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By Max Conroy
There are several definitions of the word scrummage. It is synonymous to a rugby play called a ’scrum’, but also means ‘a general row or confused fight or struggle’. A scrum can also, according to the Brits, mean ‘a place or situation of confusion and racket; hubbub’, which seems like the closest definition to the venue in Detroit. Here is their mission statement from their site (do not click on this link if you have or might possibly have epilepsy): A psychedelic loft in Detroit’s Eastern Market district. We achieve maximum fun. We have giant parties with totally rad music encompassing all generas. We teach you here at our university that no one is too stuffy to party. This is the place where all your wildest dreams can come true. There is apparently a market in Detroit’s Eastern Market district, but there’s no evidence of it at night; in fact, there doesn’t seem to be anything besides a graveyard, bombed out buildings, and the occasional liquor store and gas station…and this place.
Scrummage University is a huge warehouse that must have been a toy factory at one time, based on the painted signage on the front of the building. I drove by it a few times before coming to the conclusion that this must be the place. There were several flyers that mentioned that it’s the large building that has ‘Toys’ painted on the front of it, but not the flyer that I had. The flyers also stated that the event was to begin at 9PM, which is when I arrived, but there was no one there, except for a few people running the show and the performers. Also, there is no mention of the Silver Apples playing at Scrummage on the venue’s site, so I’d seek other verification that a band will be there before driving through post-apocalyptic Detroit to get there.
The Scrummage gate is barely wide enough for a car to fit through and is situated next to an operational junk yard; I deduced that it was operational based on the five rabid dogs hurling themselves at the fence, attempting to kill hipsters. The parking lot is huge with weeds thriving in the cracks of the asphalt, an active train line in back, and several huge bonfire pits. I walked around for a bit, soaking up the scenery, snapping photos, as other guests arrived. After awhile, I noticed that everyone had 40s of beer, and asked the door guy Ian if it was cool to bring beer here: ‘Sure, man. You should pick me up something.’ He gave me some shoddy directions to a liquor store, but I ended up finding a different one that had all the choice malt liquor and grabbed a 40 of Olde English and Ian a 24oz of Cammo XXX High Gravity for the shitty directions; he was thrilled.
By this time they were throwing huge pieces of furniture into the fire pit and igniting them. When the fire would get low, they, presumably ‘official’ events organizers, would politely ask some people to get off of the wardrobe they were sitting on and then drag it into the fire. This place is the ultimate in blind pigs, anything goes.
You enter the warehouse through a defunct loading dock and enter into a wide open concrete room, piles of debris in the corners and outsider art everywhere. There is a working bathroom that isn’t the worst that I’ve ever seen. From what I gather, people live at Scrummage, so they probably rent the space, or maybe even squat there. The electric hair trimmer in the bathroom also made me think that people live there.
The opening act Benny Stoofy is kind of Scrummage’s house band. They are some talented musicians that blend the low fi aesthetic with competence, much like Dr. Dog. I dug a few songs and then went back to the bonfire with my 40 to chat up some people and enjoy the evening.
The Lotto Ball Show went on next. They’re a synth-driven postpunk outfit from Chicago. They seemed good, but the vocals were noexistent in the mix, so I again headed out to the fire after about two songs.
I went back inside after the music stopped to look at the unattended merch table and to watch people climb dangerously onto makeshift trapezes hanging from the ceiling. Simeon, a perfectly normal looking fellow in his mid-to-late 60s, dressed in a bright green turtleneck, strolled across the floor to his rig and began calibrating or whatever one has to do to a pile of oscillators and beat machines to prepare them for a performance.
The Silver Apples are Simeon now. He manipulates bass and melody sound oscillators over drum tracks, and sings: that’s the sound of The Silver Apples in 2008. After listening to some of their records recently, I’ve come to really appreciate the late Danny Taylor’s drumming. He lays down a hardcore breakbeat jazz style that really propels the monotonous vocals and bleeps and bloops. But the music is essentially electronic music and the last thirty years of music has proven that a drummer isn’t absolutely necessary. The lack of a drummer has actually transformed the Silver Apples sound into what it inspired: electronic dance music. It’s fitting to see one of the pioneers of electronic music performing this way to the city that basically took what he was doing eons ago and went crazy with it.
