[Warning - This film contains nudity and references to drugs]

[Warning - This film contains nudity and references to drugs]

[What A Life! Rock Photography by Tony Mott - a free exhibition until 7 February 2016. Solid Gold - Jeff Apter & Philip Morris, Metcalfe Theatre, State Library of NSW, 5th December 2015]

[Dressed in a black shirt and dark jeans, grey-haired Philip Morris sits beside his interviewer Jess Apter, a bald man dressed casually]

[JEFF APTER]

Thank you. Before starting, I want to say I was really fortunate to be able to work with Philip on this book.

[Jeff Apter holds up a coffee table book]

[JEFF APTER]

And it was one of the more interesting exercises, wasn't it? Because we were given a directive to come up with... Was it 200 photos? ..for this book.

[PHILIP MORRIS]

That's right.

[JEFF APTER]

And Philip's archive is so fantastic and so rich, that I think we got it down to, what, 600?

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Yeah.

[Audience laughs]

[JEFF APTER]

Was it 600 to start with? It was something like that. And it's staggering, really. It's a really great document of Australian rock history at a really interesting turning point. So to get it down to this... It's begging for a second edition, by the way. There's so many great photos. So it was a real honour to be able to... to do that. It was a lot of fun.

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Yeah, it was.

[JEFF APTER]

We actually had built into our contract... Our agreement was an understanding that we would never work in a boring situation. So I think we were on a boat cruise, a couple of Christmas parties, and we were working while being at these things. It made it a lot more fun.

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Yeah, it was. It was good, yeah.

[JEFF APTER]

On our left is some archaic equipment that Phil's going to give a quick talk... I wanted to ask Phil about starting out as a photographer and who his influences... and who are the people that got him interested in photography. Maybe that's a good starting point for today.

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Well, my grandfather got me started in photography when I was about 13. I used to process the film in his laundry and watch the images come up. And he used to use that old bellows camera there.

[Philip Morris points to the side of the stage]

[JEFF APTER]

Can you see that? At the back.

[PHILIP MORRIS]

He... I'll just grab it.

[Philip stands and walks to the side of the stage and returns to his chair with an old bellows camera and a small digital camera]

[He places the digital camera beside him and shows the bellows camera to the audience]

[PHILIP MORRIS]

So, he didn't have an enlarger, but the film - this was the 1930s version of a pocket camera.

[Audience laughs]

[JEFF APTER]

Try taking a selfie with that.

[Philip Morris holds up the digital camera]

[PHILIP MORRIS]

That's my pocket camera that... So, yeah, you'd have to have big pockets. But he used to shoot the Sydney Harbour Bridge when it was being built. The film was that wide, and so you didn't need to enlarge it. You could just contact print it and get quite a large print. So he didn't need an enlarger.

[Philip places the bellows camera beside him]

[PHILIP MORRIS]

So that's what got me... that's what got me interested in photography, after watching the images coming up in the tray.

[PHILIP MORRIS]

It was magic.

[JEFF APTER]

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. It's interesting now that polaroids are back in. Aren't they? Polaroid...?

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Yeah.

[JEFF APTER]

So, we're going full circle in some ways. Um, the Go-Set... most of these images were taken while Phil was working for Go-Set Magazine. I assume most people here are... have a broad understanding of Go-Set and its place in, you know, Australian musical history.

[Philip holds up a copy of Go-Set Magazine with a colour photo of a singer standing behind a microphone stand on the front page]

[JEFF APTER]

I guess it's fair to say it was the first magazine of its type in Australia.

[PHILIP MORRIS]

It was the rock bible. It was the only music magazine at the time. And it was... the people that worked for Go-Set were musicians. Molly Meldrum, Wendy Saddington, Greg Quill, who was in Country Radio.

[JEFF APTER]

Future filmmakers.

[PHILIP MORRIS]

The editor was David Elfick. Um, so...

[JEFF APTER]

Martin is here.

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Yes, Martin. So it was a unique magazine written by musicians for musicians, and I think it was about 20 cents. So... it really inspired me as a photographer to be able to photograph big bands, when the Stones toured and Led Zeppelin and Paul McCartney - gave me the access to be able to get up close and photograph these bands. And there wasn't a lot of competition. There was no... It was the only magazine. So there was...

[JEFF APTER]

It's interesting. I assume a lot of people have looked at the Tony Mott exhibit upstairs, and there's a documentary, and he talks about when he started out how many magazines and newspapers and

street press publications there were. There were probably five or six in Sydney alone. Here there was one in the country, wasn't there? Pretty much. How did you get the job at Go-Set? That's worth...

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Well, I was at a nightclub in Sydney, just down the road, listening to Doug Parkinson and his band, In Focus. And towards the end, it was thinning out and there were some girls at the table next to me, and I overheard Cleo, one of the girls, saying, 'I don't know what we're going to do. Our photographer, Grant Mudford, is leaving. We've got no-one to replace him. He's going overseas.' And I said, 'Excuse me, but I'd like to... I'd like that job.'

[Audience laughs]

[PHILIP MORRIS]

She said, 'Well, you have to go and see David Elfick.' This was on a Sunday night, and the next morning, Monday, ten o'clock, I was... rang up David and I was in his office with my portfolio of the time I was an assistant fashion photographer. So I had a portfolio like that, full of models with very short skirts, and David was very impressed.

[Audience laughs]

[PHILIP MORRIS]

I got the job and...

[JEFF APTER]

Was he hoping to broaden the scope of Go-Set to include skinny girls wearing short skirts?

