In Conversation

- And make sure that the volume is cool. Hello and welcome everyone to the National Portrait Gallery here in Canberra, the nation's capital. My name is Robert, I'm part of the digital and access and learning team here at the gallery. And it's my pleasure to welcome you to our very special in conversation today with Lindy Morrison. We're going to be crossing, we're gonna be walking through our gallery in a moment to get to our special guests and to our curator, Jo, who are gonna be in conversation, but we'll just get a little bit of housekeeping out of the way first of all. So I'm sure you're all Zoom experts by now, but if you're not, please keep your microphones on mute and feel free to keep your cameras on, we don't mind seeing our audience, but just be aware that we are recording today's session and it may appear on our website at some time in the future. Please communicate with us via the chat function, the chat icon is probably at the bottom of your screen if you're on a laptop or am sure you will find it on your device. We'd love to hear your comments, your memories of the period that we're gonna be talking about, and we'd also like to have any questions that we can throw to our in conversationalists today. Now, today we are streaming out to you live from the Portrait Gallery which is on the lands of the Ngunnawal and Ngambri peoples here in the Canberra region. And I would like to pay my respects to their elders past, present and emerging, and to acknowledge the continuing connection to the lands and the waters and the communities of this region. All right, now Pub Rock is closing very soon, this weekend. So if you haven't got here and you are within driving distance, this is your last opportunity. So we're gonna go for a little wander through and I'll point out a couple of highlights. Matt is doing our camera work, he is operating our new behemoth broadcast trolley, and he's just getting used to it, so it's going to be a little shaky, that's not his fault, that's the wheels. Come this way, now on our wall here, we've got a amazing portrait of Chrissy Amphlett. On the other side of that partition, we have got some, well, we've got a photographic portrait of Chrissy and many other people. On this wall, we've got The Angels with Doc Neeson, Marcia Hines, in the little alcove over to the other side, we've got the Angels and AC/DC. This is a very big exhibition, it's bigger than you think, it covers a couple of different galleries. So we're going into a new gallery now. And as we come through, being careful to not hit the sides of the walls. Here we are, so I'm going to hand you over now to Jo, who is one of the curators Pub Rock.

- Yes, one of several curators of Pub Rock.

- [Robert] Now, we're all set to go?

- We're, all set to go, great thanks Robert. And hello everyone, welcome to the final, it's kind of a swan song, I suppose, for the Pub Rock exhibition, which closes on Sunday, I'm sure Robert has already exhorted everyone to come and see it before it finishes on Sunday. But it's been a real joy to have this exhibition on for the past few months. It's one which we sort of created in a ridiculously short period of time while we were all in lockdown last year, and one which we sort of created very much as a sort of a, I suppose, a celebration so that when we all came out of lockdown and could finally get back to art galleries and all of that sort of stuff, it would be an exhibition that really sort of prompted people to feel a lightness, to have to have something to feel sort of happy about. Yeah, so an exhibition that's been generated completely, started from the gallery's own collection, and then we sort of fleshed it out where we could with works by a group of photographers who Lindy and myself we'll be talking about as this programme progresses. But one of the starting points for the exhibition was the work on the wall behind me, which is three little portraits by Jenny Watson of the Go-Betweens painted in 1981. So Robert Forster, Lindy Morrison and Grant McLennan, and we're absolutely thrilled that Lindy Morrison is here today to talk about not just these portraits but about the whole exhibition. Welcome Lindy, it's really nice to see you.

- Thanks you.

- They are little portraits but they are awesome.

- They are awesome. So when we sort of first started working on this exhibition, we found that surprisingly actually there's sort of representation of popular and rock music in the collection was fairly sort of minimal, and these portraits were one of the sort of few starting points that we had, I guess. And certainly when I started working here 13 years ago, these were one of very, very few sort of portraits of popular musicians and rock musicians that we had in the collection. Obviously the collection has grown a lot since that time.

- They are very prescient of the Go-Between and Jenny Watson at that time.

- Indeed, and I understand you have a little bit of, you can tell us a little bit about the history of these works.

