Still Rockin' It - Cheryl Lee
Join Cheryl Lee That Radio Chick on Still Rockin' It for news, reviews and interviews with some of our favourite Australian musicians.
What are they up to at the moment? Let's find out .......
Still Rockin' It - Cheryl Lee
What has Lindy Morrison From Go-Betweens been up to lately? OR The Unstoppable Beat of An Australian Music Icon
Join Cheryl Lee - That Radio Chick on STILL ROCKIN' IT for news, reviews, music and interviews with some of our favourite Australian musicians
When Australian music royalty speaks, we listen. Drummer Lindy Morrison joins us for a captivating conversation that spans her remarkable five-decade journey through music, activism, and community service.
From her unexpected introduction to drumming in a Brisbane share house alongside future Oscar-winner Geoffrey Rush to her pivotal role in iconic indie band The Go-Betweens, Lindy's story is one of serendipity and dedication. "I was very lucky," she reflects on finding that first drum kit, which led to her joining the Go-Betweens in 1980 after a string of previous drummers. The band would go on to create Australian classics like "Cattle and Cane" and "Streets of Your Town," both recognized among Australia's greatest songs.
Beyond the drum kit, Lindy's contributions to music run deep. With a background in social work, she spent 25 years helping develop Support Act, Australia's music industry charity that provides crisis relief to music professionals experiencing hardship. Her community work extended to organizing music events across Australia and working with an intellectually disabled band for over two decades. These contributions earned her the Order of Australia Medal in 2013 and numerous industry accolades.
Now, at a stage when most would rest on their laurels, Lindy is embarking on perhaps her most personal musical journey yet. With the Snarky Circus Lindy Band, she's recording her own compositions for the first time. Their debut album "What's Said and What's Left Unsaid" features co-written songs with Rob Snarsky that showcase her songwriting talents with titles as intriguing as "Since I Slept With You, Everybody Wants to Sleep With Me."
Subscribe to hear more conversations with iconic Australian musicians who continue to shape our cultural landscape. Support local music and catch Lindy's new band on tour – her journey from the backbeat to the spotlight is not to be missed.
What has The Go-Betweens Lindy Morrison been up to lately? Let's find out!
Get out when you can, support local music and I'll see you down the front!!
Visit: ThatRadioChick.com.au
That Radio Chick, cheryl Lee, here. Welcome to the Still Rockin It Podcast where we'll have music news, reviews and interviews with some of our favourite Australian musicians and artists. Today I spoke with one of the most amazing women I think I've ever chatted to. I must confess to being a little bit starstruck, a little bit tongue-tied. This lady is absolutely amazing, not just in music but in every other aspect of her life, and she has put back into the community and not just the musical community her entire life. I'm talking about the Go-Betweens drummer, Lindy Morrison, and we're chatting today about her latest band snarky circus lindy band, and her songwriting collaboration with Rob Snarky of the Black eyed susans. After two lovingly received mini albums, everybody's favorite indie all-star ensemble is set to release its debut album. Let's find out everything that this amazing woman is up to.
Cheryl Lee:To catch up on podcasts from other favourite artists, simply go to thatradiochick. com. au. You're with Cheryl Lee that Radio Chick and I'd like to welcome into the Zoom room today legendary Lindy Morrison. It is so lovely to meet you, lindy. Thank you for spending some time with us today. Thank you, cheryl. Thanks, I'm exhausted. I've read through your body of work and everything that you've done and everything that you've achieved in your wonderful life and I need a nap-a-nap.
Lindy Morrison:I'm pretty old. I'm not young, so I've had the capacity to do a lot, a lot more than most people, because I'm one of the oldest seniors now in the music industry.
Cheryl Lee:Well, you sure have done a lot and still doing a lot. We've got some exciting new things to talk about, but I was hoping we could just step back a tiny little bit first before we go forward, because I was wondering why drumming At that time? I can't imagine it being like on the top of the list of instruments for young girls to play.
