Decades after their brief yet influential career first ground to a sudden and mysterious halt, the Silver Apples remain one of pop music's true enigmas: a surreal, almost unprecedented duo, their music explored interstellar drones and hums, pulsing rhythms and electronically-generated melodies years before similar ideas were adopted in the work of acolytes ranging from Suicide to Spacemen 3 to Laika. The Silver Apples formed in New York in 1967 and comprised percussionist Danny Taylor and lead vocalist Simeon, a bizarre figure who played an instrument also dubbed the Simeon, which (according to notes on the duo's self-titled 1968 debut LP) consisted of "nine audio oscillators and eighty-six manual manual controls...The lead and rhythm oscillators are played with the hands, elbows and knees and the bass oscillators are played with the feet." Although the utterly uncommercial record ¡½ an ingenious cacophony of beeps, buzzes and beats ¡½ sold poorly, the Silver Apples resurfaced a year later with their sophomore effort, Contact, another far-flung outing which fared no better than its predecessor. After the record's release, the duo seemingly vanished into thin air, perhaps returning to the alien world from whence they purportedly came; however, in 1996 the Silver Apples mysteriously resurfaced, as Simeon and new partner Xian Hawkins released the single "Fractal Flow." American and European tours followed, and a year later a new LP, Beacon, was released to wide acclaim. The follow-up Decatur appeared in 1998, and was soon joined by A Lake of Teardrops (a collaboration with avowed fans Spectrum) as well as The Garden, the long-unreleased third and final effort from the original Simeon/Taylor partnership. However, on November 1, 1998, the Silver Apples' van crashed while returning from a New York gig; the accident left Simeon with a broken neck and spinal injuries, casting his continued musical career in grave doubt. Danny Taylor passed away recently (March 10 2005) of a heart attack in Kingston, New York at the age of 56.

Loto Ball Show
Loto Ball is best known for his work singing and performing for San Francisco Bay Area death-punk band The Phantom Limbs. During his time with The Phantom Limbs (in which he was sometimes known as “Hopeless”), Loto Ball’s visceral expression of existential distress laced with black comedy, along with the hyper-charged and unusual compositions of keyboardist Stevenson Sedgwick helped earn his band the honor of No. 1 Indie Rock Band in San Francisco (S.F. Bay Guardian – Best of the Bay awards 2003) and the chance to record two albums with Jello Biafra’s Alternative Tentacles record label. After 5 years and 220 performances with The Phantom Limbs, including 3 U.S. tours and 2 European tours, Loto Ball left the band in 2005 to move to Chicago and pursue other ventures. Loto Ball has spent his time in Chicago working with local artists on various projects, including founding an art gallery/music venue (Reversible Eye), collaborating on a 800 foot public mural (Bloomingdale Trail), personal masseuse for Mayor Richard Daley, performing with puppets (Scary Toesies), working as an activist for disability rights and quality of life issues, as well playing trumpet for a 30-person marching band (Mucca Pazza).

Loto Ball created the Loto Ball Show in 2005. It has taken on many forms, such as incorporating absurdist puppet shows, hosting variety shows, and recording the soundtrack for a horror-comedy underground TV series. The Loto Ball Show has now evolved into an energetic rock band that screams out much of the same ferocity as The Phantom Limbs but brings in more variety in mood, more shifts in volume and pace, and more eclectic sounds. It is a driving key-board driven form of No-Wave post-punk with hints of jazz syncopation and Middle-Eastern scales.

Asteroid #4
"An Amazing Dream is the Asteroid No. 4's most mature and focused album yet." All Music Guide

"An Amazing Dream" is moody British pop with an early-Sixties drug dealer, full of lysergic explosions and tremolo attacks." Austin Chronicle

"Imagine Brian Jonestown Massacre without all the drama, or Dead Meadow with a serious pop fetish, and you’re there." Philadelphia Weekly

"An Amazing Dream is truly an amazing reality...a career high" The Sun, UK 4.5 out of 5 stars

"There's genuine invention here...3 out of 4 stars" Uncut

"Dream shows that, over a decade in, they're just getting started." www.stereogum.com, Band To Watch: The Asteroid 4

"An Amazing Dream returns to the band's space-cadet guitar jangle and is the perfect prescription for Brian Jonestown Massacre/Dandy Warhols devotees who've been let down by their Left Coast heroes." Magnet Magazine

"Picture Robert Pollard producing a Matthew Sweet record with My Bloody Valentine's Kevin Shields on guitar and you'll have some idea whether the Asteroid 4 is right for you." playbackstl.com

"Each track maintains its own identity, but the album is cohesive enough to make a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts." The Daily Tar Heel, North Carolina. 3.5 out of 4 stars

"An Amazing Dream showcases A4's recognizable grooviness, but not without a few twists and turns and some superior songwriting" OCWeekly

"This is an adventure in lulling psychedelia, dreamy guitars, distant vocals, and echoing space-rock, flirting with California country, and exhibiting British pop invasion overtones." NewMexicoMusic.org

"Philadelphia's the Asteroid 4 savors the crevices of '60s music without confining itself to a single style, flirting with California country alongside British Invasion pop." TimeOut New York.

"Imagine the Beach Boys circa PET SOUNDS filtered through some serious weirdness after about a dozen bong hits. That’s the impression I got from the Asteroid 4. Gorgeous vocals coupled with a desolate-yet-warm guitar tone and some odd touches make this an impressive album...this is a must for avant-pop fans." movementmagazine.com

"Such mixtures of softness and noise, along with an almost flawless knack for a tune, make this Dream impressive, if not amazing." Orlando Sentinel

"Asteroid 4 has refined a spacey, folky style and leveraged this into a series of energetic and optimistic, if not always brilliant, songs." popmatters.com

"If you're looking to be taken by a wash of dreamy sound...this may the album for you." thephiller.com

"Straight out of some lost Barrett songbook, all echoing, loose-stringed guitars and speaker-shredding fuzz" Q Magazine

"Ah, fuzzy pondering, feedback-laden pop, epic high-reaching guitars. This tremolo-driven narrative features a fine batch of beautifully written psych-pop with an amazing, thickly layered sound. Chilly, desert-night wanderings and sunflower-field hallucinations — a joy!" Real Detroit Weekly

"....soaring guitars, scrape-the-sky vocals, and bustling melodies" Stylus Magazine

"If the rest of the album sounds as good as "Here We Go" and "Ask Me About Pittsburgh," this should be one hell of a great album." thetripwire.com

$12.00 [TICKETS] 21+