- Yeah, so I can, so first of all, let me say that it's not in '81, these were painted about 40 years, so that's pretty incredible. And Robert and I were living in Spring Hill and Grant was living around the corner in an apartment block in Brisbane, and coming into town was John Nixon who is now deceased, the late John Nixon who is a contemporary artist, and Jenny Watson was his partner at the time, and they were truly exotic creatures from Brisbane. They'd come from Melbourne and he'd come to do a residency, I believe. He also did an exhibition of his very, very minimal paintings in a warehouse, where we punks ran and turned on all the water taps to let it run through the warehouse because we were punks. That's another story for another time. But anyway, Jenny, the Go-Between asked Jenny to do our portraits for the cover of our very first album, "Send Me a Lullaby" which was on Missing Link records, and we were a three-piece then. So she took Polaroids, you know, it was a big Polaroid session where she took me and, you know. And then what she did was she did grids, and you can see the grids, and she'd painted it all in all in the grids, and that's how you get that really extraordinary, weird look about it, that worked so well, and of course it's in oil. And, yeah, so they just came up unbelievably and looked amazing on the cover. But I'm so happy that they stayed together because they were being sold for $50. And I could not find one,

- At the time.

- Just one, it was 50. I was absolutely broke. I mean, you know, Robert and I were living on the dole we were living on, we were eating his mother's fruit cake that she gave to us every week. And, it's probably too much information Jo, but I couldn't afford it. And anyway, a man who became Jenny Watson's second partner bought them, and then he donated them later on to the National Portrait Gallery. So you couldn't be happy that they stayed together because they are a triptych.

- Yes, they are. And it's actually, I mean, they're in the collection now, actually I have a feeling we purchased them, but they were in an exhibition, the only other exhibition that the gallery has ever done about this subject was in 2001-2002, and at that stage, they were still sort of privately owned, but we had them in the exhibition with some other works by Jenny 'cause she was an art teacher in Melbourne, and people like Nick Cave Were some of her students, and she'd done this fabulous series, I think they might be watercolours of Nick Cave and the other guys from Boys Next Door or Birthday Party.

- Yeah, it might have been the Boys Next Door, that's what it was the Boys Next Door. I went to her exhibition in the contemporary MTI Sydney recently that they, her work is fabulous, it's absolutely fabulous. And this is really unlike her work, this is totally anomalous to what she paints now and what she's painted for the last 40 years, I'd say. And that's why we're so lucky because it's so skillful and it captures us clearly, you know. That would be Grant like hiding from the camera. He wouldn't have liked it. He would not have liked it, and that would be him hiding. And I was a serious punk girl, you know, there's Robert with his cheeks sucked in as he would do for photos, and we've been represented beautifully by that.

- Yeah.

- I've got the up on this screen now.

- Oh, great, I'm really glad to see that.

- And I think that's a really interesting point that you make about this being the work that Jenny obviously was doing 40 years ago and not necessarily having any resemblance or relationship to what she's doing now, but one of the things I think we were conscious of in sort of pulling this exhibition together was, there's sort of numerous ways in which art and music kind of intersect, you know. So there's photographers who are, you know, kind of taking the kind of live action shots, I suppose you'd say documenting actual performances, you've got all the kind of publicity photos that are taken for magazines and album covers and all of that sort of stuff. And then you've got artists like Jenny, who as I understand it with these works and say with the portraits that she did of the Birthday Party was documenting the kind of scene that she was part of in Melbourne and Brisbane.

- In Brisbane actually because she really connected with the music, she really with the culture, yep. And that's why she wants to be part of it, that's right. We're very lucky.

- Yeah.

- Yeah, really were.

- I wanna hear about the taps in the warehouse.

- So we can have a sit.

- Yeah, we can have a sit. So what he did was, he took over this warehouse in the city.

- Yeah.

- And it had a huge lift that came up, a huge, big wooden lift, but on either sides of this wooden lift were taps. And we went to the exhibition in the middle of the day and we turn on all the taps so that they'd run down the centre of the building and ran away. And I saw John Nixon a few years before he died, and I told him the story. He said, "I always wondered who turned those taps on." It was such a ridiculously naughty and wasteful and non-green thing to do, but we still did it.

