Silver Apples C or D/S&D

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

Thanks for sharing that quietus list, frogbs! Some really great writing there! Also, that The Offset album is a banger!!

I was just about to post that lol

I've never heard it before and it's CRAZY good (The Offset)

Love that Quietus feature. He’s got a really entertaining form of writing about music he loves.

finally coming around to the idea that Contact is better than the s/t. it's so relentlessly freaky and the drumming on it is absolutely sick. I get its really abrasive but that's part of the charm. I mean who else would let the phone ring through an entire 6 minute track?

They’re both truly great but it’s still the first album 100% for me…I feel like it’s got kind of a murkier sound that suits the music better and the oscillator stuff is wilder and there’s still plenty of chaos going on even if it’s not mixed as out front…plus I think I just prefer the songs overall. Saw Simeon do a small show under the Silver Apples name about a decade ago and it was outstanding.

s/t has the better songs but they are actual pop songs with logical progressions, as opposed to Contact where they seem to lose control of everything. even on I Have Known Love there are all those weird repeated lines, and the melody sometimes doesn't quite fit the meter - a lot of the songs come off like it's only the first or second time they're playing it. on Fantasies that might even be true. I love how Simeon gives all these directions to Taylor during the song, and at one point completely flubs the lyrics because he can't read his handwriting

i just realized that two of my fave Silver Apples songs are on Contact (You and I, I Have Known Love). I also saw Simeon perform about 10 years ago at Big Ears and it was FANTASTIC. I probably mentioned it on here 10 years ago it was so good. I love the unhinged quality of the songs, like they are about to go off the rails at any minute but the melodies just rein it right back in. Love!

"Ruby", when I heard it on a bootleg reissue of the albums circa 1995/6 got me into checking out bluegrass!

was just thinking about that silver apples show/big ears 2015 (?) a couple days ago, LL! can't believe how time flies

never listened to contact, remedying that now

don't sleep on The Garden, that assembled archival album that's half what the proposed 3rd Apples album would've been and half Simeon playing over old tapes of Danny Taylor. I've probably said it before but it's like proto-Zolo in spots, really drives home how odd these folks were. hard to believe Taylor's drumming hasn't been sampled constantly, could've changed entire genres if only people knew about this stuff

if nothing else you gotta hear their cover of Mustang Sally, hard to tell if they like the song or are making fun of it