Starfish

1988

Interviews | Reviews | Pictures | Chords and Tab | Press Release

Discography Information

1988 Starfish

Marty Willson-Piper (Guitars)
Richard Ploog (Drums, Percussion)
Peter Koppes (Guitars)
Steve Kilbey (Bass Guitar, Lead Vocals)

Greg Kuehn (Keyboards)
David Lindley (Mandolin on "Antenna")
Awesome Welles (Synclavier)
Waddy Wachtel (Backing Vocals)

5:51 Destination
4:57 Under the Milky Way
4:23 Blood Money
4:47 Lost
4:59 North, South, East and West
3:45 Spark
3:51 Antenna
4:56 Reptile
2:58 A New Season
5:40 Hotel Womb

Singles

1988 Reptile
Texas Moon

7" Mushroom K574 MX-70181 (Australia) (Green vinyl)

Under The Milky Way was released as a single too.


Other Material Released


Lots ! See the discography for a complete listing, but in a nutshell, there's acoustic versions of Milky Way and Antenna, a tab book from Cherry Lane Publishing, a t-shirt, a large poster that comes with the 12" Promo of Milky Way and several other items I won't list here.

Videos were made for Reptile and Under The Milky Way. Some members of the Seance mailing list were actually at the concert where the video was filmed.


Key Interviews

Rolling Stone interviewed the band on many subjects just before the Starfish tour began and the sales went stratospheric.
Part One of another in-depth interview, this time with Ears and Mouth magazine. Part Two is here too.

Other Notes


Under The Milky Way won the Australian Record Industry Award (ARIA) for the Best Single in 1989

Casey Kasem's American Top 40 radio show made many comments about Under The Milky Way when it was hugely popular in the US. Mike Fulmer has provided a transcript of his comments.

A poem by Steve Kilbey was printed on the album.

The press release has more information on each song, written by Steve.

The Argentinian LP was called "Estrella De Mar" due to the fact it means Starfish in Spanish

Two songs from Starfish were used in episodes of Miami Vice. Under The Milky Way was used in an episode called Asian Cut and Blood Money was used in Heart Of Night.

Asian Cut was aired 13 Jan 1989 and directed by James Contner
Heart Of Night was aired 18 Nov 1988 and directed by Paul Krasny

Thanks to Mikko for the info !


22nd May 1997
A recent discussion on the origin of the phrase "exquisite corpse", from the song Lost turned up this definition. The discussion ranged far and wide, but here's the essence of it.
"LE CADAVRE EXQUIS (Exquisite Corpse) was a parlor game played by Andre Breton and other surrealists. The intent of this game was to break free from the constraints of rational thought. Players collaborated to make a sentence or a drawing; each player adding to a sheet of paper that was then folded to keep the others from knowing what came before."

---from Art Spiegelman's introduction to THE NARRATIVE CORPSE

Thanks to Jay for the information, and of course to everyone else who talked about it :-)
Roderick W. MacQuarrie points out some Rickenbacker trivia about the video for Under The Milky Way
I've been a great fan of Rickenbacker guitars ever since R.E.M. and the Church 
and the Smiths and there's  this one guitar that I've always wanted to get but no 
one seemed to know about. It's the one that Marty is playing on the "Under the 
Milky Way" video. In reality, the guitar he is playing is not the actual guitar that
 is recorded...He's playing an acoustic Rickenbacker of some sort that has two 
cateye sound holes. So I've been looking everywhere for this guitar and I finally 
got ahold of a guy out in California at Route 66 guitars who happens to be one 
of THE experts on Rickenbackers. The guitar that Marty is playing in the video is 
only one of two made...and they are both in the possession of the owner of 
Rickenbacker itself, John Hall (I believe is his name). Anyway, Marty borrowed 
that guitar for the video (according to the guy I talked to) and has been after John 
Hall to sell it to him for quite some time (unsuccessfully). So what you see is not what 
you hear. But rumour has it that Rickenbacker is planning on producing them in mass 
quantities because it is listed in their latest catalogue...Or so I am told...

Thomas Irvin added...

The new version of the guitar in question is in fact being made by Rickenbacker again, my local dealer lists it at US$4200. I believe its new name is the 4000-something Jazz-bo, but when the originals were made it was just another speciality guitar made by Rickenbacker's chief luthier, Roger Rossmeisel (sp?). Rickenbacker made a nice range of acoustics throughout the '60s, but very few in actual quantity.

Note also that the cool triangular tailpiece of Marty's version has been replaced by a more traditional "trapeze" style tailpiece. Also, while Marty's has the traditional Rick headstock shape, it is without the Rickenbacker logo swash-shape, which the new version has.

Rickenbacker trivia nuts (can you guess that includes me) should also note in the background is a matched pair of Rickenbacker Trans-Sonic Amplifiers, very rare and very cool in their trapezoidal shape.

In addition, Rickenbacker produced a cool black and red poster promoting "Marty Willson-Piper of the Church" and featuring the cover shot from Marty's Rhyme album. (The perfect wall covering for someone like me!)


Frank points out that ...
The 360/12 that Rickenbacker reports Marty as playing is a actually a Model1993 Rose, Morris export. He's pictured with it in the photo at the RIC page.Only a hundred were made in 1964 & 1965 and those were exported out of theU.S. Marty's was probably a '65 because that was the year that RIC started toput the classic "R" tailpiece on their guitars.

 

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