Lindy Morrison:I wasn't a young girl so I'd already left school because, you know, a young girl wouldn't have moved on to a drum kit at that stage not unless they're very familiar with Karen Carpenter. But I was in a share house as a young adult and in that share house were people like Geoffrey Rush and another actor called Billy Brown and a whole bunch of musicians and there was a music room. In that music room was a drum kit and I moved to the drum kit. So I was very lucky. Then I started taking lessons from the Leblers in Brisbane, which are, you know, everybody who played drums in Brisbane worked with the Leblers. And then, of course, I was in an all-girl punk band called Zero and then moved from that into the Go-Betweens by 1980.
Lindy Morrison:Lucky, you moved into that house then. Yeah, it was really great. It was such a great so that was 73 and 74 that I moved into that house and it was just the most creative house. You know people were putting on shows in the house all the time. There was always music being played. You know we really had a really, really great time.
Cheryl Lee:How did it come about that you were lucky enough, because that could have set you on the whole path of your career.
Lindy Morrison:Well, I was just at university and I was acting in university reviews, like the architecture review, you know, they were just silly satirical pieces and I met people there, people who were creative. They invited me to go and stay in that house. So that's how it happened and of course, everybody was in those large share houses in Brisbane in the early 70s.
Cheryl Lee:And also it was social work.
Lindy Morrison:I did a Bachelor of Social Work at the University of Queensland and then worked for two years in the Aboriginal and Islander Legal Service. Well, in fact, one year in the Aboriginal and Islander Legal Service and another year with the Department of Children's Services, just dealing with Indigenous families. Then I left social work and didn't take it up again, really till I got involved with Support Act.
Cheryl Lee:And we'll chat about that as well, because I loved it. When I read about that, I want to know all about it. I was wondering perhaps you may have come from a musical family and that's how you no no, no, not at all.
Lindy Morrison:I did not come from a musical family.
Cheryl Lee:My family was not musical Well, it must have been meant to be that you met the right people in the house, and the rest is history.
Lindy Morrison:It was very lucky because I then travelled to London with Geoffrey and he went to the De Crewe Mime School. Over in Paris, billy Brown went to the Royal Shakespeare Company. I had all sorts of different jobs, including being the nanny to Sir George Schulte in Italy, his children and he was a very famous conductor. So I had some very interesting experiences.
Cheryl Lee:How diverse, how exciting. More amazing stuff about you. Lindy, the Go-Betweens, performed in 77. You joined in 80.
Lindy Morrison:There was a number of drummers before me. I think someone might have counted them up. There might have been about eight drummers before me, but most of them only did one or two gigs. There were a couple of ones that stayed for a while, a guy called Tim and Bruce Anton. Yeah, I was the lucky one too, because I was really committed when I joined the Go-Betweens. I wanted to stay with the Go-Betweens. Yeah, you know, I really, really loved their music, I loved their attitude and I loved being in the band. Also, we were leaving Brisbane and that, to me, was a very important part of the story, guys that came before you.
Cheryl Lee:Were they all male? Any other drummers?
Lindy Morrison:No, there was two women, oh wow. There was one called Lisa and there was one called Claire. Both of them did one gig each yeah, is that like the interview?
Cheryl Lee:and they failed the interview.
Lindy Morrison:I think that they might have rejected the men.
Cheryl Lee:Oh righto, yeah, yeah, well, it's lucky. I think it must have been like destiny they were waiting for you.
Lindy Morrison:Well, they were definitely looking for a woman drummer and I suppose I was the most visual in town. I certainly covered a lot of territory. You know, I was playing in the girl punk band called Zero and I had been acting before that in two theatre companies called the Popular Theatre Troupe and Grid and Tonic. They were kind of political theatre companies but I'd made a decision to move and concentrate on playing.
Cheryl Lee:Yeah, and as I said earlier, the body of work over all these years is so immense we haven't got time to talk about them all, so we might just pick a couple of things. In 2001, cattle and Cane, which is arguably one of the most popular of the band's works, was selected by APRA in the top 30 Australian songs of all time. So that's a big tick from the peers.
