SOFT MACHINE
Out-Bloody-Rageous
“Soft Machine had far more musical ability than we ever did”.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Graham Bennett is the author of ten books, including the acclaimed biography Soft Machine: Out-Bloody-Rageous which won an Award from the Association for Recorded Sound Collections for Excellence in Historical Recorded Sound Research.
Soft Machine were one of the great pioneering bands. Always questioning the prevailing musical conventions and contemptuous of the rules that apply to popular music, they played a pivotal role in shaping psychedelic rock, progressive rock and jazz-rock fusion.
Soft Machine: Out-Bloody-Rageous traces the lives of the band’s members, pieces together Soft Machine’s serendipitous formation and remarkable career, and unravels the truth, the mystique and the legend behind this most elusive of bands. It recounts the incidents and internal tensions that led to an astonishing twenty-four different line-ups and places Soft Machine’s development in the musical and social context of the time.
Graham Bennett witnessed many of Soft Machine’s concerts in their peak years and has produced a probing and thoroughly researched account of one of the great mythic bands of the 1960s and ’70s. Based on lengthy interviews with members and associates, Soft Machine: Out-Bloody-Rageous is the definitive biography of this ground-breaking band. It is illustrated with over a hundred photographs, posters and clippings and includes a full Soft Machine family tree, concert file, discography and sessionography. Soft Machine: Out-Bloody-Rageous is essential reading for any serious fan of rock or jazz.
“Highly entertaining, deeply insightful and definitive history . . . wonderful book. Totally illuminating and thoroughly recommended”.
“The definitive account of Canterbury’s finest . . . Bennett gets the whole fascinating story”.
“Slavishly researched. If you want to get all the facts and figures on Soft Machine, Bennett is your man”.
“Mr Bennett has really done his homework . . . superb book”.
“Bennett’s acute observations capture the feel of those early years precisely. Encyclopaedic . . . scrupulous attention to detail”.
“Painstakingly researched and written with a genuine passion for the subject, Bennett’s balanced approach is strong on the background and input from the changing personnel”.
“A thorough treatment of the band as individuals, musicians and the social context. Difficult to imagine a better book on the subject. Unreservedly recommended”.
“Hits the bullseye – brilliant”.
“Mr Bennett has done an incredible job of covering the importance and history of the greatest and most influential of all progressive bands”.
A monumental work