Soft Machine

thumb|right|330px|Moon In June (Peel session)
Soft Machine were an English rock band from Canterbury, named after the novel The Soft Machine by William S. Burroughs. They were one of the central bands in the Canterbury scene, and helped pioneer the progressive rock genre. Though they achieved little commercial success, they are considered by Allmusic to be "one of the more influential bands of their era, and certainly one of the most influential underground ones" ... (read more at Wikipedia)
== Links To Peel ==
Soft Machine were stalwarts of Peel’s Top Gear shows in the late 1960s and early 1970s, recording nine sessions and appearing twice on concert programmes introduced by the DJ. Their second session was among the favourites featured on the show's fifth anniversary special, broadcast on 26 September 1972. Four years later, they were one of the ten major bands (including later spin-off ventures by individual members) chosen by Peel for a series of retrospective programmes, in a show that went out on 17 August 1976.
thumb|right|320px|Love Makes Sweet Music
In 1967, Soft Machine were regulars at London's UFO Club, which Peel attended during his weeks of onshore leave from his DJ duties on the pirate radio ship Radio London. Their recorded output at this time was limited to a single, ‘Love Makes Sweet Music’, sung by Robert Wyatt, which was played on the pirate stations, but did not make the UK charts. They remained a band with an "underground" reputation, first spending time in France (where, like their contemporaries Pink Floyd, they had a following among students) and then touring the US in 1968 as support band to Jimi Hendrix. (Wyatt later commented that their early career had been handicapped by unsympathetic management). They recorded two LPs in the US, but only one was released in the UK and tracks from them appeared infrequently in Peel's playlists.
After this they split up, but re-formed as a trio in the following year, with Wyatt, keyboardist Mike Ratledge and bassist Hugh Hopper. They became popular with British audiences, not least via Peel's programmes, with albums and Top Gear sessions (including Wyatt's song ‘The Moon in June’, which namechecks Peel in the course of describing the pleasures of session recording "here at the BBC"). In 1970, Soft Machine were the first "pop group" to play at the Proms (the Henry Wood Promenade Concerts), an indication of how seriously some of the "progressive" music played on Peel's shows was taken. The lineup lasted until 1971, when Wyatt left to form his own band, Matching Mole.
Peel was uneasy with the Soft Machine's move from short songs to long, increasingly complex instrumentals, which continued after the departure of Wyatt. Fellow vocalists Daevid Allen and Kevin Ayers had left in 1967 and 1968 respectively; Allen went on to found Gong, while Ayers put together a band, known as the Whole World, that included not only Dandelion Records artists Lol Coxhill and David Bedford but also Mike Oldfield. Wyatt would continue to be a mainstay of Peel’s shows (and a close friend) in subsequent decades, but the final Soft Machine session was in summer 1973. The band had a shifting line-up during the mid-1970s, their music moved closer to the popular jazz-rock fusion style of that era, and by 1978 all the original members had left. They appear to have been played on air relatively little by Peel after the mid-1970s.
In the mid-1980s, Peel discussed Soft Machine with producer John Walters in the third programme of the Peeling Back The Years series:
"They were one of the earlier bands to record for the programme, and in those days they were more of a pop band, and they had Kevin Ayers and Robert Wyatt alternating on vocals. And they were seen at the time as sort of kindred spirits with the Pink Floyd rather … And then they rather sort of vaguely disappeared and came back reorganized in a much more jazzy form. And I used to find, again to be perfectly frank with you, I used to find a lot of their stuff just went on too long, you know. But I always very much liked Robert Wyatt’s sort of free form vocals. There was one excellent track … Moon in June, in which he describes how pleasant it is to be recording yet another Top Gear session and saying how excellent the BBC canteen is." 
== Festive Fifty Entries ==
*None
== Sessions ==
Nine sessions. The second featured on the Peel Sessions: The Best 125 list. After earlier partial releases - including the 1990 Strange Fruit double The Peel Sessions (1990) - available material was compiled and released by Hux in 2003 on two double CD sets. Sessions #1-6 are available on BBC Radio 1967-1971. Sessions #7-9 (plus Radio 3 ‘Jazz In Britain’ session) available on BBC Radio 1971-1974.
1. Recorded: 1967-12-05. First broadcast: 17 December 1967.
* Clarence In Wonderland / We Know What You Mean / A Certain Kind / Hope For Happiness (Strangest Scene Recorded – not broadcast)
2. Recorded: 1969-06-10. First broadcast: 15 June 1969. Repeated: 20 July 1969, 27 December 1969 (‘Moon In June’ only).
*Face Lift/Mousetrap/Backwards/Mousetrap Reprise / Moon In June
3. Recorded: 1969-11-10. First broadcast: 29 November 1969. Repeated: 07 February 1970.
*Instant Pussy / Mousetrap/Noisette/Backwards Ballad/Mousetrap Reprise/Pig/Orange Skin Food/A Door Opens And Closes/10:30 Returns To The Bedroom
4. Recorded: 1970-05-04. First broadcast: 16 May 1970. Repeated: 18 July 1970
* Slightly All The Time/Out Bloody Rageous/Eamonn Andrews
5. Recorded: 1970-12-15. First broadcast: 02 January 1971
* Virtually / Fletcher's Blemish
6. Recorded: 1971-06-01. First broadcast: 26 June 1971
* Neo-Caliban Grides / Dedicated To You But You Weren't Listening / Eamonn Andrews/All White
