| Author | Message | ||
     donadler Unregistered guest |
This may have been asked and answered, but as I am new to this Board, what is Peter Milton Walsh doing? This band may be the least appreciated, most talented band (man) I am aware of in popular music. "Life Full of Farewells" is a gem, an album just slightly below DID ...Don | ||
| button down Unregistered guest |
I heard he works for the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) in Sydney. Forgive me but what is "DID"? | ||
| Jeff Whiteaker Unregistered guest |
I have no clue what Peter Walsh is doing now, but I absolutely love the first Apartments album, 'The Evening Visits...' Absolutely stellar, and criminally underrated, melodic pop. It's an incredible, beautifully understated record. | ||
| Jeff Whiteaker Unregistered guest |
27 posts and counting for the triffids, and a mere three for the apartments. just criminal... sigh... | ||
| peacetoy Unregistered guest |
Here's a 4th post! I'm not actually too keen on the first two Apartments albums, maybe they're just too stark and bleak for me. But the last album, Apart, is absolutely beautiful. It has a much more produced sound with lots of reverb, and uses strings, trumpet and Chris Abraham's piano to great effect. There's even a few dance influences in there. Songs such as No Hurry and To Live For are heartbreaking and exhilarating at the same time. A real shame there's been nothing since. As far as I know, Peter Walsh gave up music due to a personal tragedy. | ||
| andrew stafford Unregistered guest |
I doubt Peter Milton Walsh reads this MB, but if he does, I hope he won't mind my outing him: he has worked for many years as a speechwriter at the ABC in Sydney, an appropriate occupation for a extremely literate man. While Peter did endure an awful personal tragedy some years back, the main reason behind his reluctance to re-enter a recording studio is lack of commercial recognition at home. It's all very well to sell 20,000 copies of your record in France, as Drift did: unfortunately the same album sold around 200 copies here (another kind of tragedy). I think Peacetoy is right: Apart is an absolutely superb record, better than A Life Full of Farewells, but also hard to find. The Apartments get a good going-over in Pig City, by the way. Another great Brisbane band. | ||
| david nichols Unregistered guest |
The ABC employs speechwriters? ? And it may be 'all very well' to sell 20 000 albums in France... but I'd say that's pretty amazingly good. So his reticence to make new records is actually fairly unlikely to be due to commercial failure; he could more or less live off that kind of sales figure... Anyway, I'd personally recommend all or any Apartments records to any GoBs fan. | ||
| andrew stafford Unregistered guest |
It is amazingly good, David, but still far from enough to live on - that's one album released 10 years ago. I'm not sure how the others since have fared commercially, but I can't think it'd be enough to sustain one person let alone a family. In any case a simpler answer is that Walsh is not what you'd call a career musician. He hates promotion, shuns live performance and detests the biz generally. So there's a lack of motivation there, which from a fan's point of view is certainly a shame. And yes, the ABC does employ a speechwriter for its MD. Walsh has been fulfilling this role since at least the Brian Johns era; he also came through the short-lived Shier reign unscathed. So there you go. | ||
| steve connell Unregistered guest |
Anyone have any insights into why and when the French appreciate certain bands that are considerably less acclaimed elsewhere? It's not just the Apartments . . Cat Power also sold a lot of records there right from the start -- far more than anywhere else at first. And Alex Chilton's solo work was successful there when that 3rd Big Star album wasn't even in print anywhere else. The repute of Scott Walker and Leonard Cohen was greater and longer-lasting there than anywhere else, too. Based on this, one would conclude that the French have a particular love of depressed, stark, literate songs -- and certainly the figures mentioned above have some kinship, directly or indirectly, with the flamboyantly downer French chanson tradition. But then, France is also the longtime home of the most passionate Johnny Thunders cult! Hmmm . . . --Steve | ||
| button down Unregistered guest |
I see no conflict in the above scenario (Thunders), but agree with your overall point. | ||
| Randy Adams Unregistered guest |
Another reason to move to Belleville. | ||
| andrew stafford Unregistered guest |
Jeff Buckley was also a bigger star in France than just about anywhere else in the world. He barely rated in the USA, which I've never understood for someone who had the most obvious star power of anyone I've ever seen. | ||