Simeon played for exactly an hour and politely declined an encore; this isn’t exactly encore-type music. He performed a lot of the ‘hits’ like Oscillations and I Don’t Care What the People Say and did a handful of new compositions. In the middle of the set, about twenty people got on stage a danced their freaky, uninhibited dances. I went back to the merch table and bought the only Apples vinyl available: a limited press of 1000 called Selections from the Early Sessions. I then went up to Simeon’s rig and snapped a picture of it just before he went up to it to tear it down. I said, “Thanks, man.” “It’s a pleasure,” said Simeon.
Click Below for information about the Selections record, some audio of the show, and pictures.
By Max Conroy
The enigmatic and visionary electronic ‘band’ The Silver Apples will perform tomorrow night at Scrummage University. I don’t know anything about the venue and was handed a flyer for the show, which is a photocopy of a primitive pen and ink drawing, by a group of teenagers that I befriended at the Jandek performance in Ann Arbor.
The Silver Apples formed in New York in 1967, consisting of Simeon Coxe III (Simeon) and Danny Taylor, drums. The duo were in a band called The Overland Stage Electric Band prior to the Apples, where band members rapidly left the group as a result of Simeon’s incorporation of a 1940s vintage audio oscillator, leaving the two. Simeon developed a homemade instrument, the Simeon, consisting of “nine audio oscillators piled on top of each other and eighty-six manual controls to control lead, rhythm, and bass pulses with hands, feet, and elbows”(from the liner notes of their first album). They recorded a self-titled album, released in 1968 on Kapp Records that barely cracked the top 100 and the follow up, Contact, in ‘69. They toured to support Contact and recorded another album in 1970, but it was shelved when Kapp was devoured by MCA. This third record would eventually be released as Garden in 1998. The band dissolved as a result of Kapp folding and lay dormant for the next twenty-five years.
The Apples were brought back to life in 1994 when a German label TRC began issuing bootlegs of their first two records, causing a long-awaited rebirth of interest in their music. The original records eventually were officially reissued, they toured (Coxe and a multi-instrumentalist named Xian Hawkins), and released several singles and albums in the late 90s that received favorable press. In 1999 their tour van was involved in an accident that broke Simeon’s neck. He’s been recovering since, but will probably never fully recover the movement of his hands, so apparently his performance is a bit more direct now. Danny Taylor died of a heart attack in Kingston, New York in 2005. Simeon went back on the road as a solo version of the Silver Apples in 2007 and is supposed to still put on a good show.
This music must have been totally unpalatable in the late 60s, but it absolutely presaged the future of music and the advent of electronic music, from bands like Suicide and Kraftwork in the 70s to Detroit to Radiohead.
Oscillations:
I Don’t Care What the People Say:
From Pitchfork: Better bring some extra cash to these shows, as Mr. Silver Apples will be peddling both a tour-only ChickenCoop Recordings LP of remastered tunes entitled Selections and a new Gifted Children Records EP called Gremlins at the merch table.
We came across this strange funk/soul 12″ single by CJ Surge on Boston Heights a while ago. We sold it for about $40 to a European DJ. I couldn’t find any info on it, but someone just commented and said that it was a recording by Charles Johnson aka The Electrifying Mojo of Midnight Funk Association fame.
It turns out, the Electrifying Mojo was a Detroit DJ who was instrumental in turning people on to the Detroit techno sound that is now legendary and has influenced the entire genre of the music. This DJ - real name Charles Johnson - aka The Electrifying Mojo - aka CJ Surge, ran the late night segment of The Midnight Funk Association, an “eclectic” program that aired on Detroit stations WGPR, WHYT, and WJLB (I got the tour of WJLB’s studio and met Bushman when I worked briefly for Clear Channel) that blended funk, soul and techno.
The intro to the show was given by The Electrifying Mojo, over a track called Momento by the art of noise. It went like this:
“Will the members of the Midnight Funk Association please rise. Please go to your porch light and turn it on for the next hour to show us your solidarity. If you’re in your car please honk your horn and flash your lights, wherever you are. If you’re in bed, get ready to dance on your back, in Technicolor. And get ready for the MFA. The word is… Don’t say no, say triple-whammy-whoa. Hold on tight, don’t let go. Whenever you feel like you’re nearing the end of your rope, don’t slide off. Tie a knot. Keep hanging, keep remembering, that it ain’t nobody bad like you. This session of the International Midnight Funk Association is being called to order. Electrifying Mojo presiding. May the Funk be with you. Always…”
Anyway, I had no idea this was CJ Surge. Whoever left that comment - thanks for the info and shedding light on this historical radio show and Detroit techno pioneer. It aired from 1977 through the mid 80s - so I was just a youngster then.