- But while we're that subject, I'm actually kind of intrigued, I suppose, you said that when John and Jenny came to Brisbane, you felt that they were really kind of these exotic creatures from Melbourne. I was wondering if we kind of could talk maybe a little bit about the sort of Brisbane scene in the 1970s. I guess I'm thinking of a couple of things, partly that, you know, Monday was International Women's Day. And, I mean, I can sort of vaguely remember the '70s, I can't remember them very clearly, but I have some memories of the '70s and, you know, as a sort of a historian, I'm really interested in the way that the '70s was. There was so many groundbreaking things that happened in terms of women's rights in the 1970s, you've got Equal Pay, you've got Women's Refuges being established, you've got well, the election of the Whitlam Government and what that meant in terms of equal opportunity, and all sorts of things.

- And it was the late '60s, that two women chained themselves to a bar Brisbane.

- Yeah.

- Merle Thornton was one of those women. And so we had that late, but also remember we were incredibly influenced by Germaine Greer of the Female Eunuch. I mean, all the women my age, we were so fortunate to have that book published and be able to read that because that defined the women's generation. I mean, the most important thing about that period was that that was with the advent of the pill and the pill changed our lives. You know, with the pill became economic power, and that's the only way that women can be liberated, you know, it's through having economic power, the only way you can get economic power is by controlling and reproductive rights. So it was a really fantastic time to be there. Yes, so, I mean, just working in, just living in Brisbane in the '70s, frankly was, you know, it was very, very edgy most of the time, because the Joh Bjelke-Petersen government, but it was the corruption of the place, and they were terribly corrupt. And you know, the Fitzgerald Inquiry expose all of that eventually. But for years and years and years of damage, but I was demonstrating regularly and worked in political theatre, the public theatre troupe in the '70s, and of course then moved into punk music, because it was political and play drums. But, you know, I had my drums confiscated for three months at a pro-choice rally. We used to go and do street theatre all the timing at the rallies. I was arrested for stealing a cops watch when all it had dropped on the ground and picked it up. You know, it was a strange edgy time. And in the end, you know, in the end, you just had to leave really, which is what I did. I mean, I went overseas in the mid '70s for a couple of years, came back and worked in theatre, but it was always on the drums. And then joined the Go-Betweens and we went to Melbourne.

- And that was about 1981.

- '81. Yeah, so would have been just after the portrait was made.

- Yeah.

- Yeah. 'Cause it's interesting, you know, not being an authority on this kind of area of history at all. I found it really interesting in sort of reading about it, that there seemed to have been this assumption that something like punk, it didn't have any place in Australia at the time. So if you look at say, you know, Britain and the Sex Pistols, there's this kind of assumption that, oh, you know, there was stature in Britain and it was gloomy and there was economic depression, and all of that sort of stuff, and therefore punk sort of, was it a kind of a natural reaction to it. Whereas there's this sort of seems to have been this idea among people who've written about this stuff previously that wasn't the case in Australia. It was like, you know, we didn't have that sort of stuff to worry about. And then if things got too gloomy, we could just go to the beach. And whereas to me, sort of looking back on it and certainly hearing you speak, it's like the politics of kind of what was going on at the time, there was just as much kind of impetus for, you know, rebellion as there was anywhere else. And it's interesting actually, that's coming across search as sort of reading through some notes before having this conversation with you this morning, coming across a quote from Ed Cooper, I think who was talking about how, yeah, you know, Brisbane wasn't great in some ways, you were really kind of, you know, on the back foot in certain respects, but in a lot of ways that kind of isolation really makes you, you know, get up and do something. If you want something to change, you have to change it yourself. If you want something to happen, you have to make it happen yourself. So was that you're kind of recollection?

- Absolutely, you have to remember the that he wrote "Brisbane Security City," you know, one of the great songs, not that the scientists ever thought that they were punk, they weren't really, they were just really great rock band.

- Yeah.

- But there were lots of punk bands, you know, there really were, "Razor" was one of them and lots of really great, you know, anti-establishment songs, you know, furious, angry songs by lots of these bands. And it was a great time for the counter-culture, it was a great time for theatre people and painters and photographers and hairdressers and everyone, musicians were all hanging out together. And we all had one thing in mind, and that was to keep the shows going, and to ride out the police. But at the same time, marching for, you know, for black rights for the Right to March, you know, Andy Rainium, you know, it was an amazing time really.

