How did Silver Apples become one of the most influential bands of the late 1960s? Why, a guy in the East Village named Simeon Coxe III began to sing weird modal tone poems over a vintage 1940s audio oscillator, which eventually grew into a homemade synthesizer monstrosity of 12 oscillators stacked on top of one another and manipulated through a total of 86 manual controls, which he dubbed ‘The Simeon,’ of course. (As you can see from the picture, The Simeon appears to be a nightmarish, postwar German version of something The Octopus Project might play, something that’s probably worth the price of admission even disregarding its stellar musical progeny.) more ›

The crowd waited eagerly even if impatiently, a mother requested us to move so her child could get a better look at the royalty, and finally after having made the audience wait for nearly half hour past the scheduled time, Prince took the stage at Coachella on Saturday evening. Backed up by an extensive band featuring the horns section of Austin’s own Grupo Fantasma as well as long time associates such as Sheila E. and Morris Day, Prince readied the masses with a touch of caution -- “I will come to party..but I get to choose the music. Is that alright?” We didn’t care, even if it meant that our optimistic dreams of hearing something off the Batman soundtrack were quashed instantly. Early set highlights included “Jungle Love” (with Day taking over lead vocals) and Sheila E.’s Prince penned, Grammy nominated (in 1985 that is) “Glamorous Life.” Prince, meanwhile was clearly up for it, prancing around stage all evening long and his genius on guitar was evident throughout. Drummer CC Dunham was impeccable and caught our eye very early on, and the ensemble’s exhilarating combination of funk and soul invigorated the hordes for a good hour and a half. more ›