Seagreen Serenades
By Silver Apples
“It starts with a bunch of friends in New York’s East Village in the late 1960s.”
The youthful gang is coming of age and is now stepping into the world—a bohemian collective. Some drifters, wanderers.The young men, however, aren't short of any purpose and have invested a significant amount of their time - hours, days, weeks, months - doing the most natural thing musically literate young adults do - starting a band.
Quintessential New Yorkers, the clique of young men are nonconformists, attributable to the counterculture attitudes of the times. They mess around with the prospects of a serious music industry career in an unpredictable world. They are well aware of the possibilities for individual and/or collective triumph - depending on how you define being triumphant - or otherwise. They're fully committed.
Revolution was in the air. The band was, at least, passive revolutionists and let it be known. John Lindsay, a moderate Republican - previously on a Commission by President Lyndon B. Johnson on riots and a staunch anti-unionist - was the New York City Mayor. Richard Nixon was the incoming Administration.
“Woodstock would take place Upstate the following summer in 1969.”
Simeon Coxe is the band's lead singer, and he's flanked by Danny Taylor, the drummer, and three guitarists, making up five altogether. Mid-concert on a particular night, one of many at the Cafe Wha?, Simeon experiments with some unknown audio equipment, incorporating the gear's put-out into the songs. He had collected and put together the gear himself - which in and of itself should not be an issue; the question is the resulting sound. A question of aesthetics. Taste.
Of course, the exodus that ensued did not deter the frontman. In fact, it was Coxe's creative choices to increasingly experiment with sounds from this homemade gear that put the band on edge and, finally, its collapse. However, that 'last-straw-that-broke-the-camel's-back' came to define Coxe's musical future and, ultimately, his legacy. And thus, the Silver Apples were born, a duo. Just Simeon and Danny.
What can, at this point, only be identified as some gizmo is, in fact, a do-it-yourself invention by Coxe. It has an excessive amount of oscillators, old ones from the 1940s that are said to have been from World War II, and some effects pedals. Coxe managed to amass and assemble components salvaged from various places, including the streets, and it was, quite frankly, trash.
The glitchy sounds emitted foreshadowed most of today's electronic music. Screechy noises. Pulsating, wavy basses. Well-managed overtones. The crowd is pleased. It might surprise some that this was back in the late 1960s. Coxe describes these moments, saying, "It took maybe ten minutes, and they would begin to get it. And the next thing you know, it's a party."
The drummer's setup was no less complex and labyrinthine. It consisted of up to 13 drums, five cymbals, and a couple of other percussion instruments. While arguably over-the-top, the result was, simply put, great art. "Seagreen Serenades," from the duo's 1969 second album, embodies that excellence. Rich rhythmic patterns, exciting changes, a deepness that can only be described by current generations as 60's mystique. The band describes itself as being "strictly" rock. In today's currency, the song is an electro-pop piece, a label we might give to say 'hardcore' has since changed.
The song opens, "Seagreen serenades awaken me to dream, and turn the world to ripe, … , and turn the world to ripe, and turn the world to ripe." It captures the spirit of the 1960's youthful idealism; it's reminiscent of the love, healing, and world peace movements that marked that era.
Their success was not of the sort to go up against names like the Beatles, Motown, and others. The Silver Apples were, then, a relatively underground band. To be sure, theirs were reliably diehard fans. Coxe described them as "a fairly cultish following." However, the record label would lament how difficult - and expensive - it was to market the band. New York, nonetheless, had always been kind to the Silver Apples and allowed and enabled the duo to continue to explore their creativity.
The Silver Apples had only two albums and would enjoy a revival decades after being discovered by later generations. They are thought of as pioneers, ahead of their time, and are a true treasure to New York City. There is nothing music fans love more than 60's nostalgia, but through some experimentations with electric sounds - on what is sure to be analog equipment - and these guys are prophets. Coxe, however, relates that they "never" thought of themselves as Avante Garde. "We didn't want to be ahead of our times, we wanted to be right there in our times." Today, the Silver Apples are a musician's musician. A body of work, arguably the musical equivalent of the moon landing. Coxe shares on the future that "we're gonna see these huge leaps in terms of what we accept as music." And it does indeed turn on acceptance.