- It was a pretty weird time. I grew up in Brisbane at that time, going to university from '82, and the police were just ever present. And any of those Right to March marches, the police presence was overwhelming. And after you left in '82, the Commonwealth games land rights protests, the police brought from all over Queensland and, you know, busting, it was really scary. I noticed we had a comment from Matt Morrison, who might've also grown up in Brisbane at the time, he says, "The Joh Bjelke regime, protests, hyperactive punk, art scene, do it yourself, music and art."

- That's perfect, that's absolutely perfect.

- Yeah.

- Yeah, who's that?

- [Robert] That was Matt Morrison.

- Yeah, I know Matt. Hi, Matt, how are you going? Yeah, I mean, that's absolutely true, it was incredible. It was an incredible time. And, you know, they all through the '70s, Brisbane was really great artistically, really was, you have the poster makers as well. You know, like things like that, the people with great posters, you know, all of that was really great.

- [Robert] And the student union always, you know, rebel rousing and supporting the university groups to get involved, and Triple Zed would have had quite work to with the fomenting of dissent.

- I really should have mentioned Triple Zed, it changed everything frankly. You know, getting out on community radio station and that push for descent, but also the push for the Australian music, playing Australian and in particular Brisbane music really, really did make a big difference to our music culture.

- I think the Triple Zed prides itself on being the first radio station to ever broadcast The Angels, was it The Angels? No, the Saints, sorry.

- The Saints, yeah.

- All right, okay, that would be right. I'm pretty sure that'd be right.

- And so how is, you said you started off in like doing street theatre, how did that sort of morphed into a music career?

- I was actually.

- Was it conscious kind of thing?

- I was playing music beforehand. In 1973, I lived, in '74, I lived in an extraordinary house with Geoffrey Rush, Billy Brown, a guy called Stuart Match, another actor called Trevor Stewart, I've got a musician called Frank Millwood. You know, these are all Brisbane names that everybody knows. And Robyn Stacey lived in that house all the time, so Robyn Stacey. It was an incredible house for '73,'74 and there was a music room there, I just moved on to the drums, and then we all went overseas, you know, Geoffrey went to DeCroux and Trevor went to, you know, Trevor went to DeCroux and Geoffrey went to the other one, mime artist, it's name I forget now. And Billy went to Shakespearean company, you know. And when I came back from overseas, I went straight into theatre and worked in The Popular Theatre Troupe, which was a really very political theatre, run by a guy called Richard Fotheringham. And then I also worked in Brian Nason and Brian Nason is like an institution. He put on Shakespeare off the back of trucks in Australia, and it also had a political bend in a way. So I worked in theatre and I was always trying to put drums into shows. And then I went to an audition in Melbourne for the Pram Factory, because I thought I wanted to be an actor and work in a proper theatre, but Melbourne didn't work for me. I got into the thing, but even the very day they told me I couldn't come to terms with Melbourne, it seems so bland after Brisbane.

- Yeah.

- I guess you we'd.

- That got so interesting because the conception that a lot of other people would have would be the reverse that, you know, Brisbane was the sort of backwater and Melbourne was the, you know.

- I guess, I think I got addicted to the fight.

- Yeah.

- No, I mean it, I think I got addicted to the fight, and I just say, I made my mind up that day, I just said, "That's it, I'm just gonna concentrate on drums." And I went back and shortly after I joined up with this punk go band Zero, and we had the most fabulous time, and we're very, very active, very active politically all the time. And eventually I got sucked into the Go-Betweens.

- Yeah, could you explain that sort of sucking in process?

- Well, I suppose, you know, I really I kind of fell, I guess I fell in love with Robert, and I fell in love with their music. You know, to see those two young men, you know, in this Spring Hill apartment that Grant lived in, they used to play acoustic guitar together all the time over and over and over again, and to go in there, and beautiful, rich brown, polished wooden floors and really old Spring Hill apartment. And the two boys would be sitting there and playing that beautiful music. And I just loved it, and they were so ambitious, and I tell you, all I want to do is get out of town, I was so tired of it, I was so tired. And I was older than everybody, I was seven years older, I'd lived a life, you know, and I just wanted to get out, and they took me out. You know, I joined with them, so, you know, as his song, people says, so pack your bags and your drums, and I'm gonna take you to the kingdom comes and he certainly did that.

