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MYSTERIOUS: Kevin ayers - What They Never Told You

“The sound universe that Soft Machine opened before me was almost unfathomable. It was a revelation, a musical epiphany”: Meet the Canterbury scene’s international next generation

The seeds of The Wilde Flowers have taken root all around the world. Here are just a handful of 21st-century musicians taking inspiration from the 60s and 70s

Louder

“We were playing things like Chuck Berry. I was just horrified, because I’m a choirboy”: How Richard Sinclair helped build the Canterbury scene with Caravan, Hatfield And The North, Camel and more

He shares memories of Pye Hastings, Robert Wyatt, Kevin Ayers, Andy Latimer and many other collaborators from his rich heritage, soon to be include with his long, long awaited debut solo album

Louder

"I felt out of place. That group didn't have much musical merit and I thought it was crap": The oddball career of Kevin Ayers, quintessential English songwriter

Kevin Ayers co-founded Soft Machine, influenced Bowie, shared acid trips and girlfriends with Hendrix, and knew Syd Barrett better than most

Louder

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Former Family multi-instrumentalist John 'Poli' Palmer has died, aged 82

Multi-instrumentalist John 'Poli' Palmer played with Family and also worked with Pete Townshend, Peter Frampton, Kevin Ayers. Elkie Brookes and more...

Louder

“We never ever wanted a hit, so it was irrelevant”: Quantum Jump didn’t write the longest prog single, but they took the longest word in the dictionary to Number 5 via their 1979 track The Lone Ranger

“Taumata-whaka-tangi-hanga-kuayuwo-tamate-aturi-pukaku-piki-maungahoronuku-pokaiawhen-uaka-tana-tahu-mataku-atanganu-akawa-miki-tora”

Louder

“His carefree aesthetic is wonderfully captured – yet for the highs come genuinely frustrating and irritating lows”: Kevin Ayers And The Whole World’s Shooting At The Moon

Canterbury icon’s erratic second album, on vinyl for the first time, shines with the contributions of Mike Oldfield and Lol Coxhill

Louder

‘I’m burping? At least I didn’t fart!’ Ten things I’ve learned about ageing rockers

From Gene Simmons discussing lowgrade meatballs to Shaun Ryder comparing himself to Uncle Fester, Kate Mossman has spent her life interviewing rock stars of a certain age. What has she learned?

The Guardian - UK

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Men of a Certain Age by Kate Mossman review – close encounters with charismatic male rockers

A journalist’s bracingly honest account of interviews with musicians from Brian May to Shaun Ryder

The Guardian - UK

“An album misinterpreted by lesser talents”: What do Syd Barrett, Kevin Ayers, Peter Hammill and Robert Fripp have to do with Britpop? See Blur’s Modern Life Is Rubbish for details

Okay, it’s not all-out prog – but the band’s second record contains the spirit of the genre, with its English eccentricities, non-linear approach to playing and rule-breaking flair

Louder

Sir Richard Branson's Little Venice houseboat is up for rent for £5,200 a month

The Virgin founder bought the boat in the 1970s and started his business empire on board

Evening Standard

Mike Ratledge obituary

Composer and keyboard player who was a driving force behind the experimental prog-rock band Soft Machine

The Guardian - UK

“If I were you, I’d get a haircut and disappear”: When author William Burroughs gave Daevid Allen permission to call his band The Soft Machine

A key moment in the Canterbury band’s history came when the future Gong mastermind made contact with his former collaborator in 1966

Louder

"He was the backbone of Soft Machine." Founding member and keyboard player Mike Ratledge dead at 81

Soft Machine's longest-serving member Mike Ratledge, who also worked with Syd Barrett and Kevin Ayers, has died after a short illness

Louder

“It’s ludicrous a song like that would go on an album at the height of our fame, but it got the most notice because it was so bizarre”: The Police’s Andy Summers on success, psychedelia and working with difficult people

The multi-faceted guitarist looks back on a career including stints with Robert Fripp, John Cale, Kevin Ayers and others

Louder

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“People would say, ‘He took a trip and now he’s weird.’ He wasn’t weird at all”: Mick Rock’s “surprisingly simple” friendship with Syd Barrett, and other psychedelic adventures

Often called ‘the man who shot the 70s,’ the photographer experienced unforgettable moments with Pink Floyd, Kevin Ayers, Arthur Brown, Genesis and more

Louder

“An absolute delight… the radio sessions and live sets are completely priceless”: Kevin Ayers’ All This Crazy Gift Of Time box set

Lavish 10-disc package celebrates the Canterbury legend, with hard work done to deliver contemporary commentary and revitalize his 1970 Hyde Park show

Louder

“I’d just fed the gerbils and was practicing how to play the saw when this head popped around the door and asked politely if I would like to join Caravan”: Inside the weird and wonderful world of The Canterbury Scene

Soft Machine, Caravan, Gong, Hatfield And The North - how a small town in England changed progressive music forever

Louder

“Gong is the band you listen to when you smoke your first joint or drop your first acid trip at school”: The mind-bending story of cult psychedelic heroes Gong

Looking back on the career of psychedelic oddballs Gong, one of rock’s most eccentric bands

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Louder

Ten-disc Kevin Ayers box set to be released in October

Cult prog rocker's 1971 album Whatevershebringswesing to be remastered and issued on vinyl

Louder

“A unique, sometimes unsettling experience… His baritone gives the songs a shade of unorthodoxy which goes beyond typical English hippie eccentricity”: Kevin Ayers’ Joy Of A Toy (Remastered Gatefold Vinyl Edition)

Syd Barrett’s contribution is absent in an edition that sticks religiously to 1969 template

Louder

“Forget the luxuriant moustaches and sawn-off mike-stands that would come to define them: if the prog ethos meant avoiding the expected, they were definitely a prog band”: You’ve always known the truth about Queen

Mike Portnoy and Steve Howe provide supporting evidence that Bohemian Rhapsody is only the tip of the band’s boundary-pushing iceberg

Louder

“When we started, it wasn’t necessarily going to be a trilogy… I like the fact that each one is a bit different. To this day that’s the best band I’ve ever been in”: Steve Hillage on Gong’s Radio Gnome Invisible era

The guitarist most associated with Daevid Allen’s band believes they launched a second wave of psychedelia with their 70s albums Chocolate Teapot, Angel’s Egg and You

Louder

“Pop music didn’t offer enough open space for improvisation… there was no way we were going to play a tune the same way twice”: How Soft Machine pioneered the Canterbury scene

By the time debut album The Soft Machine was released in 1968, they’d already split up - but its impact changed everything

Louder

“Without naming names, I have spent time onstage playing music I hate, wishing it was over”: King Crimson, Porcupine Tree and Pineapple Thief’s Gavin Harrison on being a pro

The eclectic drummer has been the jokey one in some bands and the serious, grown-up one in others - but it all comes down to the same approach

Louder

Marillion and four great gifts in the new issue of Prog, on sale now...

Plus Francis Monkman, Dave Stewart, Renaissance, Rod Argent Wishbone Ash, Lazuli and loads more...

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