7. Recorded: 1971-11-15. First broadcast: 24 November 1971. Repeated: 25 January 1972.
* As If / Drop / Welcome To Frillsville
8. Recorded: 1972-07-11. First broadcast: 18 July 1972. Repeated: 12 September 1972.
* Stumble/Lbo/As If / Fanfare/All White/MC/Drop
9. Recorded: 1973-10-30. First broadcast: 1973-11-20. Repeated: 22 January 1974
*Stanley Stamp's Gibbon Album / Hazard Profile / Down The Road
== Live ==
*31 May 1970: recorded 1970-05-21
#Facelift-Esther's Nose Job
*21 March 1971: Soft Machine (and "Heavy Friends") live set, recorded 1971-03-11, Paris Theatre, London
#John Peel introduction
#Blind Badger
#Neo-Caliban Grides
#Out Bloody Rageous (excerpt)
#Eamonn Andrews
# All White
# Kings And Queens 
# Teeth
#Pigling Bland
#10.30 Returns to the Bedroom
# Slightly All The Time (excerpt)/Noisette
== Other Shows Played ==
;1968
*10 November 1968: Save Yourself (LP - The Soft Machine) Probe
;1969
*05 January 1969: Hope For Happiness (album - The Soft Machine) Probe CPLP 4500
*03 August 1969: As Long As He Lies Perfectly Still (album - Volume Two) Probe SPB 1002
*17 August 1969: Fire Engine Passing With Bells Clanging (album - Volume Two) Probe SPB 1002
*31 August 1969: Dedicated To You But You Weren't Listening (album - Volume Two) Probe SPB 1002
*18 October 1969: Pataphysical Introduction Pt. I / A Concise British Alphabet Pt. I (album - Volume Two) Probe SPB 1002
;1970
*31 January 1970: Pig (album - Volume Two) Probe SPB 1002
*31 January 1970: As Long As He Lies Perfectly Still (LP - Volume Two) Probe SPB 1002
*20 June 1970: Moon In June (2xLP - Third) CBS
*04 July 1970: We Did It Again (album - Volume Two) Probe SPB 1002
;1971
*04 September 1971: unknown
;1972
*25 April 1972: Pigling Bland (LP – Fifth) CBS (also play for Matching Mole)
*22 August 1972: Love Makes Sweet Music (single) Polydor
*Radio Luxembourg Tracklistings 5: Hope For Happiness (LP - Soft Machine Probe
;1973
*13 March 1973: 1983 (LP – Six) CBS
;1975
*29 September 1975: Pataphysical Introduction Pt. 1 (LP - Volume Two) Probe
*29 September 1975: Hibou, Anenome And Bear (LP - Volume Two) Probe
*29 September 1975: A Concise British Alphabet Pt. 2 (LP - Volume Two) Probe
*29 September 1975: Hulloder (LP - Volume Two) Probe
;1976
*28 July 1976: The Tale Of Taliesin (LP - Softs) Atlantic
*17 August 1976: Love Makes Sweet Music (single) Polydor (Soft Machine retrospective show)
*17 August 1976: Memories (v/a album - Rock Generation Vol. 8 - Soft Machine At The Beginning / Mark Leeman 5 And Davy Graham) BYG 529.708 (retrospective show)
*17 August 1976: Pig (LP – Volume Two) ABC (retrospective show)
*17 August 1976: Joy Of A Toy (LP – The Soft Machine) ABC ( retrospective show)
*17 August 1976: Stanley Stamp's Gibbon Album (for B.O.) (LP – Six) Columbia (retrospective show)
*17 August 1976: The Man Who Waved At Trains (LP – Bundles) Harvest (retrospective show)
;1977
*29 July 1977: Love Makes Sweet Music (album - Triple Echo) Harvest SHTW 800
*01 August 1977: Feelin' Reelin' Squeelin' (album - Triple Echo) Harvest SHTW 800 
*01 August 1977: Memories (album - Triple Echo) Harvest SHTW 800 
*01 August 1977: She's Gone (album - Triple Echo) Harvest SHTW 800
*03 August 1977: The Moon In June (album - Triple Echo) Harvest SHTW 800
*04 August 1977: We Did It Again / Plus Belle Qu'une Poubelle / Why Are We Sleeping? (triple album - Triple Echo) Harvest SHTW 800 
;1983
*24 May 1983 (Mark Ellen sitting in): The Moon In June (album - Triple Echo) Harvest SHTW 800
;1987
*03 June 1987: Pig
;1989
*03 August 1989: Moon In June (Top Gear version)
;1998
*03 March 1998: Save Yourself/Priscilla (LP: The Soft Machine Vol 1) Probe
;2000s
*23 October 2002: Stanley Stamps Gibbon Album (LP - Six) CBS
*18 November 2003: Moon in June (LP - The Peel Sessions) Strange Fruit
*15 July 2004: Love Makes Sweet Music (7") Polydor
;Other
*Peeling Back The Years: Moon In June (session)
== See Also ==
*Kevin Ayers
*Robert Wyatt
*Matching Mole
*Peel On Record: 'The Moon In June' (Peel Session)
*Record Collection: V&A LPs
*ABC Of Beauty
*October 2002 (Peel's Record Box)
*The Collection (Peel Acres - Damon Albarn)
*Gigography 1967 
*Gigography 1972
*Gigography 1973
*International Times: Perfumed Garden Column
*Disc & Music Echo: Peel Columns
*Sounds
== External Links ==
*Wikipedia
* Detailed account of Soft Machine's career, by Rob Chapman
*Official website
Category:Artists