| steve connell Unregistered guest |
Stark? Literate? Johnny Thunders? I doubt even his mum would've claimed that . . . | ||
| Matt Ellis Unregistered guest |
I think it's cool to begin a debate on The Apartments on this board: the unofficial Apartments board sadly gets a message every six months! I got into them from downloading an MP3 of the astonishingly good "Help" single mentioned in Nichols Book. Does anyone know the name of the EP from which it comes and what the tracklisting is? Subsequently I ordered "The Evening Visits..." from Tesco.com (here in England) this took two months to arrive! after finally getting to hear it I felt I should immediately order most of his back catalogue direct from Hot Records! In my experience his records aren't too hard to get: It took Hot Records only four days to send me the CDs! (via their address in England) details are at http://www.tt.net/hot/hotcat.html Being a bassist I'm also a fan Clare Kenny the bassist on "The Evening.." album. I found from the following site: http://www.whammo.com.au/encyclopedia.asp?articleid=36 She is credited as being ex-Orange Juice and Shakespear Sister! For me its interesting to discover The likes of Keupper, Willsteed and Vickers all seem intertwined with the Apartments. | ||
| andrew stafford Unregistered guest |
Matt, the EP you refer to is called The Return of the Hypnotist and contains two other tracks, Nobody Like You and Refugee. It's on the Able Label. It shows up from time to time on ebay so keep your eyes peeled there - it's well worth having. | ||
| christophe ljung Unregistered guest |
Ten years ago, a friend of mine gave me this Lp called "Drift". He didn't say anything. He just knew that i would love it. And he was right. I often wonder where is Peter Walsh and I was happy to get some news by this messageboard. The world just does not deserve a genius like him. Sorry for my english... I'm French... | ||
| Mireille Unregistered guest |
I was lent the David Nichols book (old edition) because of my interest in The Apartments. Peter Milton Walsh came across as one of the most interesting characters - often very flippant, very funny. The bus trip story is hilarious. Robert Forster is funnay too. Some years ago I interviewed Walsh for L'Indic and found his conversations were still like this, kind of cynicism cut through with romanticism, like some Forties movie. I don't forgt that he had this faintly aristocratic disdain, and while effortlessly insulting ofthen he was helped by charm, and were it not so amusing I would think it was arrogant. I didn get published (nor does the magazine now), but still have the article prepared. eg. "To tell you the truth, I'm a litle bored by adulation" he said, in a way that made others I had interviewed seem needy by comparison. Walsh seemed indifferent, at best. Morrissey and Marr he said were "A pair of mediocrities. Lovely people though. Very obliging". I never knew if he said this or anything sincerely or to get a reaction. Apart from Brisbane, and love of melody I see little connection between the Apartments and the Go Betweens, - does D Nichols? I can fit the Go Betweens in where the Smiths are, and ohter indies, but Apartments seem from some other experience or place, in isolation, a sort of enduring weariness, that remind me of not of other musics but of books or writers. SO it is interesting that he should be described as "extremely literate", since there is a grand beauty - and it must be said, despair and defeat - in his work that I think is very like Graham Greene. But I don't really want to know of his private life, is he rich or poor or wives or mistresses or gossip or what country he's living in now - particularly after the tragedy in his life - no matter how much as I want to hear more of this unique music. One of the Bad Seeds when i asked about him told me that he had taken himself as far away as possible from his old life, cut himself off from his past and his music in many ways. Retreated into silence. He also said there could never be another recording because Walsh gave control of his music income to his record company while he was living in the hospital with his son. He never saw his money again. So I do not know if he did renounce his old life, or maybe he has no way now of ever getting back into it. I could not help thinking of the last song on the last recording by The Apartments. It was called "Everything's Given to be Taken Away". In bringing us thses songs and stories now perhaps he regards his work is finished. Perhaps that is it, and the "withdrawal from the world" in that song was his own. This began as a brief comment! Mireille ps fête foraine is my favourite. | ||
| Donat Member Username: Donat Post Number: 1 Registered: 11-2004 |