- Yeah, and it's really, you know, this is me kind of absorbing everything that I've been reading about this period, I suppose too, and in looking into this exhibition, it's really interesting to me that bands like the Go-Betweens was seemingly kind of overwhelmed by the really sort of blokey, you know, hard rock, the much more sort of deliberately provocative kind of bands. Like I'm thinking here, for example of, say Skyhooks, you know, and the first album that they ever released. There was like five or six songs from it that were banned from commercial radio, 'cause it was all about sex and drugs and rock and roll. Whereas the first song that Grant and Robert recorded was a song about a librarian. The b-side was about Lee Remmick.

- [Lindy] Yeah.

- So, you know, it's.

- And the second single was "People say, I'm mad to love you." Really, that's right. I never thought about that before, that's a really good point.

- It's just these really.

- No wonder I fell in love with them, like seriously, you know, because they were so fey, f-e-y, and so incredibly feminine, and, you know, the men I'd known before, people like Geoffrey and Billy and all those actors, they were beautiful fey men too, you know, and you get drawn to men like that. They're the men that suck me in, always have been, and, you know, I guess I was sucked in.

- Yeah, and then almost as if it seems as if a lot of those more fey bands, shall we say, you had to like go to London or go to New York or somewhere else to be taken seriously. Could you sort of talk maybe a little bit about that sort of first, that leaping, that getting away from Brisbane and how it was when you're in London?

- Oh, God, well, the first thing was, that Missing Links was the Boys Next Door label, and they have that ever happened is totally beyond me, but, you know, Keith from, I've just forgotten his second name, if anyone can remember Keith's second name in there, that would be good. Keith invited us to be on the label and pay for that first album, and we went to Melbourne to live. And then after that first album, rough trade, so they wanted to, so we went to London, but you know, all the bands, you know, the mood was with Claire more on drums, you know, and, well, of course there was another female drummer, Kathy Green. She was with X where you could hardly say that they were feminine they were not, but Kathy Green certainly was. But the fey bands all went overseas. I mean, Laughing Clowns, you know, The Triffids, The Moodists, we were such a great strong gang. It really, we were completely the 'other'. We were the other to what was in Australia at the time.

- I just brought up that image from the other wall.

- Oh, yeah.

- Oh, yeah.

- I love that.

- Can you tell us a bit about that? I love the fact that Robert is wearing that kind of midriff top.

- That was during Robert's Prince period. And so he really loved Prince and he, so that was '86, '87 because Amanda's in the band, and so Robert and I would have broken up by then.

- By this stage.

- And when we broke up Robert went through a very wild period, which, you know, was very good for him. And so he was going through that, but we would just look, I always loved the photo session, so I'm not the same now, I find them unbelievably arduous. But I used to love them and we used to play up, and I mean, one of the things I guess to be frank, you know, we always look good in photos because we were young. Maybe that's why I love them, because you always knew you were gonna look good. And, yeah, I, I can't remember much more, I know Warrick Orme took that, I can't remember much more. You know, Bleddyn Butcher took quite a few, you've got his, I think that's his there, of Dave sorry, from the Triffids.

- Yeah, and we've got some of his photos, actually photo of Claire Moore and Dave Graney and some of his photos of Boys Next Door too.

- Of course, yeah, I mean, Bleddyn was always around and he was such a great photographer. And I have to say, he's got a whole series of me. I did a whole Christine Keeler kind of thing with.

- [Jo] Oh, wow.

- Yeah, but after he had taken them, I said, I told him, "You can never use these," but then of course, now that I'm older, I said, "Oh, you can use them." But he's never, ever used them. And now I wish he would, they really out there actually, they're fairly wild. But Bleddyn was always around and always taking photos. That was overseas, and he did so much work, and, you know, it's extraordinary, but I missed out on people because I was overseas, we were overseas for a good seven, eight years, and only came back. I missed out on all the photographers in Australia, and I've only caught up with them. You know, I'm aware that Bob King is everywhere, everywhere I go, I run into Bob King, and I know who he is. And I saw a photograph from 1977 here, 1977?

- We've actually got some photos, I think, from '64 of the AC beats that Bob took. So he must've been like.

- And he is still working.

- Yeah, yeah.

