THE MACHINES

Brilliant melodic pop-group around Paul Despieghelaere from the beginning of the 1980's.

Late in the seventies, the Gent-based Nestormartin renames itself to The Machines and wins the second edition of  HUMO's Rock-Rally in 1980. They write music in the best tradition of the Beatles and Talking Heads.

They record the singles "Money in my wallet" and "Frozen Faces", for which they are signed to Parlophone.

It's only after the third single "Don't be cruel" they really hit the jackpot. They get to record their first album in the legendary Abbey Road studios of the Beatles.

"A world of machines" is a brilliant LP, full of melodic and very catchy pop-songs with a longing for the sixties. The singles "I see the lies in your eyes" and "Yellow lights" from the same album become radio-hits.

Together with "A different smell from the same perfume" by Luna Twist, "Promises" by Allez Allez, "l'Apache" by TC Matic and "Er sterft een beer in de Taïga" by De Kreuners, these are the albums which make up the best year in music Belgium has ever had.

The second album of the group "Dots and dashes", is not very well received by the press and public. Gone is the magic of the sound and the songs. Their third album "Jungle!" doesn't even get released until 1989, when the group is already as dead as a deer.

Singer Paul Despieghelaere - who takes the ghost-name Paul Mellow regularly - stayed on the music scene as a producer for numerous Belgians bands. In 1989 he released a Christmas single under the name Paul Mellow "Merry X-mas". In 1993, he formed the band Mellow, with ex-Ze Noiz Zaman on guitar, Paul Huyge on bass and Kurt de Waele (later Chrome Yellow) on drums. They released two singles on the Alora labe : "No-one believes", which got quite a bit of airplay and "Where's the sad song". Plans for a full-cd were never materialized as the band split at the end of 1994.

Drummer Jan De Vos later would be part of the briefly promising band Derek & The Dirt. He also was a rock reporter for Het Nieuwsblad and swapped his drumsticks for a guitar. He recently formed a new band called "Paris Texas", a band that records in French. According to The Mix (part of newspaper De Morgen), the debut album "Canal Nostalgie" reveals well played rootsrock, with bits and pieces of zydeco, tex-mex and cajun.

Lead guitar Joris Angenon later was part of the pop band The Dinky Toys, who enjoyed quite some success in the early nineties.

Buy CD's of this band at

Albums :
- A world of Machines (Parlophone - 1982)
- Dots and Dashes (Parlophone - 1983)
- Jungle! - (Antler - 1989)

Compilations :
- Re-meet the Machines (Ariola Express - 1992)

Members :
- Paul Despieghelaere (vocals, guitar)
- Jan De Vos (drums)
- Joris Angenon (lead guitar)

Websites :
- none found.