luckily i can get in free. the headliner is grails which i'd probably skip
― the FBI, police and members of the hilarious rock band Korn (eman), Tuesday, 18 November 2008 01:50 (fifteen years ago) link
Stay home and listen to the records IMHO.
― ian, Tuesday, 18 November 2008 02:01 (fifteen years ago) link
lol
― eman, Tuesday, 18 November 2008 02:02 (fifteen years ago) link
stay home twice before listening
― HI, YOUR BAND! (Mackro Mackro), Tuesday, 18 November 2008 02:37 (fifteen years ago) link
Teenage poets, make of that what you will― dave q, Friday, January 18, 2002 5:00 PM (6 years ago)
OK i love DQ but who wasn't a teenage poet (besides me)?
― HI, YOUR BAND! (Mackro Mackro), Tuesday, 18 November 2008 03:19 (fifteen years ago) link
i would also like to know this before i extremely reluctantly pay for spiritualized tickets (who the SAs are supporting down here)
― thereminimum chips (electricsound), Tuesday, November 18, 2008 1:40 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark
Same question, 'cept I used to really like SPZ.
― milling through the grinder, grinding through the mill (S-), Tuesday, 18 November 2008 03:33 (fifteen years ago) link
seen em twice (as a headliner, mind you) in the past year or so and had a lot of fun each time.
― Maciej (maciej recognizing trill), Tuesday, 18 November 2008 04:04 (fifteen years ago) link
classick
― the head werewolf's girlfriend (latebloomer), Tuesday, 18 November 2008 04:15 (fifteen years ago) link
"i have known love" is so so good
― kamerad, Saturday, 17 October 2009 02:15 (fourteen years ago) link
Yep...
― ian, Saturday, 17 October 2009 04:32 (fourteen years ago) link
I love everything about "A Pox On You" but maybe maybe #1 best part is the tasty drumming.
― Stop Non-Erotic Cabaret (Abbbottt), Tuesday, 11 January 2011 01:38 (thirteen years ago) link
"This band is amazing, .... , "Well, it IS kind of boring I suppose". By the end of the CD, you will be slumped in your chair, leafing thru a magazine hoping against hope for the CD to end.― Dadaismus, Monday, 24 March 2003 14:44 (7 years ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
― Dadaismus, Monday, 24 March 2003 14:44 (7 years ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
Of course, some albums (or, indeed, sides of albums) should be heard as partworks.
Listening to the whole CD is too much too soon, sure.
― Mark G, Tuesday, 11 January 2011 13:42 (thirteen years ago) link
They'd be classic just for "I Have Known Love," which I've now listened to 10X straight this morning; such a deceptively weird track. Completely transfixed by the way some lines/couplets get doubled over in certain places. Plus, I think the stanzas are tercets, but they kind of bleed into one another in random places.
― ❀ the cult of ➥upside➥wingspan➥personal growth gurus➥FA charlatans (CompuPost), Sunday, 15 July 2012 18:17 (eleven years ago) link
That one and "Program" are the two best in my opinion.
― Xerox of Fate, Sunday, 15 July 2012 20:57 (eleven years ago) link
i think this is the music that feels the most "ahead of its time" to me....if not for some of the vocal mannerisms i would never guess it was a 68 album
― "If you like the Byrds, try Depeche Mode" (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Monday, 1 July 2013 23:16 (ten years ago) link
My cd copy of Contact sounds like total shit, bums me out.
― Trip Maker, Monday, 1 July 2013 23:29 (ten years ago) link
what label?
― sleeve, Monday, 1 July 2013 23:32 (ten years ago) link
Whirlybird, I think. I bought it just a few months or so before the s/t and it were reissued on a twofer. That one probably sounds better.
― Trip Maker, Tuesday, 2 July 2013 00:22 (ten years ago) link
"i have known love" still sounds like it comes from the future
― reggie (qualmsley), Tuesday, 2 July 2013 00:34 (ten years ago) link
You and I sounds like Bomb Squad production twenty years early.