- My very favourite photographer is Tony Mott just because he's so crazy. And I always say to him, you know, "Just take another photograph of me when I look bad," you know, because every photo, and he said, "Well, I just take photograph of naturally Lindy." But he took a photograph of me recently when I got the Ted Albert Award at the ARPA Awards, since that wasn't recent it was about three years ago. The most beautiful photo, you see it all the time, it's all in gold, I'm on drums, and it's beautiful. I've got a bob and it's the most beautiful closeup you've ever seen. So finally he took a really great photo of me and that wasn't natural where I look good. And so that's yeah, but who's not in the exhibition is my very, very dear friend, Robyn Stacey, who's a photographer as well. But that's because she has never, ever unpacked all the band photos she took from, I would say, 1976, '77 through to 1980 when she started getting arty. And she's now an art photographer, if that's what you call photographers who are art photographers And yeah, she's took some beautiful photos of me, and the one that you, again, when you see all the time is me in '79 in little cutoff denim shorts, it's a view of me where she's looking up at me like that, and it's black and white, it's the most stunning photograph of a woman playing drums, you know, yeah, there are some of my stories from the photographers.

- And you've obviously just sort of in the course of the conversation, you've mentioned a lot of performance who are represented in the exhibition as well that you've worked with. Do you want to tell us about some of those I'm really fascinated to know about, for example, the time in London when Nick Cave was sharing a house with you guys, is that right?

- Yeah, he was sharing a house with us in London. You know, it's well documented that Nick and, a number of, you know, he would have been, Tracy Pew was living there, Tracy Pew's partner. I think Nick, did Nick have a partner living there at the time? I don't know. But other people would come and stay, well, it was a fairly dynamic house, and I would say it was it was very exciting, it was edgy, is an understatement.

- Understatement.

- And the story goes, I'm not gonna tell all the stories, you know, you know, Tracy Thorne has a book coming out on May called "My Rock and Roll Friend" there is a story of that if you wanna read that. But, you know, Grant did throw Nick out.

- [Jo] Oh!

- Yeah, and Nick has never forgave Grant for doing that. And it was always my kind of favourite story that Grant of old people, you know, Mr. Absolutely charming and you very well mannered man, would perfect impeccable manners in the end, took it on himself to throw Nick out. Yeah, it was a wild house.

- Yeah.

- Yeah, obviously I'm the who ever did the cleaning.

- So the same old domestic roles.

- [Robert] We have a comment from, let me see, from Craig, who says he remembers seeing the three piece Go-Betweens at the and bull in Civic here in Canberra. And Lindy helped me let some punks in free through the back door. Does that sound like something you would do?

- Yes, of course, I would have let them in. I actually remember coming to Canberra at that period, and I mean, it, it really was always exciting to come to Canberra. I have to say, Canberra really used to have a lot of drugs around, there were always tonnes and tonnes of drugs, I don't know if that person comment on that, But Canberra was kind of known for the back stage, or if you're playing at the university, the tables outside the.

- Behind new bar.

- Yeah. There are always lots of people dealing. It's probably not like that now, we hope it's not like that now. And, but we always had so much fun coming to Canberra, I absolutely loved coming to Canberra still do, yep.

- Yeah, that's a really interesting observation because that's one of the things, then another thing that we wanted to do with the exhibition was really demonstrate that Canberra has this history, because a lot of people who don't live in Canberra just think of it as a place that's full of, you know, politicians and public servants, and that it was, you know, kind of ends field, particularly in the '70s and '80s, the sort of place that, the only gigs that happened were gigs that happened because bands were sort of stopping here on their way between Sydney and Melbourne. So it's got, you know, there's all of these kinds of negative connotations about Canberra, I guess.

- You had Gutthega pipeline.

- Gutthega pipeline, all of which are documented, you can't see them because they are off-camera.

- Are The Numbers from here? Are The Numbers from here?

- Yes, The Numbers are from here.

- I remember Gutthega Pipeline where we played with them. They were the most beautiful boys. They really were, I loved them.

- I mean, Steve Kilbey.

- That's right, Steve. They lived in Canberra.

- And people like Midnight Oil they kind of started out when Peter Garrett was a law student at ANU, you know, so it does have this real history, which we've managed to sort of capture in the exhibition with all of these photographs by a man named well his photographer name was 'pling Kevin Prideaux, who was sort of public servant by day, edgy photographer by night, and he'd go around to all of these venues in Canberra, and document all of the bands, not just sort of locally grown bands like Gutthega Pipeline, but also the big name bands who were sort of stopping up here to do gigs at the ANU.

