Tale of Taliesin Lineup (because it has been discussed below): Roy Babbington (bass), John Etheridge (guitar),John Marshall (drums), Karl Jenkins (keys). allan holdsworth and mike ratledge were both gone from the group by this tour.
This is just absolutely immense. Saw John Marshall on tour, I honestly wonder why he did not get the recognition he fully deserved. For me those haunting tones from the superb guitar work of John Etheridge are almost spellbinding.
Un de mes morceaux préférés de ce groupe flamboyant et plein de génie. De nos jours ce genre de musique n'existe pratiquement plus et cela est bien triste. On ne nous sert que de la mauvaise soupe.
Heureusement que ce genre de musique n’existe plus. J’ai vu ce groupe à l’époque, il y avait encore Mike Ratledge. On avait juste envie de demander au guitariste de dégager.. insupportable, 3000 notes à la seconde… inutile.
"I was in many shapes, ". . . I was rain-drops in the air, I was stars' beam; I was a word in letters, I was a book in origin; I was lanterns of light for a year and a half; I was a bridge that stretched over six estuaries; I was a path, I was an eagle, I was a coracle in seas; I was a bubble in beer, I was a drop in a shower; I was a sword in hand, I was a shield in battle; I was a string in a harp enchanted nine years. . . ." The Battle of the Trees by Taliesin (translated by Patrick Ford)
Just think as a teenager I was able to experience them in concert way back in the day. In Houston, Texas, they opened up for Jimi Hendrix around 1968 or 69 at The Houston Music Hall.
Damned, i wish i was there. I remember climbing through the window of some place NE Houston that played blues and rock bands ex Taj Mahal, as a 14 year old. But to see Hendrix and Soft machine in Houston - Wow. Never even knew he played there. Wow. It was great that Hendrix always believed in and promoted Soft Machine - they often had such bad reviews as an experimental post rock, improvisational pre fusion band.
@@0holland41 Yes. Hendrix and Soft Machine were good friends. I got to experience Hendrix 5 times and Soft Machine 3 times back in the day. Man. I will cherish those moments.
It took me a long time to get into the post-Wyatt stuff...but it has become an enduring favorite! Especially “Bundles” and “Softs”! Holdsworth and Etheridge, both brilliant players. This lineup is stellar!
Same here. But I ended up with all their albums one through seven, and they were all very good, even when they reached the point of no original members.. Soft Machine 7 is really good.
Man John Etheridge doesn’t get mentioned nearly enough in the jazz rock fusion world! Soft Machine’s Alive and Well has some of my favorite jazz rock guitar ever recorded. Bill Connors is another monster player who doesn’t get brought up enough either, the first and only album he did with Return to Forever also contains some very inspiring guitar playing.
Bill Connors play with Return To Forever's Hymn To The Seventh Galaxy, released when Billy Cobham's Spectrum was heard often on radio. I liked Connors more than I liked John McLaughlin. Connors has a good sense of melody rather than a frenzied modal effusion.
Bill Connors absolutely smashes on that album as well as the live performances they did for it. Al is a very inspiring technical player but is creatively a league down from Bill in my opinion
you could argue that soft machine spent more time as a smooth fusion band than as the original psychedelic jazzrock band. personally i prefer their early stuff by far, but they were constantly evolving as a band.
Never a dull moment, also had great titles for their pieces, once Wyatt left they were an entirely different thing, jazz fusion gets a bad rap. There is a lot of energy here and imagination. Six is a remarkable double album despite the terrible cover.
Este tema es del álbum Softs (1976), que es uno de los mejores y marca un cambio radical entre el viejo estilo muy improvisado y este nuevo más estudiado, profesional y potente. Destaca Karl Jenkins como líder compositor y John Etheridge como ejecutante.
This one is actually a Les Paul. Weird enough but Gibson quit making Les Pauls in 1960/61 and used SG's with Les Paul Headstocks until 69/70ish then start making Les Pauls with Les Paul bodies again. All the while the SG was still being produced during this time period. This one seems to be a Les Paul custom with the fancy binding and headstock bling.
@@davidbrothers3788 Gibson still made Les Pauls during this brief period of about 7-8 years but had SG bodies? Very confusing I know. Google 1962 Les Paul it will be an SG bodied guitar. I don't know the reason. I think around 69/70 they went back to the traditional Les Paul bodies of the 1950's. Good day
何ですかこのかっこいいバンド!!!かっこよすぎるじゃないですか!今まで知らなかった自分が恥ずかしいです! I'm Japanese juniorhighschool student What's this cool band !!! It's too cool! I'm embarrassed that I didn't know before!
