Machine

Machine, a band from Coventry, first emerged into the lively city music scene in the late seventies. The line up moved through some changes and by the time I joined the band as bass player, it consisted of Jackie doing vocals and some keyboards, Mike Collins on guitar and vocals, Simon Finch on guitar, Silverton Hutchinson on drums and Julian Bell on keyboards.

As with many bands there was an initial morphing procedure as members came and went. As I recall a guy called James and then Nigel Mulvey, now an antipodean resident used to be bass persona. Silverton Hutchinson had been drumming for The Coventry Automatics who later morphed into the Special Aka, forerunners of The Specials who of course rejuvenated the ska scene all over the land along with The Selecter.

Naturally this was an event which catalysed the ‘monkey see, monkey do’ element within the local Coventry music scene which already had a hefty multicultural input clearly evident at the West Indian club and Hillfields area which were hotbeds of dub and reggae sounds. An event that found it’s way into Machine, forging the ska element into their anvil of sound which they had built up a reputation for delivering.

The song writing mainly revolved around this healthily unbalanced character, Mike Collins. who seemed to be constantly putting his degree in psychology to the test. Legend has it that his black Les Paul was the result of the time honoured brick through a music shop window routine, most likely necessitated as I’m sure every guitar lover knows, by the need to stop the routine salivation on every walk past a guitar laden shop window. Sadly Mike is with us no more following a fatal accident when he was knocked off his bicycle many years later.

Machine, as the name suggests, had a solid mechanical style which would pound life into the audience and make them move onto the beckoning dance floor. All the material was original apart from one of the encores we used to do which was a ska version of Henry Mancini’s ‘Baby Elephant Walk’

The enormous talent and dexterity of their keyboard player Julian, who built his own organ and engineered the band’s sound could not be ignored. Coventry is a place that had it’s heart ripped out during the so called second world war and thus became a concrete jungle. Add this to the fact that this was the UK’s motor city, littered with car factories and you’ll understand why it was the spawning ground for a vibrant music scene wallowing in angst currently evident with ‘The Enemy’ continuing to fly the flag.

An audio snapshot of the Machine era can be found on the compilation album “Sent from Coventry” because we were a major input to the local live music scene in Coventry and used to get the dance floor throbbing. Although Machine’s contribution “Character Change” is without input from Jackie and her charming vocal talent because we were in a period of transition at the time morphing into ‘Hot Snacks’. However the album photo does however show the Daimler factory in the background. As the album declares Machine have now changed their name to ‘Hot Snacks’, but that’s another story.


December 2008 – Doc Mustard



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