The Apples in Stereo returned to the land of their birth on Monday night. Photo from .
Amid all the hype and hoopla surrounding the Democratic National Convention this week, and the Denver Film Society hosted the first Cinemocracy Rocks! show on Monday, one of the few events open to the general public related (albeit loosely) to the convention.
The evening was anchored around an online film festival by , wherein filmmakers were invited to upload short films answering the question, “What is democracy?”
Sadly, the event attracted only enough attendants to nearly fill the amphitheater to a quarter of its capacity, at best. It could have been that the sight of so many of Denver’s finest in riot gear around town prevented many from venturing out to the show on such a beautiful, slightly breezy night, although my money is on the fact that Monday is a school night. As educational as a series of short films on the nature of our form of government may be, it’s tough to go up against an early, cranky morning caused by a late-night family outing.
All this seemed to make little, if any, difference to the headliner, the Apples in Stereo. The band stormed the place with its signature happy, melodic power pop as if the crowd were four times as big , and the audience loved it.
Apples, born as a quartet in Denver in the early ’90s, are now a sextet featuring Robert Schneider (lead guitar and vocals, as well as creative leader for the band), John Hill (guitar), Eric Allen (bass), Bill Doss (keyboards), John Ferguson (vocals and keyboards) and John Dufilho (drums). Schneider is also one of the founders of the popular Elephant 6 Collective, a record label/artistic collaboration that counts such bands as Olivia Tremor Control, Marshmallow Coast, Neutral Milk Hotel, Dressy Bessy and Of Montreal among its impressive membership.
If there is any commonality among these groups, it has to be their positive, happy pop sound and attitude, and Apples has that attitude in spades. After taking a five-year hiatus (for the most part), the band released “New Magnetic Wonder” in February 2007, and released their latest album, “Electronic Projects for Musicians” this year, showing their fans they had not begun to fade away, and were not yet ready to begin burning out.
Most of the material we heard Monday came from last year’s “Magnetic” album. The band played a fairly quick 50-minute set, featuring the songs “Skyway,” “Energy,” “Play Tough,” “7 Stars,” “Please” and “The Sun is Out,” among others. Apples’ tunes are all bubblegum-sweet and may be just a tad less complex than others from the Elephant 6 Collective, but they carry the infectious, positive and almost childish sheen that characterizes its attitude and sound.
Schneider seemingly has the singing voice of a 10-year-old child, all wrapped up in the body of a full-grown adult. This is likely where the band gets its childlike, dreamy sound that calls up some heavy influence from The Beatles, The Beach Boys, The Monkees, and (particularly on the Apples’ last two albums) Electric Light Orchestra.
Schneider led the band in an almost giddy set, and was by far the most interactive with the audience, telling jokes, dedicating song after song to Barack Obama (and then finally settling on dedicating the whole set – the whole night in fact – to the candidate) and showing off new “super-fast” guitar techniques. All the while, however, the rest of the band wore omnipresent grins, led by John Hill . His grin is most familiar to the Denver scene, especially to fans of side project Dressy Bessy, and he never fails to express his sheer joy in playing live, fun rock and roll.
After Apples left the stage, the Denver Film Society took over and led the audience through 13 of the films submitted to the cinemocracy.org website this year as part of the online festival. Those shown included the top 10, as voted on by visitors to the site, and three that were selected by cinemocracy.org as honorable mentions for varying categories. The shorts are all available for viewing cinemocracy.org. All the films stood well on their own merits, and each addressed the question, “What is Democracy?” in widely varied, inspired and mostly hilarious ways.
It was awkward, though: One of the emcees of Cinemocracy Rocks! managed to step on the big moment of nearly all 10 vote-getters in the open source film contest. He even skipped a movie, leaving brothers Alan and David Dominguez, makers of “Cinema+(Dem)ocracy=Cinemocracy” — on the stage looking understandably bewildered. It was a bumbled end to a fine contest that received 127 submissions. And the winner: Jen Saffron’s “Democracy: A Steady, Loving Confrontation,” a series of interviews with Alabama Civil Rights workers.
My favorite of the set, which was also my kids’ (who attended with me), had to do with short, uncooked spaghetti. Go check them out. Some may bring a tear to your eye, some will make you laugh, and some may anger you. Whatever the case, they’re all worthy of a few stolen desk minutes in the office, especially considering the events going on this week in Denver.
Billy Thieme is a Denver writer and regular Reverb contributor.
