[ Originally posted to What’s Rattlin’? Yahoo! Group on November 2, 2011 ]

Michael,

I absolutely understand the emotion on Soft Machine. I will also freely admit that trying to define rock and roll is not unlike trying to hammer mercury. Maybe it’s the “roll” part that trips me up, they have Marshall stacks and fuzz tones and Fender Jazz bass guitars so it looks like rock, it smells like rock and so on.

But here is how I view them, here is how I view anyone in a post-modern world trying to make a living playing primarily instrumental music: Kamikaze Pilots. I’ll upgrade it to “Cultural Kamikaze Pilots” to make it more palatable.

Anyone who decided their life’s work and aspiration is to play largely instrumental music that does not include auditioning for classical orchestras is no longer responding logically to either the odds of “show biz” success or financial reality. They are doing it because they simply have to do it, they are driven to do it and have no choice. I have never read this but I bet the Softs were initially very surprised that they got as much exposure, as much television as they did. The luck-timing of the psychedelic era did not hurt this nor did the fact that all the initial tunes were vocal so it wasn’t that far out of bounds to the viewers and early adaptors.

I think of Soft Machine, and have expressed this here, as a vocal band that chose largely not to sing. Robert’s vocals or threat of vocals coupled with their instrumental ability made them unique as a form, separate from Jazz. Maybe this does tilt them back into the rock hemisphere. But the classic line-up recording Third/ Fourth and I’ll throw in Fifth has exactly one vocal tune as we all know. So to the masses they are instrumental, they are the dreaded jazz or jazz rock subset.. This is also why the demographic fan base of Soft Machine essentially all male.

Financially they are screwed but they had to know that going in, regardless of how great they were. You have to have vocals to sell, as stupid and limiting as that is we all know that to be true. Not that you need more proof because I am kind of Captain Obvious here but…

Two quick examples:

Frank Zappa…in the US his real exposure other than just a label-name- freaky guy was on the stupid pandering vocal crap like Don’t Eat theYellow Snow, that is how non-musicians knew about him or heard him for the first time because it brought airplay. One of the greatest modern American instrumental composers known for vaguely profane throw-away ditties.

The second example is more vexing; Pink Floyd. How in God’s name you might ask did they become insanely popular worldwide, eventually making millions, coming out of the exact same scene as the Softs at the exact same time? They weren’t initially more show bizzy, but their music in addition to seemingly always being the easy – dreamy tempo (is there really an up tempo Floyd tune?) highlighted the vocals. Vocals = possibility of airplay = possibility of hits = possibility of Financial success.

Without vocals, playing new original music that equation is gone and you are …let’s say it together…”Cultural Kamikaze Pilots.” You know you are doomed, you know that you won’t be able to do this long, but you are so committed to the music that choice now has nothing to do with it, you are driven and therefore happy to start up your Lowrey – Zero and Hit it! Because you are all in…