Electro-Glitch Pop in the 1960s: The Unreal Sounds & Story of Silver Apples

so I was playing through my daily mix when I came across this song I bought huh what a cool glitchy sound must be some new Animal Collective inspired band I haven't heard of yet with this Banksy style artwork in these retro vocals led to my surprise I saw the record was from 1968 what the so this experimental pop record which I assumed was made by some hipsters with SB 404s was actually made over 50 years ago on god-knows-what analog equipment the band was called Silver Apples and on top of being way ahead of their time they had a wild three-year run that involved gigs with mc5 and t-rex playing at the moon landing watch party in Central Park and ultimately getting screwed out of the music industry because of an album covered that cross the line so this is the story of a band who invented electronic and experimental pop music and then almost became forgotten until 30 years later the story begins with Simeon Cox and Danny Taylor two young counterculture musicians in Manhattan who were playing in a blues rock band one day Simeon brought a world war two oscillator to a gig and began making these crazy sounds over their music what did his bandmates think of it well they hated it they thought it was awful but I loved it and so did Danny Taylor who was the drummer he loved it and so did the manager the club he said we were gonna fire you guys but do more of that stuff the rest of the band members quit but Simeon and Danny decided to continue under a new name Silver Apples Simeon would add eight more oscillators as well as filters fuzz units and echo awawa and anything else he could find the gargantuan machine was nicknamed the theme by Simeon but everyone else just called it the Simeon like it was some extension of him Danny Taylor adjusted his drumming to match the repetitive droning nature of the oscillators as Simeon described it he decided to explore the whole idea of drumming in patterns not beats amazingly the band's first gig is a two-piece would be in front of 30,000 people in Central Park the band had to start setting up early in the morning to make sure they'd be ready by the 3:00 p.m. start time and prayed all the equipment would function under the unique circumstances luckily everything worked and a crowd was attentively curious because it was such an unusual sound the reaction from the audiences at first was this almost self-defense it took maybe 10 minutes and they would begin to get it and the next thing you know it's a party [Music] to be clear Silver Apples work the first musicians to use oscillators or signal processing after World War two electro-acoustic musicians began manipulating and splicing tape to create vast compositions like Gila canes drip City from 1955 around the same time Stockhausen was making purely synthesized music and John Cage was playing with radio static and modified pianos on national TV but all of these musicians considered their work classical for an audience of academics and theater goers a far cry from the smokey Manhattan pubs that Silver Apples and rock fans in general would habitate on the west coast there was a rock band doing a somewhat similar thing called the United States of America the band featured a dedicated electronics player Joseph Berg however their sons tended to be more traditional psychedelic rock with electronic sounds added over the top [Music] still pretty awesome nonetheless but back to the Silver Apples worried about them spread quickly through the underground music scene and they'd soon get a record deal from a local indie label cap records however the labels in-house producer was so terrified of the Simeon and the sounds it made that Silver Apples had to engineer their first record themselves resulting in the sometimes low five but surprisingly strong record the album self-titled Silver Apples was released to high acclaim from rock music's freakier fanbase they played shows with bands like Jethro Tull mc5 and t-rex and attracted fans like Andy Warhol John Lennon and for some reason New York City's then Mayor John Lindsay perhaps it was the fact that Silver Apples could gather swarms of hippies away from the streets and into city parks whenever they played a free concert or perhaps he genuinely liked their avant-garde sound but either way he once dubbed them the sound of New York and commissioned them to write a song for the Apollo 11 moon landing which they later performed during a watch party in Central Park over 10,000 people gathered and braved a downpour to watch Neil Armstrong take his first steps then here Silver Apples us in the future as Simeon described there was this tingling sexy frightening scary theme coursing through my body I was singing my heart out and Armstrong was stepping onto the moon human beings were entering a new era and thousands of people were crying with happiness soaking wet and seeming and hugging each other and if that doesn't sound crazy enough Silver Apples had another VIP connection in Jimi Hendrix the band members met Jimi in 1966 when he was a struggling blues guitarist in the blue flames three years later they were recording in the same studio with Jimi's time slot coming right after the Silver Apples on occasion they would jam together during the overlap we were doing a show on the fourth of July and we wanted to do our version electronic version of the star-spangled banner' about 4:00 in the morning in walks Jimi Hendrix he said I'm doing the same damn thing let me show you what I'm doing and so he started playing some of his stuff and I set together my bass oscillator so the Rockies - with him fortunately the guy in the booth had the sense to roll tapes later on Jimmy came an ad and watered maybe two more guitar tracks to it [Music] all of this begs the question what happened why did a band with so much intrigue and star endorsement become almost unknown today first to get the obvious reasons out of the way the sound is very out there and not always super pleasant it's obvious they were never going to grace the AM airwaves however freakier bands than the Silver Apples came out of the 60s with long careers a New York City was an exceptionally fertile place for experimental pop music through the 70s and 80s so why did this band suddenly disappear the beginning of the end came with their second record of contact for the album cover their agency struck a deal with pan and allowing the band to photograph themselves inside the cockpit of an airplane in exchange for a visible Pan Am logo on the cover what Pan Am didn't realize is that the back of the record would show the wreckage of an actual plane crash well you can imagine what the executives at Pan Am went through when they saw that the result was a lawsuit that hold the record off the shelves and prevented the band from playing live because it was classified as promoting the record we had to go into hiding because they had city marshals coming to try to confiscate our equipment and Lua in lieu of some kind of payment or something and so Danny and I just wanted to hide just disappeared and that was pretty much the end of the band after that yeah yeah we went it disappeared as much into the woodwork as you can Simeon gave up on music altogether and moved to Alabama where he works odd jobs and took up sailing as his new life passion as he told the Guardian I thought if I can't be a Silver Apple then I don't want to play music I pretty much forgot about it I figured it was a failed experiment that would never be resurrected and he may have been right however the same year Silver Apples called it quits in 1970 another duo emerged having seen the apples play around the city they were inspired to also use electronic instruments to make glitchy pop music they called themselves suicide and they became one of the most influential bands of the emerging New York punk scene he's a little cute for the next two decades the Silver Apples discography was kept alive by bootlegs and spread word of mouth by music nerds and hipsters and the 90s fans like Portishead spiritualize din stereolab would cite Silver Apples as an influence all of this newfound attention inspired simian to provide the project in 1996 which he's been doing ever since Denny Taylor passed away in 2005 and rather than perform with the new drummer simian decided to sample all of his drum parts [Music] [Music] [Applause] if you want to check out more videos about unique genres of music and interesting band stories be sure to check out this channel and subscribe

