Yes The Silver Apples playing round the corner from here, how could I miss that opportunity!
I got in during Get Lights Be Lights or whatever they were called were playing their drone repeating almost shoegazing stuff, the best bit of what I saw was the blue lazer box the
guitarist used to hold down the strings where he would normally strum or solo and to do all the variation in his neck work. It sounded great too, nicely distorted and helping to get the packed crowd ready.
Before Silver Apples came on they showed a 15 minute documentary about the band giving their history of there two legendary albums from 68 and 69 and the grand total of 3 gigs they played
back then with talking heads including Alan Vega, James Lavelle and Jack Dangers. It also explains that since Danny Taylor's demise the reformed Silver apples use Danny's drums as samples so his ghost is onstage with us tonight!!
Then Simeon emerges looking like Hunter S Thompsons brother and starts to kick all the machines into gear. He is standing behind piles of ancient and modern synths and gadgets, oscillators etc and blimey his voice still sounds just as weird as it does on the self titled debut, maybe not quite as high but still way off in a Velvet Cave. I'm not gonna claim to know exactly what he played as it sent my stoned brain off on a real trip and most of the set was spent inside this swirl of sound that had my eyes out of focus and my mind fracturing to the sounds of the future in 1968 in the present of 2010 where they sound like modern day dance music with a twist. Simeon is taking us in his Whirly Bird to visit the Dancing Gods in his Fantasies and ours.
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Somewhere just after the incredible Oscillations had fried my brain he brought out Special Guest and long term Silver Apples advocate Sonic Boom who I haven't see play for about 10 years to play treated guitar and Theremin and he had a huge Theremin mounted on a purposely wobbly stand. I think the first song they did together was Confusion but don't quote me on that I was toast by this point. Sonic's guitar playing was at the EAR end of his career rather than the Spacemen 3 end, although when they did A Pox On You, Simeon introduced it as a song both of them had recorded and he did put on some Spectrum flourishes.
I have to say this was a special moment hearing this classic live they also did some of the tunes they put out together that I don't have, but they were way out of it space case sounds as you'd expect.
They went off to thunderous applause and came back for one last song for an encore. That I think was You And I off of Contact but I'm fuzzy as hell on the details. Whatever, it was a stonking good gig and great that in 2010 Silver Apples can tour Europe!
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