The Beginning Was The End: Simeon Coxe, June 4, 1938 – September 8, 2020
the beginning was the end: A tribute to Simeon Coxe, June 4, 1938-Sept. 8, 2020
(Cover art for Issue 11 of Jack Green’s underground literary publication newspaper from 1960.)
“It was for an issue of a publication called newspaper by Jack Green. He was a very underground literary figure and he asked me if I would wander among the art show people and jot down the comments I heard people make and maybe we could put it together in some sort of a goofy report on the art show.”- Simeon Coxe, Aug. 31, 2020
That was one of the last correspondences I had with Simeon Coxe, co-founder of legendary underground electronic rock duo Silver Apples, just before his passing from pulmonary fibrosis on September 8th in his hometown of Fairhope, AL.
I had been doing some extra research for an upcoming episode of Spectra Sonic South about his roots and ties to the Deep South, and had recently come across two very early artifacts from his days in New York City in the 1960s, and was wanting to know a bit more about their history/origin and had contacted him, like I had many times before over the past two years since we first started the project, wanting to get more background and context on various relics I had dug up to see what he had to say about them. Unfortunately, it would be the last time we ever talked, but was glad I got to share them with him, as I don’t think he had seen either in a while, and had been particularly jazzed about coming across what I believe was one of the very first times his name ever appeared in print from 1960 very soon after he had first arrived in the Big Apple as a young man chasing his dreams as a visual artist after leaving his family’s hometown of New Orleans.
A really incredible archival find from underground literary critic Jack Green’s publication, newspaper (all lower case letters), the piece was an article Simeon had gotten asked to write covering the Washington Square Outdoor Art Exhibit that year— an annual bohemian art show held from May 27th-June 19th in Greenwich Village, and begun in earnest in 1931 by Jackson Pollock and Willem DeKooning— as a mock “reporter” where he transcribed humorous quotes about the modern art on display from patrons and passersby. Hilariously titled “At The Outdoor Fart Show: A Report By Simeon Coxe,” the article would take up three of the six stapled pages of the compact issue— interspersed between cut up sections of the official “Exhibit Agreement” for artists showing at the festival— and highlighted Simeon’s amusing observations from the general public on everything from the likability and laziness of beatniks, to the vagary of the new avant-garde, and a whole bevy of seemingly random impressions and interactions he jotted down while mixing with the crowd.
A rare early example of one of Simeon’s first formal introductions as a new presence in the world of painting in New York (and as a writer no less!), it was a really wonderful chance to take a trip down memory lane with him back to the very beginnings of his incredibly eclectic journey as an artist before starting his unlikely career as a musician, and what was now a distant moment from his youth some 60 years earlier. I had only known Simeon personally for a little over two years prior to his death, but the impression I got from my time spent with him was that never lost the sense of humor displayed in this piece, and in so many ways— despite the fact that the words he recorded for it were not his own— you can hear his voice echo through them in time, as they offer a uniquely comedic snapshot of his youth and the world of visual art he had always wanted to be a part of growing up, and soon got disenchanted by, before discovering his calling as a musician. First with the Random Concept, then the Overland Stage Band— and after the his introduction to the world of oscillators— eventually the Silver Apples.
As he told me in one of the interviews we did for the Spectra Sonic South series about his early days in New York, “I decided I wanted to be a famous painter. I didn’t go up there to be a musician. I went there [and] I was gonna be America’s new Picasso.” Adding with a humorous laugh: “It did not happen. I ran into a brick wall as thick as my skull. And I found that I could play music in the coffee houses and pass the hat and make more money than I ever wanted to make selling painting art. I mean, it was just easy. Came easy. So, that’s how I ended up playing music, getting interested in music, as something to do rather than painting. The whole political thing with the art world in New York was just astonishing. It was so difficult. Talk about who you know, and how important that is. More important than what you do. You can be the most creative person in the whole world, and you won’t get boo if you don’t know somebody who tells somebody to look at you.”
His jaded sense of humor was one of the enduring hallmarks of both his career and humanity, and a testament to a man who lived on the edge of art and wonder until the very end, but always with a knowingly mischievous smile to go with it. And if you listen close enough— even though he would later go on to run in the same circles as people like Andy Warhol and Robert Rauschenberg— you can still catch him laughing at it all through the page with that uniquely irreverent mind of his, stirring up amusement and joy to all who ever met him and all of the amazing adventures he had along the way.
Needless to say, it was a really special moment that I will cherish forever, as it was one that managed to tie together the end of his life with the dream arc of his creative past, although I had no way of knowing that at the time.
Really gonna miss him.
Rest in peace, my friend.
Lee Shook, Sept. 19, 2020
(Page 1 of Simeon Coxe’s report/write-up “At The Outdoor Fart Show” for Jack Green’s underground literary publication newspaper from 1960.)
(Page 2 of Simeon Coxe’s report/write-up “At The Outdoor Fart Show” for Jack Green’s underground literary publication newspaper from 1960.)
(Page 3 of Simeon Coxe’s report/write-up “At The Outdoor Fart Show” for Jack Green’s underground literary publication newspaper from 1960.)
(Simeon Coxe and paintings, New York City, early-1960s. Photo courtesy of Simeon Coxe.)