silver apples/photo:feMaria am Ostbahnhof: Wednesday, March 5:
Formed in New York, 1967, Silver Apples was the music project that consisted of percussionist Danny Taylor and vocalist Simeon Coxe. Taylor would perform on an extensive drum kit their clear and decisive beat and Simeon, apart from doing vocals, would manage the duo’s peculiar home made synthesizer, constructed by the latter. The intelligence of two diverse units of sound telling the same story with such unusual for the cause instruments as narration vehicles is what makes Silver Apples a unique and avant-garde sound project to the present day.
silver apples/maria/photo: chrisaphenia danai
Tragically fortuned, the band never appeared after 1999 when a car accident occurred. Their touring van was crushed, leaving Simeon with a broken neck and a lot of spinal injuries. No sooner than 2005 did Simeon Coxe ever appear, only to comment on the sad death of his old band mate and friend Danny Taylor. Probably to the surprise of the most, in 2007 Simeon brought Silver Apples again on the musical surface and started touring again. This time, his only sound armour was the oscillator device of which he is the master and creator. According to the notes on the band’s debut, self-titled LP this construction consists of "nine audio oscillators piled on top of each other and eighty-six manual controls to control lead, rhythm and bass pulses with hands, feet and elbows".
On the 5th of March of 2008, Simeon Coxe performed Silver Apples’ songs on the stage of Maria am Ostbahnhof. Him and his uncanny machine housed their unusually said views on beauty, decorating the room with what was long expected to be heard and not even believed to ever be seen live by the younger generations.
promo: silverGiving the audience the chance to experience the passage from late sixties’ American avant-garde underground and terms like “electronic rock” to terms like “krautrock”, Simeon’s odd figure instructed the trip through the land of Silver Apples, a garden of all the modern musical styles we know today.
Looking somewhat of a pilot behind the oscillators put together in an analogue festivity, without conjuring impressions up nor unnecessary bodily manifestations, Simeon drove the spaceship as a real scientist ought to. Accurately projected by the venue’s placement, the back live filming projection confined the space to this otherplace cabinet of audio events. The bare machinery, the knit cables, the typewriter looking keys, the complexity, yet honesty by total visibility of the sound generator and last but not least, the tangibility of the audio occurrence elevated the performance to an otherworldly level. (I recall saying, “I can’t believe it” a lot of times during the show).
Despite it’s small size, the audience was a dedicated group of people craving for documenting with their own ears the always questioned if intentional musical evolution of later experimental and avant-rock audio species. Silver Apples land though, was nothing to be expected. Instead of watching a band from the past as if put in a museum booth, the audience was utterly undertaken by the “reminding of” sounds, at times dancing to proper techno or electro, or swaying in hazy oscillations and travelling to grown-up playgrounds.
The very enthusiastic encore and the final audience – performer dialogue came to seal the event with magical success and real quality pleasure.
-- chrisaphenia danai.
