As a young boy, I fell in love with the music of the Silver Apples. I have an original (vinyl) copy of their first album. I was 15 when it dropped in '68. It's one of my prized musical possessions.
@@InfiniteGrenades Back in the 60s there was a radio station in Philadelphia called WIBG FM. No DJs... just programmed music. They played mostly psychedelic rock featuring bands such as Hendrix, Pink Floyd, Iron Butterfly, Blue Cheer, etc. Silver Apples was in pretty heavy rotation.
Meester Feesher Oh man...do U even realize,the substance of the question U were asking?If U do ,then U will realize why,U failed 2 receive a reply. I mean really,what dimension are U from?Did the Stargate U materialized from suffer an incomplete transmission,leaving some essential particles scattered about,in the wormhole?🤔
@@MattFisherComedy You know, I really don't remember. Here is a little snippet from Philly Radio Archives: _At this point, half of the day's programming was provided by a Gates automation system. At first it was a mix of pop standards, country and classical, but by the spring of 1968, some progressive rock was being played, although it was without announcers._
I'm so glad Simeon played again before passing on. I loved Suicide (R.I.P. Vega) early, but was late to grab their Silver Apples inspiration. May they all rock in peace. Blessed Be.
Rest In Power Simeon (with all the great artists from New York, Sylvain Sylvain, and Walter Lure died around the same time too) hopethere'sinstrumentsupthere...
@@anonUK it was also cheaper. "Surplus" used to go for pennies on the dollar. Many bikers also took advantage of this with their uniforms and spare parts
I do believe if they had played another public concert and gotten arrested for playing they would be one of the most talked about bands of the century.
There would have been a public outcry over the incident, bolstering their public image as the band that got censored by 'the man.' It would have been glorious.
The same thing would also happen if they just made better music. There was so much good music in the late 60s/early 70s, but this ain't it. This is just some cringey avant-garde shit.
He sampled him instead of finding someone new because his friend lives on through that beat. That's his legacy, his conciousness beating those drums for eternity.
2:49 this shot really struck me. The innocent humanity of children leaning into this mass of mechanical contaptions is a cool setup to start with, but more than that...... the pic seems to catch this pure, innocent curiosity and interest that all kids have before the world teaches them what they can and can't be curious about. They aren't afraid of this noisy Franken-machine, just fascinated. I love it.
I just happened to find both originals of these Silver Apples albums on vinyl in a thrift store record bin yesterday. Had no idea what they were but knew they were more than the typical stuff found in thrift shops. So happy I picked them up and came here to learn more. Best $4 ever spent. This music is incredible. Thanks for this history lesson on the Silver Apples.
Back in the '90s when I actually owned a vinyl record player and CD/tape deck boombox I loved haunting the fleamarkets of my area in Queens, NY finding these jewels. I also had to keep an eye out for any 1970s European disco related (my mother's requests).
I saw A24’s movie Civil War today and GASPED as I heard Lovefingers by Silver Apples playing in a scene, really fitting and kinda unnerving. Crazy small world!
Im an old school UK based indie head and these guys actually were kinda big amongst the more "muso" indie types back in the 90s. You'd often hear a DJ spin some Silver Apples tunes in amongst the other psyche stuff in the back room at the end of an indie night.
That sounds so cool, like so authentic, sometimes I wanna be in those eras, when all's well. Indie now is like all that bedroom pop shit, fucking homogenous and boring asf.
@@marcusantonius6683 Indie pop back then was generic shit too. Only the shit that's lowest common denominator gets noticed because that's what's likely to sell.
@Sarah Wilson Pan-Am is still a registered trademark. So there may still be legal repercussions for using the logo on the cover. Safe idea would be to airbrush Pan-Am out of the pic.
This is a cult band that lots of music heads have known about for a while (same with Neu, Cluster, Can, Jean Jacques Perry, pre-Autobahn Kraftwerk). Just seemed to stay within certain circles. This is what I love about RU-vid, anybody can stumble upon great shit a lot easier.
I first heard Silver Apples playing over the sound system in a now defunct rock bar and was blown away when the owner told me the album was from the late 60s. Absolutely mental how ahead of their time they were
Got to meet the Simean in 1998 when he played in Portland. We took a picture and he gave me a copy of his new album, since I was too young to get in to the club. I was 18.
capitalism is an illness. that illness destroys everything lively and beautiful and in our age we can even see it destroying the planet's climate system.
ironic joke about a recent plane crash? be as thick skinned as you want but come on, of course they got flack for that. it just wasn't a smart move. i would have liked to see an explanation for why they did that though, not much was offered.
1:55 I have that same model of oscillator (signal generator) in my repair shop. I still use it to repair audio amplifiers. Didn't know it was that old!