― u r all xanax'd bonobos (GOTT PUNCH II HAWKWINDZ), Wednesday, 3 July 2013 09:34 (ten years ago) link
I remember hearing "Oscillations" as warm up music for like a Dan Deacon show or something and it was the same thing - until the vocals kicked in I thought it was something really modern.
― frogbs, Wednesday, 3 July 2013 13:04 (ten years ago) link
I had dinner with Simeon in Lisbon once and he was a Southern gentleman
― flamboyant goon tie included, Wednesday, 3 July 2013 20:48 (ten years ago) link
period live performance setup
very very impressive
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-4pQrgEAFEzU/TyLKrc4F4AI/AAAAAAAAA18/US88ZrA4CLQ/s1600/Silver%2BApples2.jpg
from the five-star Astronauta Pinguim blog - http://astronautapinguim.blogspot.com/2012/01/five-questions-to-simeon-coxe-lll.html
― Milton Parker, Thursday, 11 July 2013 00:30 (ten years ago) link
Great post from Graham Sutton (Bark Psychosis etc.) just now that he'll be working with Simeon on a new Silver Apples album
https://twitter.com/GPSutton/status/530805335859421184
― Ned Raggett, Friday, 7 November 2014 19:39 (nine years ago) link
So, what does the 2015 incarnation sound like? Simeon + ?
― ヽ(´ー`)┌ (CompuPost), Thursday, 30 July 2015 00:55 (eight years ago) link
$13 at Trans-Pecos tmrrow, so expectations very low; just struck me that I have ~0% idea what he/they sound like live nowadays.
― ヽ(´ー`)┌ (CompuPost), Thursday, 30 July 2015 01:00 (eight years ago) link
I suppose this is as good a place as any to ask a question I've been wondering about for some years.
Back in 1998 or 1999 I was involved in the shooting of a music video for Silver Apples. It was set in a mental hospital or psych ward, and the basic idea was mental patients were getting administered drugs by a mad doctor played by Simeon, after which they would have convulsions or freak out. We were told that this footage would later be intercut with live performance footage of the Silver Apples for the final edit. I am pretty certain that "Mad Man Blues" from the album The Garden was supposed to be the song, due to the obvious thematic connection.
I never saw a completed version of this video, or even any part of what was shot, and I wonder if it ever came out at all. Has anyone seen anything resembling this anywhere?
The director of the video was Barak Soval, who later made the Silver Apples documentary Of the Moon, which I have also never seen.
I remember that Simeon was very nice and easy to work with.
― Josefa, Thursday, 30 July 2015 02:41 (eight years ago) link
I saw Silver Apples in Chicago last year. It was just Simeon. There was a cool mix of prerecorded tracks and live synth/electronic gizmo playing. And he sings of course.
― JRN, Thursday, 30 July 2015 05:15 (eight years ago) link
Was the Of the Moon doc ever officially released? For something that might've come out in 2008, looks like it fell down the memory hole.
From this 2010 SoS article, sounds like he uses old samples of Taylor for the drum? http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/oct10/articles/silver-apples.htm
― ヽ(´ー`)┌ (CompuPost), Thursday, 30 July 2015 14:37 (eight years ago) link
can't believe I hadn't heard The Garden yet, this opening track is totally killer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1kA7qUdrtPg
also lol @ the cover of "Mustang Silly"....doooodle blip bap dit dit blop bleep
― frogbs, Wednesday, 16 November 2016 19:50 (seven years ago) link
this dude did a Quietus bakers dozen and it's pretty entertaining
Ellas Bates, a guitar player from Mississippi, decided to call himself Bo Diddley and wrote his first song and called it 'Bo Diddley'. Then he wrote 'Hey, Bo Diddley', then he wrote 'Go, Bo Diddley', then he wrote 'Diddley Daddy', and everybody loved him because of that 'dah, dada, dah (pause) da dah' beat. He got on the Ed Sullivan Show by promising to play a big Merle Travis hit song called 'Sixteen Tons'. Instead he played (guess what) 'Bo Diddley' and got himself banned forever from the Ed Sullivan Show. He was my hero.
