Sunday, May 13, 2007

Robert Wyatt's last show with the Soft Machine


http://siemers.podspot.de/files/soft_machine-1971-07-07-new_york.mp3
Automatically translated text:


on the CD-r handwritten “softly machine, 1971-07-07, café outer go-go, read concert with Robert stands wyatt”. and pour and specializedscholarly already begin to argue. in July 1971 softly machine in the city New York was and in the State of New York actually gave it also their last concert with Robert wyatt, to 27.07. in playhouse in mamaroneck. that is halfway secured. in café the outer go-go they probably did not play 1971; are united that they arose to 07 from. to 12. July in gaslight, with loudon wainwright III pour themselves as more vorturner. if this comes our admission thus from 07.07., then it is wyatt in any case not the latter with Robert, who bound probably only in August left; some pour say however that it already did not bind to 28.7. with the remainder to England returned. now well: at least we can do on probably committed ourselves unite and to say times provisionally “softly machine, july 1971, gaslight New York; 12th ton read concert with Robert wyatt”… me it is actually all the same of when and where these 40 minutes comes: it is from many as a classical and best felt occupation to hear anyhow (although me to mention is besides permitted often the larger, with lyn dobson or marc charig ensembles extended are much closer): mike ratledge at the key boards, elton dean at saxophones, saxello and e-piano (one that completely few, which this gruselige instrument non-nerve-end control), Robert wyatt at the schlagzeug (and much too rarely with larynx and vocal cords playing) and hugh hoppers at the bass (which I by the way over these and other publications yet officially more published did not take up from softly machine informed: it does not have the moderate sounding quality as moral and actual administrators of the estate anything against it, so long not with its editions or those of its brother brian collides). the photograph quality is completely bearable, few more knackser and drop outs I settled. more tons com

(Look what I found in this weeks Austin Chronicle!)

In my memory, it was the very next night that we went to a Greenwich Village club to see Loudon Wainwright III. I'm guessing it was the Gaslight but, whatever: It was a very small club in the cellar of a building on Bleecker Street.

Now, we were there to see Wainwright and quite excited at the prospect of actually getting to watch him perform live. We hadn't really paid any attention to the rest of the bill. Keep in mind that this was a very small folk club.

The opening act was a British band about which I really didn't know much: It was Soft Machine, featuring Robert Wyatt, Hugh Hopper, Elton Dean, and Mike Ratledge. The music turned out to be a wall of sound (though not in the Phil Spector sense) as well as being very, very loud. In a very, very small club. Think of the advertisement of the guy in the chair being blown back by his new stereo. Our ears were ripped open, and our bodies pinned to the wall.

Wainwright came out and did a set. Frequently his tongue would be hanging out of his mouth. "Dead Skunk" had not yet come out, so the material was mostly from his first two albums.