Confessions of a Lighthouse Keeper - Book + CD/New Tracks
A$65.95
236-page full-colour book, + Ode To Nothing compilation CD + Two new Lighthouse Keepers tracks.
We ship only to Australia for purchases made from our website. For international purchases of the paperback only, please go to: Amazon US, Barnes & Noble (soon to be available on other international online bookstores)
For book shop enquiries send enquiries to: gregappel@spontaneousfilms.com.au
For book shop enquiries send enquiries to: gregappel@spontaneousfilms.com.au
NEW BOOK AVAILABLE NOW! DRIVE TIME: AUSTRALIAN ROAD GUIDE
Informed by years on the road as a musician and documentary maker, this book is part memoir, road guide and a fascinating social history of Australia. Written in
an accessible style, it is informed by wide ranging interviews from faded celebrities to jaded nobodies. From a range of sources including ABC Radio National’s Earshot and the Drive Time podcast. After writing a well-received memoir based on his experience in an ’eighties Australian indie band, Confessions of a Lighthouse Keeper, Greg Appel realised he had much more in his old boxes under the bed: photos, pamphlets and artefacts from ancient road trips illustrate this present day safari.
Beginning with his misty hometown of Canberra in the ’seventies, the reader is taken on an Australian wide odyssey of change, cuisine, culture and whatever comes around the next bend.
Eat well, sleep well, and drive on.
Drive Time available now at Redeye Records: 143 York Street, Sydney
an accessible style, it is informed by wide ranging interviews from faded celebrities to jaded nobodies. From a range of sources including ABC Radio National’s Earshot and the Drive Time podcast. After writing a well-received memoir based on his experience in an ’eighties Australian indie band, Confessions of a Lighthouse Keeper, Greg Appel realised he had much more in his old boxes under the bed: photos, pamphlets and artefacts from ancient road trips illustrate this present day safari.
Beginning with his misty hometown of Canberra in the ’seventies, the reader is taken on an Australian wide odyssey of change, cuisine, culture and whatever comes around the next bend.
Eat well, sleep well, and drive on.
Drive Time available now at Redeye Records: 143 York Street, Sydney
'Confessions of a Lighthouse Keeper' now available as a beautiful E Book! Purchase at Amazon
Available at selected shops
Sydney
Reviews and Comments
A 236-page full-colour memoir that’s more than an insider’s account of a mid-eighties Australian independent band. Confessions of a Lighthouse Keeper provides multiple insights into the broader music and entertainment world—in a country that has mixed feelings about the arts. It’s atmospheric, light and full of musings from others who have travelled this road over the last fifty years. The Lighthouse Keepers are sentimental favourites among the generation who came of age in the inner cities of Sydney, Melbourne—and even Canberra and Perth—during the 1980s.
Featuring personal interviews, diary entries, and writing contributions from other witnesses—interviews include: Lindy Morrison, the Go-Betweens; James Cruickshank, Widdershins, Cruel Sea; Rob McComb, the Triffids; Murray Cook, the Wiggles; John Paul Young, legendary Australian popstar and reigning King of Pop; Steve Kilbey, the Church; Ken Gormly, Cruel Sea; Clinton Walker, writer/academic; David Nichols, writer/academic; Juliet Ward, the Lighthouse Keepers; Sarah Macdonald, journalist/broadcaster… with a foreword by Tanya Plibersek, Australian Labor Party, Member of Parliament.
There are also online videos and a podcast being put together around the book’s publication.
Lighthouse Keepers
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lighthouse_Keepers
The Lighthouse Keepers were an Australian country and indie pop band formed in 1981 in Sydney. The Lighthouse Keepers combined a ‘loosely rehearsed, casual ethos’ with humour, punk attitudes and pure pop song craft. While sounding unlike anything else at the time they were very successful on a cult level. In November 1984 the group issued their debut studio album, Tales of the Unexpected, and a single, ‘Ocean Liner’. In 1985 the band toured the United Kingdom and Europe, at times supporting their fellow label mates the Triffids. ‘They are the perfect group with the perfect pop songs, songs about heartfelt passions with simple intelligible lyrics...These people know what they are about, they know how to touch us lesser mortals right at the heart. ‘Pure genius,’ raved Jane Wilkes in the UK’s New Musical Express. But after this one European sojourn the ensemble disbanded in 1986, releasing a compilation album, ‘The Imploding Lighthouse Keepers’, in November that year.
Greg Appel – the author
http://www.spontaneousfilms.com.au/
Perhaps as a punishment for his sins in this indie world, Greg Appel ended up as the producer of the ABC TV rock history Long Way to the Top and has created numerous other music programs and events. As a guitarist/songwriter for the Lighthouse Keepers in the mid-Eighties, his interest in music has often influenced his work. His diverse documentary work has included awards in Australia and being selected to open the South African Film Festival for the 2010 World Cup with The Team that Never Played. His documentary on bossa nova music in 2008, the Sound that Seduced the World premiered at the Sydney Film Festival and was broadcast on ABC 1 and 2. He has also produced many feature documentaries for ABC Radio National. Greg brings to this tale a unique perspective on the music business, public broadcasting and program- making. From putting on family shows at caravan parks in his youth, he has come full circle to putting on shows about caravan parks in the fraught world of live theatre.