Jim actually "predicted" music would be more electronic in the future rather than actual traditional voices and instruments. I'm not really a huge fan of it myself I like a classic rock sound still. Just as I would prefer seeing a live gig rather than just dance at a disco with some dj.
I supported SA last time he was in town a few years ago. He is super old now but is still out there playing shows with his cool AF semi modular setup. Im just a lowly electronic weirdo myself, but simeon was the nicest, most supportive guy of his calibre that ive met in music, next to the dude from Faust, who I also opened for, who gave me a t shirt and smoked some of my weed. It's gonna be a sad day when Simeon leaves us, but I think he's got a lot more left in him yet.
I love how you described the artwork as "Banksy style" when It has been speculated that one half of the trip-hop duo Massive Attack (3D) is Banksy. It would make perfect sense if he got musical and visual inspiration from Silver Apples to make experimental music and artwork.
I highly recommend the Silver Apples music as well as United States of America and Suicide. But I really don't understand how they failed to foresee that Pan Am would object to the picture on the back combined with their logo on the front.
I'm realizing what a different time it was in 1968 vs 1978. The music industry hated controversy. Getting busted with weed was a death sentence. Zappa had his career put on pause because of an obscenity charge. Rick James was blacklisted because of his draft dodger status. But then, a decade later, you get the Sex Pistols and suddenly all press is good press.
@@Bandsplaining It was a different time, sure, but I don't think that kind of thing would fly even now. (pun intended) Can you imagine if the front cover was a Starbucks shop and the back cover was the remains of the same shop blown up by a bomb? They'd have the same reaction and be rightfully pissed. It was a terrible attempt at being edgy and resulted in only cringe.
Unreal! You found the Silver Apples. They opened for jethro Tull's first US performance at they Boston Tea Party. A Dayglo dungeon in Boston. I was 17 and my mind was blown forever! Great stuff.
They went into the studio to record an album and the engineer was so afraid of one of their musical instruments? Are you saying actual fear kept this man out of the studio?
This is slightly off topic, but re: the band Suicide, Bruce Springsteen, who is a contemporary of theirs and most likely saw Suicide perform - has a song or two on his Nebraska album which were heavily influenced by their sound.
@@Ryan-wx8of cause they are old... I promise you that when some of the kids that use social media become the powerful they will know how to silence people.
That "WW2 oscillator" is called a voltage controlled oscillator. VCO's are used to output oscillating electric fields with a frequency dependent on an input DC voltage. They're at the heart of many fundamental electronics designs that make modern telecommunications tech possible.
Fortunately someone here in Gothenburg had the good sense to book the remaining Silver Apple for a concert not too long ago and publicize it just enough. It was a real treat, as you'd expect. Never thought I'd get to hear it live.
Electronic music. The greatest and most diverse music there is imho. Literally no boundries and the only genre that keeps inventing itself over and over again! 🙂🙏🏼
@@user-rc4re5fo2f Thats true for some styles perhaps.. But the fresh deeper stuff isnt just recycling my man. Boundaries are limitless! And the fact that electronic music keeps better and more advanched, is due computer technique and software whats getting better and way more dynamic etc etc..
@@user-rc4re5fo2f lol, It's the most diverse by definition, hence it takes such a long time to explore all the possibilities. 'Human' means nothing, since everything's a human creation, including the electronic devices themselves. Hypnotism and mechanicality are just another of possible forms of expression. And since the dawn of civilization music was, in 99,99% of the cases, about recycling and replaying existing themes.
Giorgio Moroder took this and mastered it into what we know as electronic music, electronic artists today are still copying bits from his music and making it into their own. Impressive to hear the roots of where it all began!
Exactly. I literally said "oh my god...🤦♀️" when they showed the back cover. I guess it was a different time back then and they thought it was no big deal lmao.
There's a lot of harsh album covers out there. What made this one controversial was simply the logo being exposed and Pan Am not realizing their intentions of using the back photo. They could of used a pic with no logo. Yeah too bad they didn't talk about the consequences before following through with their choice.
Man you people genuinely disturb me. You have no understanding of what youre actually talking about. Censorship is a disease. You truely see this art as some distasteful edgy trash, then fine, i thinks thats a ridiculous take, but you have your opinions. But acting like it shouldn't be allowed is outrageous.
@@CheshireCad if you honestly think this art was made with the same juvenile, edgy, motivation of just getting a reaction or offending people, as "its just a prank bro", i think you're being naive and ridiculous. First of all i dont think the image is offensive at all, but even if you find it offensive that does not mean thats the only emotional response it can provoke, and just because it holds not emotional or artistic value to you doesnt mean it cant for others. If you dont enjoy it thats fine, but you have no right to invalidate others appreciation for it
Here after Civil War used Lovefingers in the opening. Amazing how both Silver Apples and Suicide were featured in that movie. I wonder if you're video maybe influenced Alex Garland's choice of both of these bands being in the movie.
