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Origin
Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
Genre
Alternative Rock
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Active
1978 to Present...
Cutout
1 MaleOrigin
Brisbane, Queensland, AustraliaGenre
Alternative RockStyle
---
Mood
---
Active
1978 to Present...Cutout
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The Apartments are an Australian indie band formed in 1978 in Brisbane, Queensland. The band split up in 1979 but reformed in 1984 and continued until 1997, with a new version of the band forming in 2007. Based in Sydney, New South Wales, the band has continued to perform and record, with the ninth album and most recent release, In and Out of the Light released in September 2020. Peter Milton Walsh is the band's only constant member.
Early Apartments and Brisbane connections (1978-1980)
The Apartments first came together in Brisbane in 1978 with Walsh (guitar, vocals), Michael O'Connell (guitar, vocals), Peter Whitby (bass, vocals) and Peter Martin (drums). The band's name derives from Billy Wilder's 1960 film The Apartment.
While in The Apartments, Walsh briefly joined The Go-Betweens as guitarist when they were offered an 8-album contract by Beserkley Records. During an interview at the time, Robert Forster and Grant McLennan spoke about Walsh and the "variety of personalities and image" in the Go-Betweens. McLennan said "Walsh is night" and Forster "We are day" with McLennan adding "We’re sun, he’s rain." Four years after Grant McLennan's death, Walsh wrote about this period and his friendship with The Go-Betweens in a piece entitled "Who will remember your tunes?"
When the Beserkley deal fell through, Walsh returned to The Apartments and The Go-Betweens resumed as a three-piece. The Go-Betweens affectionately commemorated Walsh's style and his time with them on the B side of their next single, "Don't Let Him Come Back": "Here he comes, with his twelve o’clock junk…who’s that dressed in black? Who’s that in his apartment?"
The Apartments' first EP The Return of the Hypnotist was recorded for The Go-Betweens' Able Label in May, 1979. The Apartments broke up in October 1979 when Walsh left Brisbane. The Return of the Hypnotist EP was released the same month.
Out of Nowhere and New York (1981–1983)
In 1981, Walsh next formed a four-piece Out of Nowhere (Walsh, guitar/vocals, Gary Warner, soprano saxophone, Tony Forde, clarinet and Graeme Hutchinson, drums) and recorded The Arrangements a cassette-only release with Pink and Blue, a duet of artists Jenny Watson and John Nixon, then curator of the Institute of Modern Art. After a string of shows around Brisbane during their first year, the band relocated to Sydney in 1982, adding Joe Borkowski on bass and Jeffrey Wegener of the Laughing Clowns replacing Hutchinson on drums. This incarnation of the band recorded Out of Nowhere's first and only single for Ed Kuepper's Prince Melon label "No Resistance"/"Remember, Remember".
In early 1982, Walsh moved to New York City following an invitation from future Go-Between, Robert Vickers, to join The Colors as guitarist. The Colors split up within months of Walsh joining the band and Walsh remained in New York. A number of songs written during these years would later appear on the first Apartments album The Evening Visits And Stays For Years.
Walsh was then asked by Ed Kuepper to play bass in his band Laughing Clowns. Walsh toured England, Europe and Australia extensively with the Laughing Clowns and also recorded the Law of Nature album and the single "Eternally Yours".
The Apartments reformed (1984-1985)
A year later Walsh returned to Australia and reformed the Apartments with a line-up including ex-Out of Nowhere members, Gary Warner (piano), Joseph Borkowski (bass) and Graeme Beavis (guitar), and Bruce Carrick (drums). The band then recorded one of the set of New York songs as a single, "All You Wanted" (with ex-Out of Nowhere member Gary Warner on piano), (b/w "Fever Elsewhere"). Early in 1985 The Apartments recorded demos for a proposed debut album.
In June 1985, Rough Trade records signed The Apartments on the basis of the demos recorded earlier in the year. Walsh then moved to London and the Apartments' first album, The Evening Visits...and Stays for Years was released by Rough Trade Records in 1985. The Apartments were joined by guest musicians Clare Kenny (formerly of Orange Juice, bass, vocals), Ben Watt of Everything but the Girl, and Graham Lee of The Triffids. Reviewing The Evening Visits... for the NME, critic Jane Wilkes wrote "after whetting our appetites with last year's classic import single 'All You Wanted' The Apartments have stunned us to a reverential silence. This album is a pure heart-wrencher, and should only be listened to after dark." French music critic and biographer of Serge Gainsbourg, Bayon, writing in Libération, drew favourable comparisons to a diverse range of musicians, both contemporary (Cocteau Twins, Felt, Nick Cave) and preceding (Nick Drake, Bob Dylan, Alex Chilton). The Evening Visits... subsequently appeared in the NME's 1985 'Albums of the Year' end of year critic list and became a cult hit in France.
"All You Wanted" was reissued by Rough Trade, the single reaching no. 29 on the UK Independent Chart in 1986.
Following an English tour with Everything but the Girl, a new line-up emerged that included Jurgen Hobbs (bass), Judy Anderson (piano, organ) and Nick Allum (drums). This incarnation of the band played shows in the UK and Europe and released a single, "The Shyest Time", in 1988. "The Shyest Time" was featured on the soundtrack of John Hughes' movie Some Kind of Wonderful. Subsequent litigation between The Apartments and Hughes' production company over recording prevented the Apartments from releasing new material for nearly 18 months.
Australia and France (1989-1999)
With Rough Trade in receivership as the Eighties ended, Walsh left England for Australia. He continued writing and occasional performances as a duet with Amanda Brown of The Go Betweens and as the Apartments with Ed Kuepper. Recordings of both were extensively bootlegged.
In 1993, The Apartments recorded Drift, the first Apartments album released in Australia, on Melbourne label Torn & Frayed. Drift was next released in France on New Rose. The album (like its predecessor) achieved high praise in France, with Les Inrockuptibles placing Drift at no. 19 in their end of year list in 1993 and 7th place in the readers' list. Due to its popularity in France, the album was re-released and remastered through French indie label Talitres in 2010.
A tour of France followed in 1994 with The Apartments consisting of Walsh, two members of Big Heavy Stuff — Eliot Fish (bass, vocals) and Greg Atkinson (guitar, vocals) — and Nick Allum on drums.
The Apartments then recorded three more albums in quick succession: A Life Full of Farewells (1995), the acoustic Fête Foraine (1996), and Apart (1997). Rolling Stone reviewer Rob O'Connor described A Life Full of Farewells as "the sort of ornate pop record one usually associates with big-budget psychedelia or overstudied Anglo pop. For the most part, Walsh's songs enable listeners to enjoy time spent in places we would usually rather not be." Mojo said "Taken together, 1985's The Evening Visits..., 1993's Drift and 1995's A Life Full of Farewells constitute the finest, most distinguished catalogue I've heard in the past decade or so."
On the final day of mixing and recording apart Walsh was informed that his young son had been diagnosed with a life-threatening illness. After this, Walsh suspended writing and touring for the Apartments to devote his attention to his son, who died two years later in September 1999. Walsh later described his reasons for not resuming his musical career after his son's death. "I just wanted nothing to do with anything that didn't have him in it. I felt like I had been given every chance of happiness and he got none. I felt entitled to nothing."
Cover versions of Apartments songs
The song "Mr Somewhere" was covered by This Mortal Coil in their 1991 album Blood. Other covers include Ed Kuepper's reading of "Places Where The Night Is Long" on his 1995 album, Exotic Mail Order Moods and "Knowing You Were Loved" by Renée Geyer in 1999 on her Sweet Life album.
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11th Apr 2024
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