Line Out (Free subscription) | 17/11/2009
Yesterday I stumbled upon a rather good BBC Four documentary about British progressive rock on Vimeo. Watch or grab it before it's gone. Aside from the groups most everyone knows (or maybe dreads by reputation) - Yes, King Crimson, Jethro Tull, Genesis, ELP - other lesser-known bands get much more than a nod as well, including two of my favorites, Soft Machine and egg (bonus music geek points for...
Eine Kleine Nichtmusik (Free subscription) | 23/08/2009
Courtesy of the BBC's iPlayer facility, I'm listening as I blog to last Sunday's BBC Promenade Concert, which was a celebration of Bollywood. The Proms have changed so much since my youth that this no longer seems surprising, but I can remember the huge fuss when the very first popular music Prom happened, which was on 13 August 1970. There were two Proms that night: the first a programme of Bach,...
Rock and Roll Daily (Free subscription) | 22/07/2009
Bassist Hugh Hopper — who died on June 7th in England at age 64 — was a quietly central figure in British progressive rock: a member of Sixties Canterbury legends the Wilde Flowers and a roadie for Soft Machine, before joining them as a member in 1968, just as the Softs’ dadaistic rock mutated into [...]
Stardom - Is This How It Should Be? (Free subscription) | 18/07/2009
Exciting, imaginative, beautiful new album from Barbagallo - Floppy Disk. Wonderful with elements of Kevin Ayers, early Soft Machine. Engaging melody, esoteric elements within a framework of beautifully crafted songs. http://ping.fm/8VdnN Nobody told me it would be like this. HealeyIsland.
Penwith Radio Blog (Free subscription) | 18/07/2009
Exciting, imaginative, beautiful new album from Barbagallo - Floppy Disk. Wonderful with elements of Kevin Ayers, early Soft Machine. Engaging melody, esoteric elements within a framework of beautifully crafted songs. http://ping.fm/8VdnN
No Rock And Roll Fun (Free subscription) | 16/06/2009
The bassist for Soft Machine, Hugh Hopper , has died. Born in Canterbury on the day between the deaths of Mussolini and Hitler, Hopper played his bass alongside Robert Wyatt through a number of bands, before the Soft Machine line-up came together in 1968. Orginally, Hopper's role had been to manage the Machine but - having missed out on the band's Hendrix support tour - he picked up the bass. Hopper...
Variety.com (Free subscription) | 16/06/2009
Music News: Prog rock band was part of Canterbury scene -- Hugh Hopper, bassist for progressive rock group Soft Machine, died June 7 of leukemia in Kent, England. He was 64.
All About Jazz (Free subscription) | 15/06/2009
Hugh Hopper, 64, a bassist and composer for the progressive rock group Soft Machine, died of leukemia June 7 in Kent, England. After serving as the group's road manager, Hopper stepped up to offer compositions and virtuoso performances on six of the group's albums. His songs include "Facelift" and "Kings and Queens." He left the group in 1973 to pursue a variety of projects in experimental...
Spinner.com (Free subscription) | 12/06/2009
Filed under: News , R.I.P. Hugh Hopper, bassist for prog-rock pioneers Soft Machine, passed away last Sunday in Kent, England after a battle with leukemia. He was 64. Hopper was influential in melding different styles of playing, most notably in what would become known as fusion jazz and progressive rock. Initially, he started out as the road manager for Soft Machine before being recruited for full...
Miami Herald (Free subscription) | 12/06/2009
Hugh Hopper, who as the bassist for the British progressive rock band Soft Machine was a central figure in the forward-looking music scene that bloomed in Canterbury in the 1960s and '70s, died on Sunday in the county of Kent, England. He was 64.
The Independent (Free subscription) | 12/06/2009
The bass guitarist and composer Hugh Hopper was a pivotal member of Soft Machine, the Canterbury group which went through many incarnations and shifts in musical identity and proved more successful in continental Europe than the UK in the late Sixties and early Seventies. A friend and schoolmate of the founder-member, drummer and vocalist Robert Wyatt, Hopper contributed to the group's psychedelic...
The Daily What (Free subscription) | 11/06/2009
Lunch Links: Swine Flu threat at highest level, officially declared a pandemic . EVERYBODY PANIC (again). Mars/Venus on potential collision course with Earth . EVERYBODY PANIC (a billion years from now). As-yet-unnamed element to be added to periodic table . Study: Using the Internet makes you smarter . I can has Mensa application? Convicted murderer Phil Spector prevented from wearing wig in latest...
Peter Stothard (Free subscription) | 11/06/2009
What do Biennalers do when they hate what's in front of them? Criticise? Protest? Walk out? Not even walk in? I'm phrasing the question like that because I see that the bass guitarist Hugh Hopper has just died. His band,...
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