Tulsa World: Taking a bite of the Apples

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Taking a bite of the Apples

The Apples in Stereo will headline the Friday Dfest lineup at 11 p.m. with All-American Rejects, Paramore,Ghostland Observatory and more. Courtesy

By JENNIFER CHANCELLOR World Scene Writer
Published: 7/20/2008 2:06 AM
Last Modified: 7/20/2008 3:48 AM

More details also available on Tulsa World music writer Jennifer Chancellor’s blog.

Get band bios, exclusive interviews and music, full schedules, coverage, slide shows and more at the Tulsa World’s one-stop Dfest resource.

Flaming Lips helped draw in indie-rock fave

The Apples in Stereo would like to thank the Flaming Lips for its inclusion in this year's Dfest lineup.

Last year, when he heard the Lips were booked to headline the festival, Apples bassist Eric Allen realized it would be an event he'd love to play. Often called the quirky, rollicking and experimental bastion of indie pop, the Colorado band's first major tour was with the Lips, way back in 1995.

And if the Lips could get behind Dfest, well, you know ...

"It's just incredible the level of talent they're getting at this festival," he said. "It's a music lover's festival."

Plus, he added, "I don't think we've ever played in Tulsa."

Fresh off 2007's "New Magnetic Wonder," which Rolling Stone named one of the Top 50 Albums of 2007 — and about which SPIN Magazine said "couldn't be brighter if it had been performed on the sun. 4 stars." — Apples recently released a long-awaited B-sides and rarities compilation, "Electronic Projects

for Musicians."

Pitchfork music magazine online called the album (released in April): "The yummy milk at the bottom of the cereal bowl."

It's a perfect description: Swirling around the sticky rainbow of milk, then gulping down that lone golden Froot Loop after ingesting an oversized helping of the most important meal of the day? It's just like listening to Apples in Stereo.

Named after a 1980 how-to manual by Craig Anderton, "Electronic Projects" is the Apples' follow-up to the popular 1996 compilation "Science Faire" and completes a chapter in the arc of one of indie rock's most influential bands. It's long been associated with the innovative Elephant Six Collective, a group of bands also including Neutral Milk Hotel, of Montreal, and Olivia Tremor Control.

"It's fun to see all the tracks put together," Allen said of the recent project. "A couple of songs were unfinished songs for another album and just random other stuff. It came together very well."

Apples is best known for its bright, catchy lyrics and '60s pop-rock sound that draws comparisons to The Beatles, The Velvet Underground, The Beach Boys, and, with the release of "New Magnetic Wonder," Electric Light Orchestra.

And what would they do without the influence of bands like the Beach Boys?

"Hopefully, our music would happen anyway," Allen said. "Organic art movements happen spontaneously all over the place. But then we'd be huge, because we would have invented it."

But making the transition from uber-intricate, shiny recordings — sometimes with 90-plus tracks within a single song — to a driving, loud and sometimes feedback-laden experimental live show has taken more than a decade of fine-tuning, he admitted.

"Live, we were like the Ramones," Allen joked. "It was a completely different sound. It didn't translate very well at all from our recordings.

"Live, we were a different band, just the Apples — not the Apples in Stereo."

Jennifer Chancellor 581-8346
jennifer.chancellor@tulsaworld.com

The A-list for Dfest

Diversafest headlining acts. Times and stage locations available at tulsaworld.com/Dfest

Friday

Ravi
Ty England
moe.
Ghostland Observatory
The Disco Biscuits
Edison Glass
Phantom Planet
Paramore
All-American Rejects
The Apples in Stereo

Saturday

Zappa Plays Zappa
Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey
AM
The Roots
Helmet
Clutch

And some other must-see indie and Okie acts: Callupsie, Stars Go Dim, El Paso Hot Button, Jesse Aycock, Klondike 5, Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey, Mayola, Cheyenne, Crocodile, PDA, Samantha Crain, Sir Threadius Mongus By JENNIFER CHANCELLOR World Scene Writer

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