I remember reading an interview with Peter Milton Walsh around the time of Life Full of Farewells and of course he was asked about his time in the Go-Betweens and he put it quite simply "..it's a vanished world, I have no sentiment". He certainly does have an enigmatic quality about him which certainly shows in the calibre of his lyrics and music. It is a great tragedy that the Apartments were so ignored in Australia and it really hits home when you find out that the Drift album was #6 in Les Inrockuptibles top albums of 1993. Walsh's band after the first incarnation of the Apartments, Out of Nowhere are well worth hearing. Sadly, the only commercially available recordings are a split cassette with Pink & Blue (featuring Jenny Watson, who was behind the artwork of Send me a Lullaby) and a single on Ed Kuepper & Ken West's label, Prince Melon ('Remember Remember' b/w 'No Resistance'). I have seen this single crop up on gemm.com and it's well worth purchasing, despite the poor mix of the recordings. Being a band named after a Charlie Parker song, their sound was quite jazz influenced in a Laughing Clowns way, with intertwining clarinet and saxophone skronk. Out of Nowhere played around Brisbane around 1980-81 with bands such as Four Gods, Xero and The End. The band featured early Saints photograher Joe Borkowski, sometime Zero member Gary Warner (who later played in piano on the Apartments 'All you Wanted' 45). As many Brisbane bands did at the time, they moved to Sydney and disbanded shortly after. Legend has it that the band recorded an album's worth of material that was done at a home studio run by a member of Sherbet! This recording must be in a shoebox somewhere, along with lost Apartments albums. Interesting tid-bits: the title of the 1st Apartments record is a lyric in 'No Resistance' and a song from A Life Full of Farewells 'End of Some Fear', was originally an Out of Nowhere song. So much for burning all of his lyrics! Yes, it is a great shame that the Apartments message board has tumbleweeds running through it, but then again the official Apartments site has remained as is for the last 6 years. | ||
| Randy Adams Unregistered guest |
This message board remains extremely useful to me. Here in the States (land of 59 million total idiots) I had never heard of the Apartments. To date, I have "Farewells" "Drift" and "Apart." I just received the last of these. At this point, I find "Lifetime of Farewells" the most consistently satisfying but I will continue to assimilate them all. And I look forward to locating the earlier records. It is unfortunate that it is so difficult for folks who make extremely high quality music to make a living at it. I am still hoping that the internet will provide an escape from that cul-de-sac, with an artful mixture of low budget self-promotion and a decent website affording an artist a forum for discovery. I am not convinced that small cult artists are at all well served by record labels. | ||
| david nichols Member Username: David Post Number: 20 Registered: 09-2004 |
Re: a home studio run by a member of Sherbet. I believe Clive Shakespeare, who left Sherbet just before their biggest period of success, ran a studio in Sydney until the late 80s, and perhaps he still does. As I understood it it was not a home studio but the real thing. Quite a few people recorded there eg Chad's Tree. | ||
| Donat Member Username: Donat Post Number: 2 Registered: 11-2004 |
So would that be Silverwood studios then, David? | ||
| James Harms Unregistered guest |
Every once in a while I do a Google search for Peter Milton Walsh, just on the chance there's something out there I don't know about, some song or bit of news. I'm not a fanatic sort of fan, just someone moved by the songs. People don't seem to remember that A Life Full of Farewells was reviewed in Rolling Stone, a very good review, smart and well contexutalized, effective enough so that I was at the record store the next day here in Morgantown, West Virgina, where I found the cd, immediately. And like the rest of you I was hooked. The earlier records are fine, but the subsequent stuff, Apart and Fete, are extensions of A Life, a way of occupying space in songs that just isn't common: a way of making tone the point of meaning. They're unusually good songs, but I don't need to tell any of you that. I find it almost embarrassing to chase down biographical information about artists of any ilk; I mean the work, really, should be enough. But I admit to those damn Google searches. And I can't express how devastating the news was (the loss of his son, which seems unbearable). I'm a poet and I've written about this sense of feeling too keenly another's sorrow, trying to come to terms with that particular brand of empathy. I'm not sure it's honorable. But his music invites it. Or at least it does for me. So what can you do? |