- We've got the whole wall of the things.

- Oh, you've got them on. Thanks Robert, yeah.

- Some on the other side as well.

- So it's a, I mean, and that's been a real eye opener to me, I'm not someone who's from Canberra, I didn't grow up here. And to know that there was this incredibly thriving scene has been, you know, that was like a real eye opener for me, a really sort of great discovery. And then to hear it sort of backed up.

- Yeah, yeah.

- Yeah, fantastic.

- Yeah, I actually did a tour to Canberra with Zero.

- That's the band you were in?

- Yeah, we came and played in Canberra as well. And that was a trip to remember too. Someone put us up in their house and I managed to break the washing machine and the coffee percolator.

- A whole spread of appliances.

- Robert has just given us the five minute warning.

- You've got five minutes, which is plenty of time to still address a few things. But I was just wondering how did Lindy get involved with Tracey Thorne from Everything About the Girl.

- That would that because I mentioned the book.

- [Robert] Yes, perhaps.

- Well, I mean, she's got it all in the book, but in the eighties, I walked into her dressing room when we were doing a gig together, she was the Marine Girls and I was in the Go-Betweens, and I tell you, I have to be at two I guess, and asked to borrow her lipstick, and we became great friends, incredible friends, now that were very, very successful. And she and been able to organise all these fantastic old houses, where they would holiday, and I would have us to come and stay with them in the country. And they would have me to dinner regularly at their Hampstead place. And we became very, very good friends, and I have so many letters, she discovered I had all these letters from her, and she had kept a lot of mine. And she wanted to readdress what she saw as a retailing and remaking of history about the Go-Betweens prior to the documentary 'Right Here', the story of the Go-Betweens coming out, where the Go-Betweens had become Robert and Grant, post our breakup. And that my participation was totally diminished, and she wanted to readdress that, yeah. And she wrote the book. I tell you what, there's lots of stuff in the book, it's an outrageous book in some respects, you know, she had my diary, she had all my letters, it's all primary sources and she went through interviews. So some of it's fairly shocking and, but you've just got to live with it.

- Yeah, have you ever thought about writing?

- I thought about it so often, you know, I've really thought about it a lot, and I just, well, one, I'm not sure I'm a writer, you know, you can't just say, "Oh, I'm gonna be a writer." I'm not sure I'm a writer, but it's so much work to do that, it really is a lot of work. And also I'm not sure about my memory. So I have to really think about it. I mean, Tracy's book is her perspective on our friendship and her insights into what she thinks the music industry does to women, so it's with lots of really gritty stories in there, but it wouldn't be how I would write it. But I don't think or write one, I'll probably die before I write one.

- All right, well, I think we're almost there unless you got something to wrap up.

- No, just it's, I could probably keep talking all day.

- Yeah, we could probably keep talking all day. I know we could.

- But it's been really, it's so great that Lindy has been able to come here and see the exhibition, see the paintings again, see all of this and yeah, it's been great to meet you and great to chat. So thanks so much, Lindy.

- I wanna thank you for the invitation, I can't tell you how thrilled I was to have the invitation. It was right out of the blue and I just went, "Wow, that really is wild to be asked you to do this."

- Thank you so much.

- Yeah.

- And I should say, I'm sorry if I've just kind of glazed over, I am a massive fan.

- Oh, oh really?

- So if I've kind of totally lost my train of thought or I've just been sort of looking adoringly at you, it's because you're wonderful, and the Go-Betweens has sort of been the soundtrack of my youth, I suppose, and even more so that I've been working on this exhibition, it's been the soundtrack for the past 12 months for me, so thank you

- Oh, right, wow, thank you. Thanks everyone.

- Thank you very much, Jo and Lindy, that was fascinating going on a memory lane, walk down. Thanks for joining us today for our fortnightly conversation. Come back in another fortnight or so, check the detail under what's on on the National Portrait Gallery website, and you'll see all of our virtual programmes, and our programmes here on site. And we have a new exhibition opening very shortly as well, and you'll hear lots more about that. On Tuesday at 12:30 with our regular Virtual Highlights Tour, we have got style and substance, fashionistas in the gallery. So that sounds like one not to miss. All right, we will see you next time, bye bye.