Robert Wyatt

Martin Abend · Post by **Martin Abend** » 21 Sep 2000 5:00 am

In the last few days I kind of "rediscovered" some albums by Robert Wyatt I heard a few years ago permanently. I must say that "Rock Bottom" and his lastest effort "shleep" belong to the most beautiful and strangest records I know. He has such an unique approach to music and he's able to create very special moods with his music. Maybe it's because of his Marxist believes...

Also the lyrics - as far as I know them - are very special, not to speak of his drumming with Soft Machine. I guess he's one of the very few musicians I really would like to meet someday.

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[This message was edited by Martin Abend on 21 September 2000 at 06:01 AM.]

BJ Bailey · Post by **BJ Bailey** » 21 Sep 2000 6:36 am

oh but if his believes, were of a liveing God ,his music would even be sweeter?

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BJ Bailey

Bobby Lee · Post by **Bobby Lee** » 21 Sep 2000 7:59 am

A band I play with does a song called "Rock Bottom". It's a 12-bar blues progression with a driving 8th-note triplet rhythm (12/8 time). Same tune?

Martin Abend · Post by **Martin Abend** » 21 Sep 2000 9:43 am

No, b0b,
there is no song called "Rock Bottom" on the record, it's just the records name. If my memory serves me well it was released (1974) a half year or so after he fell out of a window and became paralysed from the waist down. A short time before that he was thrown out of Soft Mashine, so I guess the title kind of mirrored his state of mind at that time. I'm not absolutely sure about everything, but I think all these incident happened around that time.

would be quite a challenge to cover a song from that record...

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Bobby Lee · Post by **Bobby Lee** » 21 Sep 2000 10:34 am

I'm not at all familiar with Robert Wyatt or Soft Machine. What kind of music is it?

Steve England · Post by **Steve England** » 21 Sep 2000 11:22 am

Soft Machine were an English avante garde, keyboard based hippy jazz band from the late sixties. Actually they were better than that discription makes them sound. The had a few albums out. I think they had real imaginative titles like Soft Machine one, Soft Machine 2, etc. There is one song that they did that still sticks in my mind to this day (haven't heard them since I was a teenager) and that consisted of Robert Wyatt singing the alphabet backwards
Robert Wyatt had a hit record in England in the seventies with a cover of the Monkee's I'm A Believer. Does anyone know if he is still alive. I have some kind of memory of him dying, but I could be wrong about that.[This message was edited by Steve England on 21 September 2000 at 12:23 PM.]

Martin Abend · Post by **Martin Abend** » 21 Sep 2000 11:33 pm

WHAT? Robert Wyatt dead? I can't believe it, I haven't heard anything about it... man, that would be a real loss... I'll do an internet research later today, but I don't believe he's dead.

The music Wyatt did after Soft Machine and Matching Mole was quite different. He often had some Jazz elements in his music, but he soon began hanging around with the New York Avantgare folks like Henry Cow anf Fred Frith, whao also played on "Ruth is stranger than Richard".

I have really no idea how to describe his music, b0b, words and comparisons fail. For me his records alsmost always were growers, not something that catches me the first time, but there is SO MUCH stuff to discover in his songs that I'll never get tired of hearing them. I'd suggest either his masterpiece from '74, Rock Bottom, with was produced by Nick Mason and sound lucid and drug-drenched at the same time, or his latest CD "Shleep" from '97. The first track, "Heaps Of Sheeps" is almost "dancable" due to the production of Brian Eno, the rest is as stange but beautiful as ever, maybe more advanced in it's writing and also a bit more accessible.

And there's another thing i REALLY like about him: He is a very humorous guy.

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Matt Hutchinson · Post by **Matt Hutchinson** » 22 Sep 2000 1:19 am

Robert Wyatt is playing at the Royal Festival Hall in London in October (so I think he's probably still with us!!!!

). Here's what the programme says about it -

"Robert Wyatt, seen by some as a songwriting genius, is a legendary, lyrical figure in British music. Wyatt has not appeared on stage for over 20 years, but he and trombonist Annie Whitehead have put together an exceptional group of friends and past collaborators to celebrate his work."

Steve England · Post by **Steve England** » 22 Sep 2000 8:00 am

Guess I was wrong about the dead part :0 (Dang it trying to make a red smiley face here!!!)[This message was edited by Steve England on 22 September 2000 at 09:00 AM.][This message was edited by Steve England on 22 September 2000 at 09:01 AM.]

Jason Odd · Post by **Jason Odd** » 23 Sep 2000 11:37 am

The first two Soft Machine albums from 1968 and 1969 are best, although the second is musically more focused the former has a lot of the humour and anarchry that most of the British psyche bands had.
Same with Pink Floyd as the group became more polished and focused on a vision they started to lose the eccentric qualities that put UK psyche above the US styles in my book.

Soft Machine grew more jazzy in the 1970s and anything after Wyatt left is of very little interest to me personally. But it is a matter of taste.
Andy Summers of 'Police' fame worked with Soft Machine on a US tour, but a couple of interesting late 60s versions of the group never got to record, which is a shame.

Steve England · Post by **Steve England** » 25 Sep 2000 8:06 am

By god the memories starting to come back. Didn't Kevin Ayers play in the early Soft Machine? I heard him on the radio here the other day. First time I'd thought about him in about 20 years. I think, like Syd Barrett with the Pink Floyd, that Kevin was responsible for a lot of the "eccentricity" of the band. Both bands pretty much gave up recording "songs" after those members left.

Martin Abend · Post by **Martin Abend** » 25 Sep 2000 10:12 am

Funny that you mention Ayers and Barret. I read yesterday that Wyatt was a session drummer for both, Ayers AND Barret!

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Jason Odd · Post by **Jason Odd** » 26 Sep 2000 7:25 pm

Martin, I believe that he is on the brilliant Syd Barrett LP 'The Madcap Laughs', definately an eccentric classic and a chance to hear someone who is on the verge of totally losing it..mentally that is.

Steve, you are pretty much spot on about Ayers, he used to ride motorbikes onstage and wear viking hats, etc. A total loon.
Personally for sheer eccentric craziness combined with music I lean towards the Brit bands..although there are a lot of great Texas groups who seemed to have started out R&B garage bands until they consumed too much peyote and then took on a totally different mindset.

San Fran psyche bands I can take or leave, although the Dead had some truly wonderful moments, like the Aomoxomoa album from 1969.
Long orchestrated mantras to little psyche pop ditties.

The first Pink Floyd album and the early singles are basically Syd's group, there are some interesting albums for sure, but after their second album in 1968 the Syd-eccentric themes and quirkiness really took a back seat.