That would be an incredible ego boost 😅😅. But I reckon the two bands are just commonly linked because Silver Apples was extremely influential to Suicide, and the only “biography” of Silver Apples was a chapter in the Suicide memoir. A man can dream tho…
Great video. I'm so glad you mentioned United States of America. Such an underrated band. Check out Fifty Foot Hose as well!! Their Cauldron album is fantastic, and recorded in 67' with lots of synths and weird sounds.
PLEASE do a video about White Noise! They were doing electronic music around the same time if not earlier and they have a super interesting story. Their album took a couple of years to produce because they put every tiny tape sample together manually. It's CRAZY. It's very of its time but also still ahead of the times. They're one of my favorites, I would love to see you talk about them. Their album is called "An Electric Storm"
Well, I think the ‘Futurist movement’ of the 20s, Stockhausen, the ‘Musique Concrete’ movement in the 40s , and Delia Derbyshire in the early 60s we’re experimenting with electronic music before these chaps. Perhaps not so ‘pop’, but Delia Derbyshire’s Doctor Who theme in 1963 was definitely groundbreaking and very popular, but yes, these guys are definitely pioneers that deserve more notoriety for sure, they even beat Kraftwerk by at least a year :) PS: clearly I rattled this off before you went further into depth. Trigger happy me.
Some other interesting early electronic recordings: CSIRAC (1950-51) -- /watch?v=x7MmrfRr0Hg Raymond Scott - The Rhythm Modulator (1954) -- /watch?v=o6VsZiNjjZE Tom Dissevelt & Kid Baltan (Dick Raaymakers) - Song of the Second Moon (1957) -- /watch?v=bVl2_MSwmSA
Just when I think I know all there is to know about the roots of electronic music something else comes along to give me a new rabbit hole to explore. I declare this weekend to be silver apples exploration weekend.
Kraut Rock Can and still is amazing to this day. Kraftwerk, Radiohead all techno / house hip hop but these guys were 50 years ahead of their time. I used to say the same about CAN when I found them in the 80's. Arcade Fire and other pop/ rock bands sounds like them. What a find. digging it. Literally found these guys 15 minutes ago. They influenced generations of music. As a DJ I'm embarassed I never had heard of them and Im 50 years old.
Wow...that takes me back...in the early 70s, I got a calculator as a birthday present...it had a flourescent green numeric display. I discovered that depending on the number displayed, it would cause an AM radio to emit a tone. And during particular complicated calculations (like hitting the square root button), it would create a rhythmic beat that would not be out of place in more modern music. I played around with this as a kid and even tried my hand at making some songs...but I'm more of a techie than an artist...
Ahead of their time. But then the world caught up with them in the 1970s and beyond. Now anyone can make a record of whoosh-y space sounds over a MIDI ostinato part for under $1000.
The world is still trying to catch up with them. Your last sentence is as meaningless as saying something along the lines of “any three year old could have done that” when looking at a Jackson Pollock.
@@orcaflotta7867 absolute bollocks mate , hawkwind made there best music after lemmy was kicked out ,the Robert Calvert era of hawkwind is the best ,lemmy was a speed freak , hence his nickname Motörhead ,lemmy is a legend but he was not a massive part of hawkwind, you need to listen to more hawkwind mate , he wasn’t the original bass player and he wasn’t the last , I recommended quark strangeness and charm , or anything from the Calvert era
I LOVE the fact that he went on, keeping with his original antique hardware. The exquisite oscillators, and old testing equipment. Very ‘bleeding edge avant grade’. I wonder if there’s any relation between these guys and Morton Subotnik? THANKS FOR SHARING!
I'd never heard of these guys! At first I thought this was going to be about the experimental electronic Morton Subotnick album Silver Apples of the Moon. I'd find it hard to believe if that wasn't where they got their name from though. The album came out the same year they were founded.
My teacher was really into this band and other pop and LSD inspired songs. She was pretty cool, sadly she retired, I will miss her playing those songs when we got bored.
Glad I could shake Simeons hasnds 7+ years ago. Still shocked by this news (for me), such a huge influence for generations to come. And in my opinion the very first instance of a synth pop duo long before synths even existed.
That’s what I thought when I heard them (him) about 10 years ago. Like how did I miss this I listen to college radio constantly. Bought it immediately and found out when it came out and how far ahead of its time it was.
Me and my crate-digging, Hip Hop Head, friends have a GOLDEN rule: Any album from the year 1968-1974 BUY IT IMMEDIATELY, it will have magic on it 99.9% of the time.