He was my hero.
Many times we would be the only people there, except for the bartender and the Arkestra folks who were a costumed multitude, some musicians, some who danced some kind of Afro-mythology interpretation and others who held weird poses for hours. One time I got up to go take a leak and there was an African warrior balanced on the urinal playing a saxophone. Amazing... and beer was only 25 cents a mug.
http://thequietus.com/articles/10584-simeon-coxe-silver-apples-favourite-albums?page=1
decided to check out this 2016 release. dunno what to think of it yet. its better than the 90s stuff for sure. mighty odd. amazing that Simeon sounds exactly the same as he did in the 60's, though he kinda had the voice of an old hippie back then, so...
― frogbs, Thursday, 31 August 2017 19:04 (six years ago) link
okay I've been listening to Clinging to a Dream a lot in the last month and I actually think it's about as good as the band's first three albums (counting The Garden, of course). it's probably the strangest Silver Apples album there is. Simeon is such a weirdo.
― frogbs, Friday, 13 October 2017 13:21 (six years ago) link
Pre-RSD feature in the Graun:https://www.theguardian.com/music/2019/apr/09/silver-apples-electro-stars-hendrix-stereolab-portishead-john-lennon?CMP=share_btn_fb&fbclid=IwAR2Wd8JgcchEFODY4zFFjc3INGr1wQiXLWowlJl4_fRPJBjxCdhjqUv7C5Y
― Jeff W, Tuesday, 9 April 2019 15:53 (four years ago) link
Thanks for the link.Coxe continues to perform and tour as Silver Apples. He released a new album in 2016, and a release for Record Store Day on 13 April is due next month. Despite a lifetime of turbulence and rotten luck, he insists the good times far outweigh the bad. Even 50 years on from the moment that sent his career into the wilderness for nearly two decades, he refuses to have any regrets. “No,” he says. “Not one.”
― dow, Tuesday, 9 April 2019 17:12 (four years ago) link
RSD single is pretty wild...not sure how I feel about the (intentionally?) glitched out ending but the jam section is pretty cool. definitely feels like vintage Silver Apples. remix is pretty nice too.
― frogbs, Monday, 29 April 2019 21:50 (four years ago) link
Got recommended this video by youtube:
https://youtu.be/5DQiexiUjAs
Pretty interesting.
― ✖✖✖ (Moka), Saturday, 5 September 2020 03:49 (three years ago) link
A shame there’s no videos of those 60s performances afaik
― ✖✖✖ (Moka), Saturday, 5 September 2020 03:51 (three years ago) link
Very cool cover:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4VILaJYPS-4
― Soundslike, Saturday, 5 September 2020 03:51 (three years ago) link
Ah damn. Simeon has passed on.
https://obits.al.com/obituaries/mobile/obituary.aspx?n=simeon-coxe&pid=196760627&fhid=18119
― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 9 September 2020 03:38 (three years ago) link
the last hippie. man, I remember hearing "Oscillations" as warm up music for a band I was seeing and just being astounded at how modern it still sounded. playing their s/t right now, what a goofy sounding band
― frogbs, Wednesday, 9 September 2020 04:00 (three years ago) link
Yeah when we first heard it in the early 90s, my circle at KUCI, we were all "Wait did these guys invent techno or something?" All that echo too, like you were feeling a set from one room over in the best of ways.
― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 9 September 2020 04:03 (three years ago) link
its definitely a lot funkier than a lot of the other music that claims to "invent techno"
― frogbs, Wednesday, 9 September 2020 04:04 (three years ago) link
Indeed so. Mike McGonigal, in sharing this news on Facebook, just posted this story:
One of my best DJ moments of ever was tag team style with Bill Berger at this strange spot next to Pyramid Club ca 1992, and Bill pointed at a middle aged dude playing pool and bet me a dollar I could not make that guy dance immediately. I put on the Silver Apples and probably never saw a dollar but dude started to uncontrollably shake his hips and we made it a bit louder and were impossibly happy.
― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 9 September 2020 04:11 (three years ago) link
From another thread -- folks are talking about an apparently amazing set he did at Brainwaves in 2008, and I have no doubt it was great. One attendee said this:
He was astoundingly friendly, down-to-earth, and talkative. When we were talking about his setup, early that day, he explained he needed to connect a CD player, because he was using pre-recorded drum loops. The drum tracks, it turns out, were recordings of his deceased Silver Apples bandmate Danny Taylor. Simeon's explanation: "Just cause he's dead doesn't mean he isn't still in the band."
― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 9 September 2020 04:13 (three years ago) link
Got to see Simeon play (as Silver Apples) at the Bohemian National Cemetery in Chicago in 2014. Great show, very grateful to have been there.
― JRN, Wednesday, 9 September 2020 04:25 (three years ago) link
Looks like Phil McMullen's interview with Simeon from the mid-90s that finally cleared up a lot of the history of the band hasn't been linked on this thread before, so:
http://www.terrascope.co.uk/MyBackPages/silver.html
― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 9 September 2020 04:27 (three years ago) link
The story about how they got the cover for Contact is all time:
The story about the cover for 'Contact' is funny. Barry and Danny and I were riding in a cab back from the airport talking about what we might call the second album. I had been thinking about the way people used to spin the props on old airplanes and yell "Contact" and how that meant the action was about to start, and about how the word "Contact" also had the connotation of reaching out to people and establishing communication. After bouncing it around in the cab, "Contact" it was. Barry started working with the Kapp people about a cover and they referred us to their advertising agency. These people had some "in" with Pan American Airlines and thought they could get us inside one of their airliners for a portrait type shot and we thought that could be a goof if we played it right. Pan Am arranged for the air controllers in the tower at Kennedy International direct all Pan Am incoming flights to a portion of the tarmac designated by the photographer, facing the sunset. The pilots all thought this was totally bizarre. This meant that all the passengers had to disembark onto the concrete and walk to the terminal while we boarded with the photographer and all of Pan Am's promo people. The sunset outside the windshield on the cover of that album is not air brushed in - it is the real thing. We only had a few minutes on each aircraft because they had to get the clean-up crews and the refuelling operation started for the next leg of the flight so we would set up, shoot for 10 minutes, then move on to the next airplane that was taxiing into the sunset and set up again. Danny and I had snuck a bunch of dope and dope paraphernalia aboard and scattered it about for each shoot. We just did it for a goof. All the rock and roll bands of the time were doing little (and not so little) dope songs and dope promotions and we thought it was silly. We smoked the occasional joint and did the occasional tab but that wasn't basis for a message or some big deal like it was with so many of the others. We did it on "Contact" for a giggle. Barry was in on it and was snickering and snorting in the background during all this to the point of distraction. The Pan Am representative was totally unaware of what we were doing and was pasting Pan Am logos in all the cockpits so as to be sure and get a plug for the airline on the record cover. Once we had the proofs, we had a good laugh, and Barry thought up the idea of taking it one step further. He had somebody at Time Magazine pull a photograph from their archives that was of a terrible airplane crash in Sweden. Lots of people were killed. He had me and Danny sit on a fence for a black and white shot, that he then had the ad agency's production department double-expose so it looked like we were playing banjos in a wreck. So the photo message of the album became: here these two freaks somehow manage to pilot one of these passenger jets with all their dope and they end up crashing the thing, somehow surviving intact, killing all the passengers, and could care less about the whole thing. When Pan Am saw the finished album they sued us for $100,000.00.
― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 9 September 2020 04:41 (three years ago) link
Oh man, 2020 is just one endless reel of bad news. RIP :(
― Specific and Limited Interests (Branwell with an N), Wednesday, 9 September 2020 06:36 (three years ago) link
Aw shit. Silver Apples in Beijing is still the only gig my wife has ever been to.
