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NYC Bands We Miss, Part I: Apes & Androids
By
Jen Carlson
Published Oct 28, 2011
Modified Jul 6, 2012
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By
Jen Carlson
Published Oct 28, 2011
Modified Jul 6, 2012
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Photo by Jen Carlson/Gothamist
As an adult, we have the right to complain about how no one is making any good music anymore. Of course, plenty of people are, but nothing beats the bands that you pine nostalgically for because they don't exist anymore. So excuse us while we revisit a better era of live music in NYC. The #1 band we miss is Apes & Androids, so we're starting there, and will continue this series each week until we run out of bands we miss.
APES & ANDROIDS
The first time we saw this band we were prompted by a friend who emailed us, "Seriously, if you had to choose between riding the world's last unicorn and going to this show, you would definitely pick this show. I promise your mind will be blown, your booty will be shaking, and your panties will magically disappear!" Naturally we went, and there we were drinking Sparks late on a Tuesday night at Sin-é (remember Sin-é?) not really sure what to expect, when this happened:
That's right. At a relatively small, weeknight show, they busted out a paper mâché demonesque sculpture with red eyes... at Sin-é. Tiny little Sin-é. We fell in love and knew that no other band would ever be as good as this band. And so far, we were right—no one has even tried to be this fine-tuned or put this much effort into their stage show.
In November of 2006 we booked them at our Movable Hype show, where they outdid themselves, bringing glowsticks, glowing balls, a paper mâché pirate ship that sailed around the audience, and a traditional Korean drumming group!
(More video here.) Sometimes they brought "cheerleaders" with them, or a dancing troupe donning animal masks, sometimes you were invited on stage, sometimes a monster was in attendance, and sometimes you sang "Hey Jude" with that monster:
Once they even recreated Michael Jackson's "Thriller" video in 3-D:
(More video from that night here.) Quickly, word caught on and even Charlie Day became a fan, possibly one of their biggest.
But alas, just as things were moving along, and they released the impeccable album Blood Moon, the band broke up. Upon their demise, Day promised, “I would get the Electric Dream Machine back together and cut an album with them” if they reformed. But alas, they never have. Instead, here are what former Apes & Androids band members are up to now:
Brian Jacobs has been busy creating amazing sounds under the name Majestyy (follow him on Twitter and Facebook), even making Katy Perry's "California Girls" sound better with this remix from last year. He tells us, "I'll be putting out my first tracks soon."
Morgan Whirledge, who has his own recording studio in Greenpoint (incidentally, one of the last places we saw Apes & Androids play—see photo above) has been releasing some new stuff as his solo project Chrome Canyon, including this Kate Bush remix cover "Suspended in Gaffa".
He's currently mixing his first full length that is set to come out in early 2012. Listen to more here.
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Jen Carlson
Jen Carlson is a former WNYC and Gothamist editor.
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Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
Gothamist is funded by sponsors and member donations
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