Lindy Morrison:Yes, and it made I think it was like it made the second hundred of the Triple J top 200.
Cheryl Lee:Yeah.
Lindy Morrison:And Streets of your Town made the top hundred. I was really pleased that Catelyn Cain made the second 200 because I thought that the songs that made the top 100 all had very high production values. You know. So the alternate indie, kind of sound like Cattle and Cane, which is very alternate indie, was never going to cut it Like the Triffids' Wide Open Road, didn't? None of the Saints made it in. You know those kind of acts because you know their production values weren't as good. You know, obviously production values have changed now with the kind of quantising of all the instruments so that they're all in metronomic time.
Cheryl Lee:Yeah, Speaking of streets of your town. A great song, you know, it's lasted the test of time.
Lindy Morrison:Yes, perhaps that's one of the very good points about it.
Cheryl Lee:You have got one daughter. Is she following you into your musical journey or is she off on a different trajectory?
Lindy Morrison:No, no, she's a completely different trajectory altogether. In fact, she's the Director of Fundraising for the Federal Labour Party. Probably can't get much different. Well, you know, I worked with Support Act to develop Support Act and worked with Support Act part-time, I must admit for like 25 years and that was when I was raising her. So I suspect that she saw a lot of the work I was doing and the value in fundraising for Support Act so that Support Act could help people who worked in the music industry.
Cheryl Lee:Absolutely so. She was like a chip off the old block. She absorbed it via osmosis.
Lindy Morrison:Yeah, I think that she absorbed it, that's right.
Cheryl Lee:Let's talk about your journey with Support Act, because you and I both definitely agree it is, you know, an absolutely amazing charity For those that don't know. It helps artists not just artists, but sound guys, lighting technicians, roadies, everybody in the music industry who falls on hard times.
Lindy Morrison:Yeah, yeah, so it provides help in the payment of bills. So if people are having trouble paying their bills then they can apply to Support Act. If they've worked in the industry in some capacity, A supporter will pay your bills up to a certain amount per year. Maybe it just depends on the situation now.
Lindy Morrison:Yeah, and how did you get involved? I was on the PPCA board. Ppca is the Collection Society for the fees paid for the use of the sound recording. It's like the opera of the sound recording I had, like the APRA of the sound recording. I had been elected onto that board to represent artists, and the other people on the board are the major record companies and independent record companies. Now they had all got together with APRA to set up Support Act and they knew I had a social work degree. So they asked would I work for three hours a week, which I did for about 10 years? Would I work for three hours a week, which I did for about 10 years? Work for about three hours a week before it was extended to maybe 12 hours a week? It was very hard work getting a support act established.
Cheryl Lee:I take my hat off to you. We do a fundraising luncheon once a month, so 12 luncheons a year, and send all our money over and know that you guys will, you know, appropriate it to those that need it.
Lindy Morrison:Yeah it's so great that you do that. Yes, now I retired from Support Act after COVID.
Cheryl Lee:Yeah.
Lindy Morrison:You know it was time to move on. I'd been there for a very long time.
Cheryl Lee:On behalf of all the not just, as I say, the artists, but all the workers in the music industry for all those years of hard work and dedication to that cause. I thank you on all of their behalf. You deserve a gold watch and a medal. Thanks.
Lindy Morrison:Thank you so much. Yeah, I really wanted to get back into music. I got a gig with Alex the Astronaut and I was working with her for a year. I was her first drummer. Of course, she's now got a young band and then Rob Snarsky came and asked me to join with him, and it was when I was with Alex. I was going I just want to get back into music. Now my daughter's left, I don't need to be looking after her. So I joined what Rob called the Snarsky Circus Lindy Band and I've been on the road with them for the last four years. Yeah, we've actually played in Adelaide a number of times. We love playing Adelaide and, in particular, we really love playing at the Wee Chief.
Cheryl Lee:Yeah, great little venue isn't it?