― Anti-Cop Ponceortium (Camaraderie at Arms Length), Wednesday, 9 September 2020 06:40 (three years ago) link
RIP
― the late great, Wednesday, 9 September 2020 07:16 (three years ago) link
Weren't you supposed to do a collab at a festival the year he got into the car crash, or am I misremembering?
Yes, forgot about that part! J just told me that she's lost all sorts of things over the years but still has his handwritten lyrics from when she asked him what they were as she couldn't make out some of the words. He was v generous with his time and support.
― ( X '____' )/ (zappi), Wednesday, 9 September 2020 16:58 (three years ago) link
Awesome, glad he stayed so active in musical drop-ins and his professional media gigs. Also contributed to a Monks trib I covered in the Voice, Silver Monk Time:Chicken-coop guest gusto generates an amen corner in Silver Apples x Alan Vega's incarnation of the title track. All I could make room for---the album was released in autumn of '06, xpost Katrina was third week of August '05, I think, so the track may have indeed been launched from something like a chicken coop, but as good as Link Wray recordings therein. Boy, what a spiritual affinity---can almost imagine a whole Silver Apples Suicide Monk Time.
― dow, Wednesday, 9 September 2020 18:15 (three years ago) link
With actual Monks, of course (Gary Burger showed up on the trib).
― dow, Wednesday, 9 September 2020 18:17 (three years ago) link
WT...?
― ABBA O RLY? (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 9 September 2020 18:21 (three years ago) link
Wikipedia has broken link to your article :( But can be found through google.
― ABBA O RLY? (James Redd and the Blecchs), Wednesday, 9 September 2020 18:24 (three years ago) link
RIP Simeon Cox What an amazing guy he was an inspiration not just musically But in life as we hung out many times over the yearsHopefully now him and Danny can play as silver apples in the sky as they were supposedvery sad x Thx to @adrianutley for introducing them to me pic.twitter.com/Ilc3hKP0zZ— Geoff Barrow (@jetfury) September 9, 2020
― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 9 September 2020 18:26 (three years ago) link
One last post about Simeon He was a true original and was still playing gigs into his 80’s We were lucky enough for him to Join Portishead One night when we played “we carry on” which is heavily inspired by silver applesRIP ❤️ Here is the Video > https://t.co/G1WhQhHj7s— Geoff Barrow (@jetfury) September 9, 2020
― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 9 September 2020 18:27 (three years ago) link
Glad they acknowledge how We Carry On is practically Portishead doing a Silver Apples song.
― ✖✖✖ (Moka), Wednesday, 9 September 2020 18:53 (three years ago) link
I think they might've been sampled a lot in the early 90's.
sampled in the late 90s - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxu2SHdhrbgHa, who done that? ;-)
I always think there's a bit of the start of Oscillations pitched down in this. Which I guess could be a an in joke i.e. low frequency oscillations.
https://youtu.be/t31IDNv8OBk
― grebo shot first (Noel Emits), Wednesday, 9 September 2020 19:13 (three years ago) link
i had never noticed that before. it does indeed sound like it and seems to be - https://www.whosampled.com/sample/519379/LFO-Advance-Silver-Apples-Oscillations/
― stirmonster, Wednesday, 9 September 2020 19:22 (three years ago) link
Ha, who done that? ;-)
:-)
― stirmonster, Wednesday, 9 September 2020 19:24 (three years ago) link
That site says the first artist to sample Silver Apples was....
Deee-Lite:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIknLI-yFiw
― Jersey Al (Albert R. Broccoli), Wednesday, 9 September 2020 19:34 (three years ago) link
his "bakers dozen" at the Quietus is full of good quotes:
https://thequietus.com/articles/10584-simeon-coxe-silver-apples-favourite-albums
He was overtly out of the box gay before it was fashionable and the straight people trying to interview him were guaranteed to be caught totally off guard by his wackiness. He wore gobs of eye liner and makeup at a time when it was totally shocking! It was always a howl to watch him yank their chains. And don't underestimate his musicianship - or his lyrics! "Tutti fruiti, allrootey! Tutti fruiti, allrootey! Whoooo... Tutti fruiti, allrootey! Tutti fruiti, allrootey! Tutti fruiti, allrootey! A whop baba loo bop ah whop bam boom!" Now that's some kinda lyrics!
