[2] In late 1985, the band released its first album, self-titled, in which, alongside Banai and Bracha, bassist Michael Benson and drummer Iggy Dayan participated.
Yuval Banai and Shlomi Bracha first met in their youth,[2] and later sang together for five months[3] in the rookie base of the Artillery Corps in Shavei Shomron.
[4] The band had its first performance at that base, where Banai sang and Bracha played the guitar, accompanied by a drummer and another guitarist.
When Banai and Bracha asked their friend in the base, who came from the Soviet Union, how to say "Table of Despair" in Russian, he replied with "Mashina Vremeni" (Машина Времени - "Time Machine").
The band started rehearsing with a lineup that included Banai, Bracha, Eliazeri, Lifshitz, and keyboardist Rami Haimov.
The performances were characterized by punk and ska styles,[4] influenced by the flourishing new wave bands in Tel Aviv.
[6] Keyboardist Rami Haimov continued to play with the band for a short time and then left to study at the Juilliard School in New York.
The tensions escalated when Bnei took on the lead role in the movie "Makat Shemesh," and as a result, he was absent from rehearsals for several months.
Banai, Eliyazri, and Dayan formed the band "Shalom Hatzibur," which played in various clubs in Tel Aviv.
The band released two radio singles, both written by Banai and composed by Eliyazri: "November 1" and "Yanshuf Al Anaf Gavoha".
As part of this band, Bracha created two songs that were later included in Mashina's debut album, "Aval Ein" and "Balada LeSochen Kaful", originally written in English.
In 1985, Banai, Bracha, and Benson coincidentally met, decided to revive the band, and scheduled a performance for Purim of that year at the "Penguin" club.
At the same time, the band recorded three more songs: "Night Train", "Because she didn't feel like it" and "Ballad for a double agent".
At the end of July 1985, the band's second radio record, "Because she doesn't feel like"[7] (Hebrew: כי לא בא לה), was released.
After that, the band members recorded the rest of the songs on the album, which was released in November of the same year and was called "Mashina".
In the preparations for the tour that accompanied the first album, the band members were looking for a keyboardist, and Benson recommended Avner Khodorov, whom he knew from his military service.
Khodorov was in the United States at the time, and when he returned he met with Benson and Barcha for rehearsals, and was accepted into the band as a hired player for the performances.
Due to the feeling of a complete work that cannot be disassembled, the band members decided to distribute the album without preliminary singles to the radio stations.
The performances that accompanied the album were also not successful, and only a few dozens of people attended the band's first shows at the Tzavta club.
In 1988, the band members decided to use an outside person to collaborate with them in working on a new show, and turned to the songwriter and music producer Yaakov Gilad.
After the release of "Ladies and Gentlemen" the members of "Mashina" began work on their next album, "The Association for the Study of Mortality" (HaAmuta LeHeker HaTmuta).
After the release of "The Association for the Study of Mortality" (העמותה לחקר התמותה)[16] and in the middle of the concert tour that accompanied the album, the members of "Mashina" felt tired, and decided to temporarily stop their activities.
The work with the band "Noshai Mgavat" exposed Bracha to a new style of music, which influenced Mashina's next album, "Fame Monsters" (מפלצות התהילה).
The songs "You come to visit", "Eize Ish", "The Mermaid", "It all started in Nasser" and "There is no other place" were released as singles, but were not successful on the radio stations.
The people of the NMC company had second thoughts about the sketches that the band recorded for the rock opera, so the album was released by Hed Artzi.
This is how the foundation was created for the band's last album before its disbandment, "Goodbye Youth Hello Love" (Hebrew: להתראות נעורים שלום אהבה), and all of its songs were written and composed by Banai.
In 1984 they decided to combine to form a new band, which they called Mashina, bringing in drummer Iggy Dayan; in 1985, they released their self-titled debut, which quickly became a hit on the Israeli charts.
What would have been their fourth and final performance, in Arad, Israel, ended when three of the spectators were crushed to death by the crowd before the band went onstage.
Mashina has gone on several North American tours, playing in cities including Philadelphia, New York, Boston, Toronto, Washington and Los Angeles.
Their early sound was obviously imitative of ska bands like Madness; they didn't bother to hide the influence, titling what became one of their earliest hit songs "Rakevet Laila Le-Kahir" ("Night Train to Cairo"), a homage to Madness' "Night Boat to Cairo", or "Geveret Sarah Hashchena" ("Miss Sarah, the Neighbour") that copied the theme, music and opening lyrics of Bob Dylan's "The Hurricane".