RFI : Silver Apples

I have the recent compilation job of both their albums, and I can recommend it with the reservation that a few tracks over-indulge themselves in a kind of proto-prog sense. Not everything they did is great, but I can attach my affinity to "Oscillations", "Seagreen Serenades", "Lovefingers", "Program", "I Have Known Love" and "A Pox On You". And I might name others once I've played it again. It's certainly better than a comparable Brit-made LP of the same period which I've been playing this weekend, the White Noise's "Electric Storm" which, while charming and very enjoyable, does make me yearn for the discipline within which (the involved) Delia Derbyshire and Brian Hodgson were *forced* to work in their dayjobs.

"A Pox On You" !!! What a great title. My phrase for the day.

i have the 2 albums on one cd thing as well. its ok, but i get the feeling that it should have been a lot better than it actually was (didn't capture their sound, whatever... don't know how true this is though)

strangely, my favourite record is when they reformed in about 96? and put out a 7" on enraptured records (fractal flow and a rerecorded version of, shit, um, lovefingers i think). that is a great single. good cover too.

i read somewhere that silver apples played some festival in nyc in 69 to accompany the moon landing, and there was really heavy rain, and simeon had all these electronics and then the mayor of nyc came on stage at the end of the set and shook simeons hand and got electrocuted in fron of, like, 20000 people. i don't know how true this story is. can anyone confirm?

Don't know about the mayor being electrocuted, but I have to agree that they SHOULD have been better than they were. Still, they're interesting and a necessary step in the development of popular electronic music. What Bruce Haack was doing in children's music at the time (and shortly after with "Electric Lucifer") actually seems more progressive--as well as more fun. Still, without "A Pox On You" there might have been no Suicide.