Lindy Morrison:It's the best venue. It's honestly the best venue. I love it. Yes, we're playing there on Sunday, the 19th of October. So the great thing about it is you can do afternoon gigs, so we're doing two shows in the afternoon. That's what I really love, like people can come and sit and eat food from those vans that park outside and sit in a kind of it's almost an open courtyard. It's a lovely place to play.
Cheryl Lee:We've got some good little spots in Adelaide, haven't we? And that's definitely one of them. We'll get on to the brand new music and we're going to play before we run out of time in a minute. I just wanted to touch on a couple of your achievements, which again is many and vast and long list, but you were awarded the Order of Australia Medal in 2013 for services as both a performer and an advocate. Congratulations on that, thank you. Thanks very much. The Ted Albert Award for Outstanding Services to Music again well-deserved. And the Queensland Lifetime Achievement Award the list goes on and on and on. Lindy, you've been such an amazing part of the Australian music landscape and you've created songs that became the soundtrack to our lives.
Lindy Morrison:I think some of those awards were also given because whilst I was working with Support Acton, I was also running community music events all the time. They were all over Australia. In fact I did one down at Beachport which was fabulous. I had to organise all the primary schools to march in a parade. It was a really big job. But I did lots of work like that. And in particular I worked with an internationally disabled band called the Junction House Band and we did theatre. We did many recordings and we did theatre. We did many recordings the same people for like 25 years, yeah. And there was a lot of other work I did in places like Mackay, knockhampton, mount Isa, fremantle you know where I worked with communities to develop shows or to develop drum pageants.
Cheryl Lee:That's what I mean. Your achievements and your input has been immense and almost immeasurable. We want to talk about the brand new things as well, because it's continuing on Snarky Circus Lindy Band. Who made up that name? It's a bit hard for an announcer to say very fast, I know.
Lindy Morrison:I didn't, Robert did and frankly, if I'd had, I was so kind of flattered that he asked me to join the band that I failed to stand up to him at the time and say that name is a little bit of a mouthful, Rob, and also, to be honest, it should have been Snarsky Circus Morrison Band. You know that would have been better.
Lindy Morrison:I did bring that up and he said, oh, it didn't have the same rhythm, but in fact, now I think about it, it does. But anyway, I didn't have the nows at that stage to stand up to him. Of course, you know, as time has gone on I'm much more relaxed.
Cheryl Lee:I reckon it should be called the Lindy Bams Narsky Circus. How about that? But yes, it is a little bit of a mouthful. But when I read this I could hardly believe it that this is the first time that you have recorded your own compositions. Can that be true?
Lindy Morrison:That is true, that's right. So Rob really encouraged me to write and of course, you know, I've been writing on all those community music programs that I'd worked on. But I was always working to get other people to write and also because I wasn't recording, there seemed for me to be no point in, you know, writing all the time. So when Rob said let's write together, let's co-write, I began to really take it seriously and we worked together a lot to get you know songs together just about 10, maybe nine of them, I think. There might be one that's totally his and one that's totally mine on the album, but mostly they're co-writes. You always work very well together. Yes, he's a lovely person. Rob Sarsky's a lovely person, he really is, yeah, and the band's great. Shane O'Mara is the producer and he plays guitar, dan Kelly plays bass and Evil Graham Lee plays pedal steel. You know we've all been around.
Cheryl Lee:Yeah, we're all very experienced musicians. That is wonderful that you're starting to write and record your own compositions as well.
Lindy Morrison:You've got one to play, haven't you? You're so adorable.
Cheryl Lee:Yes, that's right. I'll get you to introduce that in a minute. How are we going? A couple more minutes. Let's talk about it then, shall we? The debut album for the Snarky Circus Lindy Band, and it's called what's Said and what's Left Unsaid. I must say the names of the songs and the names of the albums. They're all so quirky and interesting. There's no sort of like generic love songs in there.
Lindy Morrison:That's true.
Cheryl Lee:Probably because we're older, you can get away with it Like on the side B, since I slept with you, everybody wants to sleep with me. Yeah, I wrote that.
Lindy Morrison:That's amazing. I wrote that.
