The Canterbury Scene

I thought I'd put some thoughts down about the Canterbury Scene... an English collection of bands and musicians that grew up around the city of Canterbury in the mid-late 60's and which survives to this day, albeit dissipated in terms of geography :)

The scene coalesced around a band called The Wilde Flowers, which later morphed into The Soft Machine. Robert Wyatt left to form Matching Mole, which included Dave Sinclair, who'd played in Caravan and went on to play in Hatfield And The North. Matching Mole also included Phil Miller who went on to join National Health. The early incarnation of Soft Machine featured Daevid Allen (who later formed Gong) and Kevin Ayers (who I met, coincidentally, last year at the Syd Barrett Barbican tribute. There's a good story there but I'll save it for another time :)).

I think it's almost be impossible to map the scene and its members. The brilliant Calyx website does a great job of tracking the activities of bands related to the scene and Pete Frame and later Masaya Ichikawa have tried to map out the family tree, linking the hundreds of bands together in a massive nepotistic collaborative festival of diversity.

I have probably a couple of hundred Canterbury related albums in my collection. It all started for me with Soft Machine. I love their 'Fourth' and 'Fifth' albums in particular. Then I decided to check out Caravan and was blown away. The Soft Machine stuff I liked was the progressive- influenced free jazz stuff with Elton Dean on reeds and Mike Ratledge on keyboards. The keyboard sound on Soft Machine's stuff is very distinctive, but Caravan had similar elements within their music, though more poppy, and with a very English, very funny, lyrical take on things. Like the earlier pop-psych Softs stuff, but taken in a different direction. From there I checked out Hatfield And The North and National Health, and started working through the other artists listed on Calyx. I don't think I've found a duff album yet, at least not from the pre-1980's.

My Canterbury Starter For 10, in no particular order...

1. Soft Machine : Fourth (1971)
2. Caravan : In The Land Of Grey & Pink (1971)
3. Hatfield & The North : Hatfield & The North (1973)
4. National Heath : National Health (1977)
5. Egg : The Polite Force (1971)
6. Caravan : If I Could Do It All Over Again I'd Do It All Over You (1970)
7. Gong : Radio Gnome vol. 2 : Flying Teapot (1973)
8. Matching Mole : Matching Mole (1972)
9. Soft Machine : The Peel Sessions (1969-1971, released 1991)
10. Elton Dean : Just Us (1972)

I'm not sure how many folk on here are into Canterbury stuff, but if you are it would be good to hear from you.

Favourite bands, albums, performances...? I've steered clear in my notes above of the wealth of live and collectors material out there, but one great thing about the Canterbury bands is that they love releasing old performances on collectors labels. And these guys could certainly play live :)

Interesting. Land Of Grey And Pink and Soft Machine 1 are two of my all-time favourite albums, but I've never really explored much further. I did listen to Hatfield and the North a couple of times a while ago after reading Jonathan Coe's The Rotter's Club (required reading for anyone who grew up in the early 70s), but it didn't really grab me. Time for another go, I think.

'The Rotter's Club' is brilliant! 'Share It' is a great central track and it's classic Hatfield so you should definitely give it another go. For me Hatfield complement Caravan well. A bit more 'noodley' but I like that.

I've never got on with Soft Machine 1 (or 2 for that matter) - it's 'Third' where my interest kicks in. You can see I'm more into the 'jazz' thing than the 'Hendrix on keyboards' thing :)

Land Of Grey And Pink was the album that got me into Caravan. Neil The Hippy covered 'Golf Girl' on his 'Heavy Concept Album' and that caused me to check out their original. I love '9 Feet Underground'. What a great track.

Soft Machine Third is amazing - one of the few records that makes me want to swap my Quad ESLs for a pair of Wilson Sophias !

That's an interesting thought Hans! Third is a rough old recording in my opinion (but I haven't got the latest remaster because I'd already got the original and the 'Replay' reissue). A third copy seemed excessive :) Have you got the latest one and how do you rate it?

One other thought - the version of 'Moon In June' from the BBC Sessions is the definitive one IMO... Looser than the version on Third, and better lyrics!

I have the Columbia CD , not a remaster I think but it sounds fine !