Ellas Bates, a guitar player from Mississippi, decided to call himself Bo Diddley and wrote his first song and called it 'Bo Diddley'. Then he wrote 'Hey, Bo Diddley', then he wrote 'Go, Bo Diddley', then he wrote 'Diddley Daddy', and everybody loved him because of that 'dah, dada, dah (pause) da dah' beat. He got on the Ed Sullivan Show by promising to play a big Merle Travis hit song called 'Sixteen Tons'. Instead he played (guess what) 'Bo Diddley' and got himself banned forever from the Ed Sullivan Show.He was my hero.
One time I got up to go take a leak and there was an African warrior balanced on the urinal playing a saxophone. Amazing... and beer was only 25 cents a mug.
All I know is that Bela Bartok took the power of Beethoven and launched it into the 20th century with music that explores the very edges of ordered dissonance and harmonic tension without ever letting it break up into chaos. I don't understand any of this stuff, but damn I love it.
― frogbs, Wednesday, 9 September 2020 19:57 (three years ago) link
Silver Apples in Beijing is still the only gig my wife has ever been to.
Still trying to wrap my head around a. Only one gig, and b. that it was Silver Apples. That's amazing.
― Orson Well Yeah (Dan Peterson), Wednesday, 9 September 2020 22:28 (three years ago) link
It's a bit of a cheat as we did go to a festival in the suburb we lived in, where we saw a couple of bands play a song or so each, still basically true.
Here are some photos I took -
In May 2011 I took my wife to see Silver Apples at Yugongyishan in Beijing, it is still the only gig she's been to. Simeon looked ancient already, his machinery was otherworldly, imagine carrying *this* around the world. RIP Simeon, thanks for the unforgettable sounds. pic.twitter.com/goA15LE2iN— Centuries of Sound (@Centuries_Sound) September 9, 2020
― Anti-Cop Ponceortium (Camaraderie at Arms Length), Wednesday, 9 September 2020 22:35 (three years ago) link
Only one gig: if "only" one ever, Silver Apples wouldn't be too bad!(James, whomever: what with xpost linkrot never sleeping, I dhould have thought to direct you to my nice clean archive of Voice pieces---unlike the ghostsite, this has the Silver Apples mention [now slightly tightened yet again], after snipping a few other words to honor the Great Voice Word Limit of Mid-00s, which taught me a lot: https://myvil.blogspot.com/2016/06/silver-monk-time-tribute-to-monks.html)
― dow, Wednesday, 9 September 2020 22:47 (three years ago) link
Saw him at Big Ears 2015, with Toby Dammit (also Knoxville!) on drums. It was really good, he was super into it.
Our local library's archive arm dug up and posted some things from the local paper: his parents' wedding, his birth announcement, and a hometown paper interview with him from 1968.
https://www.facebook.com/tamisarchive/posts/3273809322706502
― a man often referred to in the news media as the Duke of Saxony (tipsy mothra), Thursday, 10 September 2020 04:12 (three years ago) link
Thanks for sharing that quietus list, frogbs! Some really great writing there! Also, that The Offset album is a banger!!
― Fetchboy, Thursday, 10 September 2020 05:18 (three years ago) link
I was just about to post that lol
I've never heard it before and it's CRAZY good (The Offset)
― you’re crying, I’m farting (flamboyant goon tie included), Thursday, 10 September 2020 15:35 (three years ago) link
Love that Quietus feature. He’s got a really entertaining form of writing about music he loves.
― ✖✖✖ (Moka), Thursday, 10 September 2020 15:55 (three years ago) link