^Yeah, between Hopper's fuzz bass, Ratledge's organ tone and Dean's wailings, they managed to get Babbington's double bass nicely sat in the mix. I'd say that Fourth is my favorite of the studio releases, although I generally go for the live stuff.
My parents had the privilege of seeing the Softs' open for The Jimi Hendrix Experience, they said it was an incredible show. Those were the days you could see incredible acts, and affordable ticket prices to boot. They also saw Led Zep open for The Who! They saw many of the late 60s legends in concert, missed out on The Beatles tho.
Hugh Hopper doing some stellar bass playing, sounds double tracked but not sure. Pretty sure the many, many "Alifibs" are a tape loop.
Nothing wrong with a vintage John Marshall drum solo, with Allan Holdsworth joining in at the end of the clip.
I saw them open for Jimi, too - Feb.18, 1969 @the Royal Albert Hall. The other opener was Mason, Capaldi, Wood and Frog - mostly from the recently-split Traffic (if only Traffic played that gig instead!) Anyway, Soft Machine basically played all of Soft Machine Two. Not that I remember - but there's a lo-fi boot. All I remember is Jimi. Too bad he didn't ever jam with the Third era Softs...
Anybody else got this release from Cuneiform? I do of course! I actually like Gary Boyle's guitar playing, very Santana-ish, but more jazzy. I have all three Isotope albums in my collection as well.
I do and while I like it, you can see Jenkins backing the band off at the beginning of Gesolreut. At 0:33, Marshall's adept swing becomes a simple back-beat and Babbington's line suddenly becomes much more deliberate and I feel as if the NDR version suffers greatly as a result. Compare the version on NDR to this version from the BBC on November 29, 1972, which has so much more swagger (and note Marshall rockin' those new-fangled Adidas sneakers):
Gesolreut would have been great theme music for a 70s TV show or movie. My favorite track of the live record of the "Six" album. Fanfare /All White is a close 2nd.
Welcome Back Mingus. An adult show featuring many hookers returning to his Arizona birthplace. Small market, but possibilities... Now, I'm sorry to see that the viddy is no longer playable in the U.S. here. My bad. Click the youtube link and you're good to go.
Etheridge had guts and chops; Holdsworth had chops and chops. I prefer any musician that has soul/guts and chops more than chops twice over.
Easily my favorite track from "5". Love the intro with the drops of water in a stereo sonic picture, sounds great with a good pair of headphones!
Indeed. I'm partial to the latin-infused Phil Howard version of All White from the late '71 Softs: It's nice to see us gettin' back to this great band after some hiatus, as it were.
Phil must have torn his sticks up with all those rim "knocks"! Plus Hugh's wah wah bass intro, accented with Elton's echo delayed sax.
Spinning my Jet Propelled Photographs CD right now, good stuff. How this never became an official release is beyond me. Some of those songs could have been released as singles. Actually is more commercial sounding than Volume One or Two.
I got those across two BYG LPs that came out in 1972, and Gomelsky likely paid for the sessions so that's pretty official to me. I believe I read once that Allen was embarrassed about what he considered his poor performance on these demos.
Although I prefer the studio cut of Drop. This one is darn good, notice in the pics that Phil Howard used a double bass kit.
Salsa, Soft Machine style! John Marshall killing it here on trad drum kit, and conga overdub. NEEDS MORE COWBELL, LOL! The song title is a pun on Stanley Gibbons, a London company that specializes in collectable postage stamps, tis true!
Another fave from the studio record from Six. This title is a pun on The Sot Weed Factor by John Barth. Pretty sure lots of SOFT WEED have been smoked listing to this relaxing track, not by me though, good music is my drug of choice! Penny Hitch on Seven has a similar structure.
My fave from the Six studio album, such a lovely composition. The backwards effects gives Chloe and the Pirates a slight psychedelic feel.