Many of the Canterbury Sound musicians, who included original and subsequent members of Soft Machine, also worked with the Japanese percussionist, Stomu Yamash'ta. Perhaps you know his LP Freedom is Frightening
@@RA-VEN8 Granted but they were more like a experimental "jam band" back then. They only embraced that instrumental american jazz rock format in the seventies.
@@dr.juerdotitsgo5119 My notifications are just full of everyone needing my attention. Take what I say with a grain of salt. I'm not hating on anything I enjoy all.
this is one of my favorite songs ever. roy is such a cool guy i got to meet him and john marshall in portland 2019. an amazing show and these dudes are really cool. i’m glad i got to talk to roy about jazz and other amazing music. he showed me some sheet music and explained it to me. it was really cool it’s brilliant music. wont ever forget that. left me w great advice and told me he was glad to see young people into his music still, amazing show.
Etheridge, Marshall and Babbington are STILL playing NOW in 2019, with the wonderful Theo Travis on sax/flute/keys. Not resting on their laurels but still coming out with terrific new material. I have seen them twice in the past two years and have tickets to see them again later this year. If they are going to play in your town don't miss them.
You're in for a real treat! Saw them this last February in Falmouth UK with line-up of John Etheridge, Theo Travis, the awesome Fred Thelonius Baker on bass (first saw him decades ago playing a solo electric bass set supporting Allan Holdsworth in Portsmouth UK) and the amazing Assad Sirkus on drums. Very loud and incredibly fat ( especially the bass) - pure joy!! Also saw John playing more or less acoustically with the exquisite violinist Christian Garrick (who also plays with Budapest Cafe Orchestra) only 3 miles away from where I live in a tiny village called Constantine, Britain's southernmost venue. Equally enjoyable even though just the two of them. John is a musician's musician, very approachable and friendly, who never let fame go to his head and who likes to play to a small audience as much as a large one. If you didn't already know, John also played with Darryl Way (after he'd left Curved Air) in Darryl Way's Wolf, who made 3 or 4 albums (that I know of), all heavily featuring his incredibly fluent and exciting guitar-playing - apparently still available and well worth checking out!! 👍 ENJOY!!!
I did seen around twenty bands in thé 70s ....Soft machine with Mike Ratledge ( one of my fave Lowrey player) but there was Jenkins and thé gossipy Elton Dean .....thé worst every concert i d Seen ..did leave before the end !
In Italy we had a Italian versione of this great band called "Goblins" wich worte a great number of songs for Dario Argento the movie producer great band too
Tambien en la música hay puntos fundamentales de inflexión, el de este grupo es sin duda uno de ellos. Geniales y creativos adelantados a su tiempo, como debe ser.
Oh, and notice how, at least for MOST bands, the more dressed-down/less theatrically attired its musicians are, often the higher the quality of the music. These guys just show up in casual street attire, but they are serious professionals - letting the music speak for ITSELF! Look ma, no capes and no glitter!
thanks gfunkusarelius for posting this. I never heard later soft machine after mike ratledge left before. Even though I prefer the Kevin Ayers and Robert Wyatt era soft machine slightly more (their vocals adds a warmth to the band's atonal experimentalism), this piece is excellent, and reminds me somewhat of early Mahavishnu Orchestra at the end,
Etheridge at the top of his game... Soo fast with a lot of chromatics in there but there are skips and its phrased together real smooth... Somehow it's still musical. Wish this was better known so some modern shredder could do an in-depth analysis on his playing here. It certainly deserves it!
i've seen this line-up of SOFT MACHINE in a concert at the ALEXANDRA PALACE in london, in the late seventies. a few months later, the place was once more destroyed by fire, i remember...
Wow, great guitar solo! I just noticed that I have the same setup in my drums than SMs drummer. When I built my drums, I think that no one even thinks to have that kind of setup.
I like that SG Custom that John Etheridge is playing here. The pickguard arrangement is unusual, with a black lower pickguard, and the top pickguard being white. I wonder if it was stock that way, or if he took the pickguard off an SG Standard to replace the stock lower pickguard.
