The Earl Haig Club, Cardiff - 30/10/2019
Once upon a time, music was a serious business. As an example, I remember carefully positioning
the microphone of my second hand tape recorder in front of a radio, new tape from Charlie Marks’
Wyndham Arcade emporium loaded and ready, and pressing “go” on a 45-minute concert of some of
the broadcast works of French composer Olivier Messiaen
It was the age of adventurous, mind expanding “underground”, “progressive” music. This was
serious stuff and anyone caught smiling was stiffly rebuked and sent to listen to Motown. Nothing
was more serious in this era of the po-faced, pop-picker’s pilgrimage than Soft Machine, who
swapped time signatures like bubble gum cards and linked riffs with random notes as if they were
from the same planet.
I was a student at their feet and if Canterbury kingpin Mike Ratledge, part of the great Wyatt-
Hopper-Ratledge line-up, was influenced by Messiaen, then I was ready for enlightenment. He was,
of course, unlistenable and so, in those pre-video days, I unfurrowed my brow, wiped the tape and
recorded instead a sound only version of the Marx Brothers’ anarchic opus, Animal Crackers. Well,
art is art, isn’t it?
Fifty years on, Magnificent Mike’s name was raised on several occasions by host and guitar supremo
John Etheridge, part of the latest reprise of the Softs as they gigged Cardiff’s Earl Haig Club.
Nowadays, only most recent recruit (just thirteen years!) multi-instrumentalist Theo Travis, a musical
baby still young enough to wear designer trainers, dons shades on stage ala Ratledge. His trainers
are in fact filling the sizeable boots of Karl Jenkins, Elton Dean as well as Ratledge and he does it with
energy, enthusiasm and a great deal of expertise.
The others seem very comfortable in the bright lights. There’s nothing eamest in Etheridge’s
comically rambling chats with the audience. A coughing, cackling Mickey Flanagan-esque figure, he
guides us though two hours of tunes to savour.
The music? Well, what do you think? After all, these guys were experimenting, innovating and
pushing the boundaries of rock, jazz and classical with consummate technical ability fifty years ago.
Yes, they may be a little mellower as the Sanatagen replaces the Purple Haze but musically the
stimulants were all still there.
Etheredge’s reliable rhythms, soaring solos and short staccato bursts were clear and compelling;
Bassist Roy Babbington, a four string legend, and the fantastic John Marshall, drumming across times
and tones with tightness, drove the set list of standards to a contented conclusion that saw us Silver
Sagalouts set sail for home humming a complicated riff or two. I’m sure if he could have been there,
Olivier would have tapped a toe as well, before he left to catch his mode of limited transposition.
See them if you can for a night of delights
Keep Cardiff Live sat down with Soft Machine guitarist John Etheridge shortly after their packed gig at The Earl Haig Club in Cardiff.