedalusWolf 3 years ago 3
hey whose your bassist of comparison?
phantomofthedrivein 3 years ago
Man this is amazing music, and we get an incredible light show to boot.
Brain!
threeby8887 3 years ago
This is "Why Am I So Short?" and "So Boot If At All." This is awesome stuff, nothing compares except maybe early Pink Floyd Saucerful of Secrets.
Mickdog2112 3 years ago
I used to listen to their first album with these guys in the band and liked them WAY MORE than the Cream... I still do. They were more psychedelic than some of the West Coast bands back then. Kevin Ayers may have influenced Jaco more than he knows...
mikimcal 3 years ago
this is sooooo wonderful!!!!!!!!
KarmicJuggernaut 3 years ago
ACID JAZZ
Alcervic 3 years ago
oh yeah that's amazing.
botchbud 4 years ago
Around 1968 one rock journalist, English I believe, referred to Soft Machine as "futuristic Beatles" ... still are I think
sunrajah 4 years ago
I'm 36 & LOVE music from the 60's: Hendrix, Cream, Jefferson Airplane, Janiss, Traffic, Grateful Dead...we'll u the the idea. I started to listen to them when top 40 started to suck in my late teens. Even today music like this blows away ANYTHING that radio tries to cram down us today. AMAZING!! Is any of Soft Machine's stuff on DVD?
CadillacL 4 years ago
Great musical performance, but a unusually bad video production, even for the era. It was kind of funny seeing those hippies throwing balls around, and what could be groovier than a psychedelic light show in black and white!
junkdrum 4 years ago
I saw them with Hendrix and the Electric Flag - Mike Bloomfield's group, at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, 1967. It was a great show. Bloomfield used a Twin Reverb and Les Paul - was brilliant. So was Hendrix, of course.
trinityprojmusic 4 years ago
Yes, it was Mark Boyle doing the light show, sadly he paseed away last year, a great guy. The Boyle family made these amazing works of art; 6ft x 6ft very realistic, they used to put a pin on a map blinfold then go to that place and copy it!
nlphoward007 4 years ago
That music Film is without Ayers and played much better without him!That song is from their first LP as a trio in 1967 "The soft machine" which is the best LP ever for LSD experience!
pinkfloydas 4 years ago
k,thanks for correcting me dude.
Mestizo1971 4 years ago
As far as I read some years ago,The Soft Machine opened up for the Jimi Hendrix Experience in 1967 in the USA.
Mestizo1971 4 years ago
to be precise, it was in 1968
00mariob00 4 years ago
True; I have a poster!
LadyAdoryan57 4 years ago
Brilliant!!! Saw them open up for Hendrix and was TOTALLY blown away by them! One of my favourite bands!
oneohsix48th 4 years ago
This still sounds fresh.......
Mikehowarth63 4 years ago
Yes, yes they did, they even wrote a song about it, called "Have You Ever Bean Green?" Where they say "Thank you Noel and Mitch" and "Thank you jim, for exposing us to the crowds."
Bossk14 4 years ago
Im convinced Jimi added guitar to some of Soft Machines 1st album,there is also the Chas Chandler connection,Great light show (Mark Boyle ??)
Pigeon55 4 years ago
Soft Machine toured with Hendrix
scottbos68 4 years ago
WOOOOOOOOOOOOOW
MaxErnst 4 years ago
black & white psychedelia - isn't it just fab?
peck712 4 years ago
For some reason this band and the "flaming groovies" were always just out of reach for the public to hear what they sound like. I saw their records all the time, but know one I knew had their albums and the freeform fm stations back in the late 60's and very early 70's (as far as I know) didn't play them. Go figure.
spudwas 4 years ago
great
woodentops 4 years ago
Now, if you're gifted at neither, well then,your last resort is to contemplate a career as a guitar hero! :-D
Being more comfortable with singing while having been
involved with the drums for only a period of three years -and that happened ten years ago!!!- I sincerely hope I'm not sounding too pretensious here!...
;-)
snusmumriken3 4 years ago
If it's the drums you're more inclined to , then just do the opposite and concentrate on the singing!...
I've tried it myself with some "easy" Led Zeppelin songs and it seems to work!...
snusmumriken3 4 years ago
If it's the singing you are naturally gifted or good at , just try and let go of your vocals totally, and trust your gut instinct while drumming, slipping your vocalizing into the background to the point you're not even aware of what you sound like - just trust the audience on that one! ;-) and plainly focus on the drumming part!... It might just do the trick!...
snusmumriken3 4 years ago
...So here is my humble advice: Try and keep your drumming style somewhat simpler than the original (depending on whom you are trying to emulate, of course!) while, at the same time, keeping your drum licks snappy and interesting!!!... and then, decide what's your stronger asset: singing or drumming?...
snusmumriken3 4 years ago
True, it's rather hard... but Robert's drumming style was also very complex and elaborate (in my opinion!) making it virtually impossible to combine both!
The way he achieved it was bordering on the line of pure genius! But even HE sometimes took a break from the drumming to indulge in those soaring and delightful vocals of his!...
snusmumriken3 4 years ago
To MADROCKS212 and all of those aspiring singing-drummers-the way-RW-does it! ;-)
Well, apparently, when referring to the book "Wrong Movements" -RW biography- even Robert admits that the drumming and singing combo is a very difficult thing to achieve - like two horses pulling a cart in opposite directions-!...
snusmumriken3 4 years ago
to snusmumriken3 wow !!!
just checked out that vid and its amazing, im a drummer of 22 years and theres no way i could play and sing at the same time the way robert does its simply amazing....
thanks for the link sincerely, madrocks212
MADROCKS212 4 years ago
amazing i was only listening to SF today, this vid is an absolute gem it shows how inovative they were so early on(67), thanks for uploading this.
greatly appreciated peace from the madrocks212
MADROCKS212 4 years ago
For all Robert Wyatt freaks, check out the "Robert Wyatt-Early Days" vid on Dailymotion, you won't regret it!!!
snusmumriken3 4 years ago
I'd like to see some UFO shows of this great band, Or maybe even some stuff with Daevid Allen....
KimKastekniv 4 years ago
Don't know where you live, but Daevid Allen and his gang of (what? 20 bands?) is touring like the whole world. I'm talking Mother Gong, University Of Errors, Brainville 3, System 7 etc..
They're going through all of Europe and a bit of Israel. U.S. too ofc.
expoonation 3 years ago
Robert Wyatt is an orgasmus all by himself!!!!!
snusmumriken3 4 years ago
is that Kevin Ayers playing bass?
sunrajah 4 years ago 2
Yes in did, he is it.
ServizioCorse 4 years ago
oh yes, in all his Egyptian-eyed glory!
LadyAdoryan57 4 years ago
re: Egyptian-eyed glory -- I replied (sort of) though not directly to you, about a "futuristic Beatles" rock press descritpion of Soft Machine ... are you aware of who might have written that around '68?
sunrajah 4 years ago
I just made it up. Did someone say that previously?
LadyAdoryan57 4 years ago
"Egyptian-eyed glory" I figured you made up. What I was seeking additional info on was a 1968, 69 or thereabouts press description of Soft Machine as "futuristic Beatles." Don't know who said it, do you? I think it was a British journalist though am not sure.
sunrajah 4 years ago
Robert Wyatt said: Our music is like an orgasmus.
That's it!
ServizioCorse 5 years ago
increible
XKDA3 5 years ago
Strange & irritating, but wonderful! Thanks for uploading this beauty!
nightwatch01 5 years ago