Cheryl Lee:We'll play that as well, but we'll go out with your so Adorable and what's the other one that I liked? I don't think I'll ever sleep with you again.
Lindy Morrison:That one is completely Rob, I think. I don't think I'll write anything on that one, yeah.
Cheryl Lee:It's fantastic that you have had such a long career. What would you have done, Linda, if this whole music thing hadn't worked out for you? Would you have stayed in the health sector? Did you have another plan B?
Lindy Morrison:No, I've always had a great capacity to live in the present. I think that served me well. I didn't worry about the future. Of course, as soon as you have a child, things change, so I suppose I even then, though I mean I made sure I was always working. That's why I moved into Support Act and into community music and obviously I couldn't be on the road. I think I've had a capacity to think a lot in the present and that's served me very, very well.
Cheryl Lee:We'll extend to you an open invitation, lindy, if ever you are in Adelaide on the third Thursday of every month, because that's when we have our Support. So, fundraising luncheon you're welcome to join us at the committee table anytime, I'd love that.
Lindy Morrison:I would actually love that. That would be so fun.
Cheryl Lee:Okay.
Lindy Morrison:Very pinpoint time though, isn't it? I know I'd have to be lucky to land there at that time, but it's a good idea.
Cheryl Lee:It works out sometimes. Recently we had Brian Cadd luckily up here at Trinity Sessions at the same time as our lunch, and gee, I'm so glad we had him, because shortly after he became quite unwell and is still hovering. He's a lovely man, isn't he? Yes, he is, so you would have been fairly reasonably involved with him earlier on in the Support Act story.
Lindy Morrison:Yes, because he was involved. Yeah, I mean he was on the board, I think, and the board was a hand's length from me really, because I was a worker. You know, in the way those things are.
Cheryl Lee:Yeah, that's right. The new album has launches booked for Adelaide and Melbourne and more dates to come. As you mentioned our date here in Adelaide, get onto the Google on it it's on October the 19th. You've got two shows to choose from at the Wheatie at Featherton. Get onto that. And if you're a Victorian, yours is on Saturday, the 25th at Memo Music Hall. Get onto the website and get those booked. Was there anything else that you would like to touch on, Lindy, before we go?
Lindy Morrison:No, it's been lovely to meet you, Cheryl, and really, really lovely. It's been a lovely interview.
Cheryl Lee:I've loved chatting with you and I've loved doing a little bit of research and finding out more about your amazing life and career and achievements. It's been great and I really hope that one day we can catch up at a Support Act lunch. And in the meantime, would you like to introduce side A track one from the new album?
Lindy Morrison:All right. So you're going to listen to a song that I wrote with Rob. I wrote the lyrics to this and the melody, but not to the middle bit. He wrote the lyrics and the melody to the middle bit, but I wrote the verses. It's what you'd call a Liz song. It's called You're so Adorable and it's featuring a young woman singer called Lily.
Cheryl Lee:Alaska, beautiful. So also get onto the Googleometer and you can pre-order what's said and what's left unsaid. Thanks, cheryl. I know you've got someone else coming on after me, so I really appreciate you spending some time in the Zoom room with me. I'm going to be in the US when you're in Adelaide, all right?
Lindy Morrison:Oh, what a shame I was going to bring that up. What a shame, but going to the US would be fabulous.
Cheryl Lee:Hubby and I are taking our five kids on our sort of you know trip of a lifetime. You've got five kids, yeah, five kids. Five kids, yeah, five kids. No kidding.
Lindy Morrison:No kidding, wow, that's superb.
Cheryl Lee:Thank you, good for you. We will definitely keep in touch and I'll look out for you next time that you're in our beautiful town. And all the best for the launches and the tour and the album. All right, see you later. Thanks very much. Thank you, bye for now. You're with Cheryl Lee that radio chick. Thank you, bye for now. You're with Cheryl Lee that radio chick. Thank you so much for joining me on the Still Rocking it podcast. Hope to catch you again next time. Get out when you can support Aussie music and I'll see you down the front.