MACHIAVEL

New: Machiavel "Anthology" Machiavel's Best Of anno 2001, 2CD's with plenty of unreleased material, a new single, and of course all the songs that made them famous in the first place ("Fly", "Rope Dancer", "Over the Hill" to name only a few). >>> Buy this CD at Proxis <<< >>> only 909 Bfr -22,54 Euro - 19.91$ (on Oct 17, 2001) <<<

Symphonic Rock Band of the seventies and probably the most successful rock band of Wallonia.

The band was formed in 1974 when Roland Degreef and Marc Isaye who had been playing together in a band called Moby Dick teamed up with Albert Letecheur and decided there was definitively a market for "Eu-rock" in Belgium. This style of music, best known through it's English performers like Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Yes, Supertramp and Genesis, had a huge potential.

The first three albums ("Machiavel", "Jester" and "Mechanical Moonbeams") ensured the group a steadily growing following. The single   "Rope dancer" was the culmination of their Eurock period.

From their fourth album onward, Machiavel proved that it wouldn't limit itself to the genre and allowed some other influences in their music. This change in style assured them of even bigger public following (they filled up the concert hall of Vorst, a performance no other Belgian group had accomplished before them), but it also caused some friction within the group and some of the original members left the band.

The sixth album "New Lines" got them noticed for the first time in the Northern part of the country ("Fly" also became a hit over there) as well as abroad.

The album "Break out" of 1981, however, was received very badly by the press and public alike. Many new bands had just taken up the stage and the time for Machiavel to go had come. Financial troubles and stolen equipment signed the death warrant for the group in 1983.

In 1987 there was a short revival of the band : they recorded an album ("The cry of pleasure"), and also did some live gigs. The album showed the members of the group had gone through some changes since their departure from Machiavel and also included a surprise performance by Arno on harmonica (on the track "Your soul").

After that the group took up a low profile again, only to emerge in 1996 when they were invited to stage by Jean-Luc Fonck (Sttellla) at the Francopholies in Spa and released the compilation album "20th anniversary Machiavel, the very best of".

The individual members of Machiavel all went their separate ways : Ysaye plays drums in the blues band "Burning Plague" and is a well-known radio-presenter for Radio 21. He also played in the band Twilight together with Albert Letecheur.
Roland Degreef and Mario Guccio have played together in Beige Neige, who released an LP in 1983 called "Movement one" and have produced records with their company Rox records.
Thierry Plas, who had joined the band in 1979, is a well-known studio musician and has played with Pierre Rapsat and Vaya con Dios (he is the partner of Dani Klein).

In 1999 the group somehow found the energy to record a completely new album. "Virtual Sun" was released onto the unsuspecting world on January 20th and still raised some enthusiasm in Wallonia. North of the language frontier the reaction so far can be summarized with the two words "So what".

Thierry Plas & Marc Ysaye also got involved in a band called "Purple Prose", the band that got Dani Klein going again, years after the success of Vaya Con Dios, a project that did not resemble the music of Machiavel though.

In March 2000, Machiavel did a contribution to the "Glittering 2000" project, on which belgian bands covered songs from the glamrock era, by doing a version of The Sensational Alex Harvey Band's "The Faith Healer".

In 2001, EMI and the band were releasing a boxed set called Anthology. This double CD contained the usual "Best Of" tracks ("Fly", "Rope Dancer", "Over the Hill" to name a few) that were also included on the "The Very Best Of" of two years ago (which sold 20.000+ copies), but also contained 23 tracks that were not on that compilation.
To push the fan into purchasing this one, there were plenty of niceties: like a completely new single (called "Heaven's rules"), 4 bonus tracks of bands in which Machiavel-members have been part over the last years (Purple Prose, Twilight, The Responsibles). Other rarities on it are "Birds are gone" (a demo from 1975) and a live take from their concert in Vorst Nationaal in 1981.
A cd with new material is envisaged for the spring of 2002.

Members :
- Mario Guccio (vocals)
- Jack Roskam / Jean-Paul Devaux / Thierry Plas (guitar)
- M. Ysaye (drums, vocals)
- Roland de Greef (bass)
- Albert Letecheur / Paolo Ragatzu (keyboards)

Buy CD's of this band at

Albums :
- Machiavel (Harvest, 1976)
- Jester (Harvest, 1977)
- Mechanical Moonbeans (Harvest, 1978)
- Urban Games (EMI, 1979)
- First recordings (mini-album) (EMI, 1980)
- New Lines (Harvest - 1980)
- Valentine's day (live) (EMI, 1981)
- Break out (EMI, 1981)
- The cry of pleasure (Indisc - 1987)
- Virtual Sun (CNR Music - 1999)
Compilations :
- Compilation : boxed-set containing the first five albums as well as some previously unreleased material.
- 20th Anniversary Machiavel : The Very best of (1996)
- Anthology (2CD, 2001, EMI)
Singles :
- Rope dancer / After the crop (Harvest, 1978)
- Over the hill / Kings of slogans (Harvest, 1979)
- Fly / So clear (Harvest, 1980)
- Turn off / Champagne in Amsterdam (Harvest, 1981)
- Charlena / Running (Harvest, 1981)
- Nobody knows / Somebody loves you tonight (Harvest, 1981)
- No way to heaven / Generation (Indisc, 1987)
- No regrets / Flesh and blood (Indisc, 1987)
- Your soul / Bad girl (1988, Indisc)
- Heaven's rules / A Life (2001, EMI)

Websites :
- The Official Website of the group is http://machiavelmusic.com
- presentation of Anthology at msn

Forum :
- Read the messages/questions about Machiavel
- Add your message, question, cd- or concertreview ... about Machiavel