Romantic Warriors III: Canterbury Tales begins with
The Wilde Flowers, the
archetypal Canterbury scene band. Rare period performance footage, still photos, and recordings are interspersed with contemporary interviews with almost all of the surviving musicians from this era. From
The Wilde Flowers the story moves to
Soft Machine which initially comprised four ex-members of The Wilde Flowers,
Robert Wyatt,
Kevin Ayers,
Mike Ratledge and
Daevid Allen. When Australian-born Allen was refused re-entry into the
United Kingdom in 1967 after a gig in
Saint-Tropez on the
French Riviera, Soft Machine elected to continue as a 3-piece band and, at the suggestion of
Jimi Hendrix, added a distortion pedal to the organ to make up for the missing guitar. Meanwhile in
Paris, Allen formed
Gong, with a spacier sound involving early synthesizers and echo units. Daevid was interviewed for this film just weeks before his death from cancer. Although obviously unwell, his sense of humor and playfulness remained forefront. Soft Machine subsequently replaced Ayers with bassist
Hugh Hopper (also ex-The Wilde Flowers). Next
Dave Sinclair introduces the band
Caravan, consisting of the remaining members of The Wilde Flowers. Bands influenced by the original Canterbury scene began popping up around 1970 all over the world, including
Moving Gelatine Plates (France) and
Supersister (
Netherlands). Their history is described by their main composers, with performance footage and images of their album covers. Next to be featured is
Forgas Band Phenomena which came a little later but definitely is Canterbury-influenced. Dirk
Mont Campbell introduces the bands
Uriel, Arzachel and
Egg, with passing reference to
Spirogyra (which had Canterbury roots). Soon all these bands would be lumped into the Canterbury scene as the players mixed with musicians from Canterbury to form
Hatfield and the North,
National Health and a host of other bands. Soft Machine’s evolution to a big band with the addition of the horn section from
Keith Tippett’s band is put in context by Leonardo Pavkovic, with footage from a concert on French TV. Simultaneously Soft Machine was moving away from vocal music, causing Robert Wyatt to leave the band and form
Matching Mole. Related bands
Quiet Sun and
Delivery are profiled and explained by
Bill MacCormick and
Phil Miller. Returning to Gong, David Allen explains that the theatrical look of the band was inspired by
Peter Gabriel of
Genesis, and the subsequent development of the band with percussionist
Benoît Moerlen, guitarist
Steve Hillage and synthesist
Tim Blake. Caravan’s new lineup with violist
Geoffrey Richardson is next, followed by the origin of
Hatfield and the North, the “first Canterbury supergroup” (according to Bruce Gallenter of
Downtown Music Gallery). With money in short supply Hatfield soon reconfigured into
National Health with ex-members of
Gilgamesh and
Gong with
John Greaves from
Henry Cow. By this time a number of bands outside of the original core were displaying heavy Canterbury influences, including Anaid (France), Machine and the Synergetic Nuts (Japan),
Fulano (Chile), Phlox (Estonia), Amoeba Split (Spain),
Violeta de Outono (Brazil),
D.F.A. (Italy), Iceberg (Spain), Orquestra Mirasol (Spain) and Planeta Imaginario (Spain). The latter is shown rehearsing and discussing the music that inspired them. Michel Delville and his band
The Wrong Object (Belgium) is featured next. Returning to the continuing development of Soft Machine, ex-members of
Nucleus joined including drummer
John Marshall, bassist
Roy Babbington and reed player, keyboardist & composer
Karl Jenkins. TV footage from Germany shows the band in performance. Also about this time Daevid Allen left Gong sick of the business, and they continued on as
Pierre Moerlen's Gong. Meanwhile Phil Miller formed
In Cahoots and Soft Machine added
Allan Holdsworth on guitar, their first guitarist since Daevid left in 1967. A quick check-in with Caravan today leads into a contemporary Canterbury band,
Syd Arthur. Daevid and
Dave Newhouse (from
the Muffins) recall the genesis of New York Gong and
Material in New York, which leads to the revitalization of the Gong name in the 1980s. A lengthy profile of
The Muffins follows, with no direct Canterbury ties but extensive Canterbury influences. Other American Canterbury-influenced bands are then mentioned: Volare,
Glass, However, Happy The Man, Master Cylinder. This leads to a discussion of the economics of CD releases in the late 1990s/early 2000s, and the reunion of
Supersister and revitalization of the whole
Progressive rock genre through reissues. The
Progman Cometh festivals in
Seattle celebrated Canterbury in 2002 and 2003.
Soft Machine Legacy honors the spirit of Soft Machine with players from different eras of the band. Sadly many of the original Canterbury players have died recently — including the “unofficial narrator” of the film Daevid Allen — but the huge influence of the whole sprawling Canterbury scene carries on. A companion 4 hour 48-minute DVD, entitled
Got Canterbury? Romantic Warriors III: Special Features DVD, was released May 2, 2016 with additional unused interview footage, unused performance footage by
Soft Machine Legacy,
Dave Sinclair,
Forgas Band Phenomena and
The Wrong Object, plus special concerts to celebrate the RWIII DVD release by
The Muffins on May 16, 2015 and
Glass on February 14, 2016. ==Reception==