1977 Bristol & I was playing guitar in my very first band, a college rock band playing my first gig at The Granary, mostly doing covers with a few original songs thrown in. But for quite some time I had been writing lots of songs at home, experimenting and developing ideas on my trusty reel to reel tape recorder. College ended and so did that band.
But punk had just arrived like some gigantic bulldozer. Totally energized with what was happening, I decided this was the time to form my own band featuring these new songs that I had written & recorded.
In early '78 I put up adverts in various local music & record stores for a bass player and drummer.
This led to finding Richard White, who had moved down to Bristol from Ross-On-Wye in search of a band and glory. By a stroke of good luck, he also knew of a great drummer in Bristol intriguingly named Emil. So very quickly, Apartment just fell in to place.
We decided to keep to a three-piece line-up initially, and spent a lot of time rehearsing & learning the songs. We also checked out prospective venues to approach to play, but this was quite tough to break into without being known locally first.
ApartmentSo we ended up hiring a function room that was joined onto the back of The Bunch Of Grapes pub, called The Stonehouse for a fiver (this was down at the end of Newfoundland Road in Bristol-sadly now replaced by an office block & a 21st century mall) and started playing a gig there once every week.
After a short period of playing there we got more and more people turning up, and as a result developed a bit of a following. The word got out & other bands started to play at the Stonehouse, and by mid 1979 it had become a real thriving scene, like our own mini-CBGB's.
We also sent a demo cassette to Simon Edwards of Bristol's Heartbeat Records. He loved it and kindly offered us the chance to record a track ('The Alternative') for his new Bristol compilation album - Avon Calling.
We recorded 'The Car' and 'Winter' as a double A-sided single at Crescent Studios in Bath in Dec'79 in between a flurry of local gigs. 'The Car' gained a fair amount of national radio play which led to a Radio One Mike Read session. This got us more exposure & through various promoters we managed to get more gigs outside Bristol.
Around about this time we added Steve Street of the Europeans on bass, as Richard really wanted to switch to rhythm guitar. By early 1980 we were now playing quite a few support gigs in London at the Marquee, 100 Club and the Moonlight. We were also opening for bands like the Cure and Gang Of Four locally. But we got to a point where we should of released another single, but it didn't happen. In fact 'Poison' (the demo of which is on the CD release of Avon Calling) was to be the next possible candidate. By mid-summer of 1980 with no new single & no real deal on the horizon, Apartment stalled & we decided to split after not getting to the next level.
Alan Griffiths (guitar)
Apartment - Live in Bristol 1980
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