Chapter breakdown
All chapters are named after Lighthouse Keeper’s songs, with a fairly linear narrative from the sixties all the way to nowadays.
Introduction
PLUS: Appendix, Discography + a family tree of bands by Roger Griffin
Sydney
- Redeye Records: 143 York Street, City
- Egg Records: 3 Wilson Street, Newtown
- National Portrait Gallery, King Edward Terrace, Parkes
- Greville Records: 152 Greville St, Prahran
- Collins Booksellers Thirroul, Shop 5, 264 Lawrence Hargrave Drive, NSW 2515
- Berkelouw Book Barn & Cafe, 3020 Old Hume Highway, Berrima, NSW 2577
- St. Arnaud Books 1 Raglan Street, St. Arnaud Victoria, Australia
Reviews and Comments
A 236-page full-colour memoir that’s more than an insider’s account of a mid-eighties Australian independent band. Confessions of a Lighthouse Keeper provides multiple insights into the broader music and entertainment world—in a country that has mixed feelings about the arts. It’s atmospheric, light and full of musings from others who have travelled this road over the last fifty years. The Lighthouse Keepers are sentimental favourites among the generation who came of age in the inner cities of Sydney, Melbourne—and even Canberra and Perth—during the 1980s.
Featuring personal interviews, diary entries, and writing contributions from other witnesses—interviews include: Lindy Morrison, the Go-Betweens; James Cruickshank, Widdershins, Cruel Sea; Rob McComb, the Triffids; Murray Cook, the Wiggles; John Paul Young, legendary Australian popstar and reigning King of Pop; Steve Kilbey, the Church; Ken Gormly, Cruel Sea; Clinton Walker, writer/academic; David Nichols, writer/academic; Juliet Ward, the Lighthouse Keepers; Sarah Macdonald, journalist/broadcaster… with a foreword by Tanya Plibersek, Australian Labor Party, Member of Parliament.
There are also online videos and a podcast being put together around the book’s publication.
Lighthouse Keepers
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lighthouse_Keepers
The Lighthouse Keepers were an Australian country and indie pop band formed in 1981 in Sydney. The Lighthouse Keepers combined a ‘loosely rehearsed, casual ethos’ with humour, punk attitudes and pure pop song craft. While sounding unlike anything else at the time they were very successful on a cult level. In November 1984 the group issued their debut studio album, Tales of the Unexpected, and a single, ‘Ocean Liner’. In 1985 the band toured the United Kingdom and Europe, at times supporting their fellow label mates the Triffids. ‘They are the perfect group with the perfect pop songs, songs about heartfelt passions with simple intelligible lyrics...These people know what they are about, they know how to touch us lesser mortals right at the heart. ‘Pure genius,’ raved Jane Wilkes in the UK’s New Musical Express. But after this one European sojourn the ensemble disbanded in 1986, releasing a compilation album, ‘The Imploding Lighthouse Keepers’, in November that year.
Greg Appel – the author
http://www.spontaneousfilms.com.au/
Perhaps as a punishment for his sins in this indie world, Greg Appel ended up as the producer of the ABC TV rock history Long Way to the Top and has created numerous other music programs and events. As a guitarist/songwriter for the Lighthouse Keepers in the mid-Eighties, his interest in music has often influenced his work. His diverse documentary work has included awards in Australia and being selected to open the South African Film Festival for the 2010 World Cup with The Team that Never Played. His documentary on bossa nova music in 2008, the Sound that Seduced the World premiered at the Sydney Film Festival and was broadcast on ABC 1 and 2. He has also produced many feature documentaries for ABC Radio National. Greg brings to this tale a unique perspective on the music business, public broadcasting and program- making. From putting on family shows at caravan parks in his youth, he has come full circle to putting on shows about caravan parks in the fraught world of live theatre.
Chapter breakdown
All chapters are named after Lighthouse Keeper’s songs, with a fairly linear narrative from the sixties all the way to nowadays.
Introduction
- Ode to Nothing – the Lighthouse Keepers break up after an onstage brawl in Hamburg
- Dishwashing Liquid – a dreamy Canberra childhood, followed by a not-very-good punk band
- Lighthouse Keepers – early history in Sydney independent scene interviews, diaries
- We’ve Got a Gig – the Lighthouse Keepers play a lot, the inner-city scene explodes (sort of), interviews, diaries, records of live shows.
- Springtime – the Lighthouse Keepers play even more, interviews, diaries, records of live shows.
- Wheels Over the Desert – the Lighthouse Keepers go overseas and try their luck with mixed results: interviews, diaries, records of live shows
- Torture Road – one big tour to Europe: interviews, diaries, records of live shows
- Bad Mood – the end of the road for the band: interviews, diaries, records of live shows
- A Time of Evil – another band – the Widdershins – is formed, some darker times including witchcraft, drugs and even sex
- March of the Green Men – Greg Appel starts to work at the ABC and begins to make documentaries
- Cruising – Greg works on various ABC TV shows including King Street, Newtown and A Long Way to the Top
- Shadowlands – the story of Van Park – a musical comedy about some old musos stuck in a caravan park starring John Paul Young and Steve Kilbey
- Return of the King – putting on live shows and making docos is occasionally rewarding
- Love Beacon – flashes and reflections
- Hoogle Waltz – what goes around comes around, a life in the arts in perspective
PLUS: Appendix, Discography + a family tree of bands by Roger Griffin