Channel: Bandsplaining

Views: 1,250,760

Rating: 4.9580793 out of 5

Keywords: max's kansas city, cbgb, suicide band, ghost rider, portishead, new york city, new york underground music, 60s music, early EDM, vintage EDM, vintage electronic music, jimi hendrix, moon landing, john lindsay, moon landing watch party, central park moon landing watch party, electroacoustic music, musique concrete, signal processing, oscillators, early electronic music

Id: 5DQiexiUjAs

Length: 9min 50sec (590 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 13 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/mondayvacation]

Someone asked about the controversial album cover and then deleted their comment after I had typed all this out, so I’m gonna post it here:

They got permission from Pan Am to take a picture of themselves in the cockpit of an airplane for the front cover (in exchange for a small PanAm logo visible in the picture), but then on the back cover they were photographed in the wreckage of a real plane crash.

PanAm thought it would subconsciously cause distrust in their airplanes by people who equate them with the crash, so they sued Silver Apples.

Silver Apples couldn’t afford to pay the excessive amount, so they agreed to essentially just give up the music stuff. Pretty fucked up of PanAm obviously.

Simeon (singer, frontman) moved to Alabama and took up sailing, then brought back the band in ‘98 for a third album after bands like Suicide and some others cited Silver Apples as inspiration and there was a renewed interest in the band. Danny Taylor died in ‘05, so (my favorite part) Simeon now only uses recordings and samples of Taylor’s drumming for new music and for live performances. Really cool and humble guy.

[u/Anthonybyh1]

Simeon has been gigging and making music again for years and years. I'm his promoter in London. His latest album Edge of Wonder is fantastic.

Unfortunately when last heard from his agent it seems he thinks he's too frail to do anymore touring.

[u/mondayvacation]

Also all their stuff is on Spotify now!

[u/toto224]

Thank you for sharing!!

[u/der_innkeeper]

BBC RadioPhonic Workshop would like a word...

[u/keysercade]

Very cool

[u/athomehesatourist]

I first heard this band in 2010 and was similarly blown away by the fact their music was from 1968. Occasionally I catch myself humming “Oscillation / Oscillation / Electronic Evocation”.

[u/insaneintheblain]

And this corporate censorship decides what you do or do not see - it shapes your entire reality.

[u/Limp_Distribution]

Very cool, thanks for sharing.

It’s a good reminder that big corporate interests can squelch creativity in the name of profit.

Not necessarily a good thing for society.