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Well, I guess so. There was a bit of fashion in Go-Set, but he... He definitely was interested in the portfolio. Which was good. To begin with, I was just... as a photographer for Go-Set, I used to just go to a local dance, like the Rockdale Town Hall, and after the band set - band, usually Buffalo or Hush - in between their set, Cleo and Geoff would get up and throw out copies of Go-Sets and hand out cans of Coke, and then the winner... they'd pick a lucky person, and they'd get the album of the week. And they'd hold the album up, and I'd photograph them with the album.

[JEFF APTER]

Would they run that in the magazine?

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Then the next week, the photo of the lucky winner was in the next issue. So that was all it was to be the photographer for Go-Set. But it... it progressed quite rapidly after that to being the Led Zeppelin gig, and on the side of the stage with Elton John, and the Rolling Stones.

[JEFF APTER]

We should start. This shot we're looking at, which is the cover image of the book, is shot at Ourimbah.

[Two black-and-white photographs of a crowd of young people dressed as hippies sitting on the ground of a large field, dust blowing in the background]

[JEFF APTER]

Now, there's a couple of images here, all from that festival.

[A black-and-white photo of a grinning hippie dancing with a can in his hand]

[A black-and-white image of naked and semi-naked people in hip-deep water]

[JEFF APTER]

That's one of my favourites. Didn't get in the book, that one.

[PHILIP MORRIS]

No, they weren't allowed to...

[The first photograph of the crowd sitting in the field]

[JEFF APTER]

Before we start this, I mean, talk about it, because now you've gone from doing suburban dances with, you know, lucky prize winners to the odd, I assume at this point, portrait or concert shoot.

[The interview on stage]

[JEFF APTER]

Then you're thrown into this. Now, Ourimbah was an attempt to kind of... Aussie Woodstock, wasn't it?

[The first photograph of the concert audience]

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Yeah. It was 1970s. That was two years after Woodstock.

[JEFF APTER]

Right. OK.

[PHILIP MORRIS]

And I was at a music festival. What's a music festival? I didn't know. So, it was the Australia long... Australia Day long weekend. It was held over $4 for three days and... We drove in and there was...

[JEFF APTER]

Hang on. Ourimbah, for anybody who doesn't know, it's about an hour... It's Gosford-ish, is it?

[WOMAN]

Central Coast.

[JEFF APTER]

Yeah, OK. But it was, what, a paddock?

[PHILIP MORRIS]

It was at a farm. It was on a farm at...

[JEFF APTER]

Was the farmer aware of it at the time?

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Yeah, he was.

[Audience laughs]

[JEFF APTER]

It was a bit rough-and-ready back then, wasn't it?

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Yeah, it was. It was not like festivals today. So, approaching the festival, there were, like, naked hippies and children running around. There was an incredible vibe that... You could tell it was the first thing... concert of its kind.

[JEFF APTER]

How many people were there?

[PHILIP MORRIS]

There was probably 20,000, maybe more, people.

[JEFF APTER]

And what was the line-up?

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Well, there was Billy Thorpe and the Aztecs, Doug Parkinson, Wendy Saddington, Chain, there was Leo de Castro and Friends and Nutwood Rug. There was the cream of the...

[JEFF APTER]

All Australian?

[PHILIP MORRIS]

All Australian. There were no international bands.

[JEFF APTER]

There's a shot of Wendy Saddington.

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Wendy Saddington and Chain. There's Phil Manning.

[A black-and-white photograph of a bushy-haired woman dressed in a singlet and jeans holding a microphone stand and singing. Two guitarists stand behind her]

[JEFF APTER]

That's interesting in itself, that it's all Australian, whereas any large-scale festival now has to have an international headliner. You know? And it drew 20-odd thousand people.

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Yeah.

[JEFF APTER]

So, I'm really curious. The generation before me, was it a free-for-all? Or was it... did it really embrace that kind of, you know, 'we can change the world' vibe that was happening in the wave of Woodstock?

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Yeah, it was a really good... really good vibe. Very peaceful. A lot of smoke and a lot of strong... ..cannabis, you know, wafting from everywhere. But...

[JEFF APTER]

Police presence?

[PHILIP MORRIS]

There wasn't a huge police presence at all. It was very peaceful.

[JEFF APTER]

And what was your brief? I mean, what was your... your, you know...?

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Oh, well, I had free access to the stage, back of stage, the whole area. So I was just trying to capture the bands, of course, but also the... the audience and the feel and... Go-Set was doing a special on it.

[JEFF APTER]

This is Max Merrit?

[A black-and-white photograph of guitarists on either side of a pot-bellied, long-haired and bearded drummer]

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Max Merritt & The Meteors.

[JEFF APTER]

Is this from Sunbury?

[PHILIP MORRIS]

The next festival after that was Sunbury in 1974 I went to.

[A black-and-white photograph of a concert audience where some women are topless and men shirtless]

[JEFF APTER]

By this time, things were, I guess...

[The interview inside the theatre]

[JEFF APTER]

It's not really... Has the industry developed at any stage? Are people getting wise to the potential of these big festivals, how much money is involved and that type of thing? Or is it still kind of grassrootsy?

[PHILIP MORRIS]

I think Sunbury was starting to... There was more money involved. It was a bit more organised than Ourimbah 'cause Ourimbah was the first. So it wasn't a money... it wasn't a commercial enterprise at all. The first Sunburys were very successful. They did have overseas acts that would headline, like Queen played at Sunbury when I was there in 1974, but they didn't go down too well because they hadn't been known here at all and Bohemian Rhapsody was the following year. They were quite... They were booed off stage.

[JEFF APTER]

Phil, I'm going to take a long... draw a very long bow here and say it probably didn't help given the circumstances... I think AC/DC were on the bill. A lot of hard rock bands, weren't they? They had a poof, you know?

[JEFF APTER]

Oh...

[JEFF APTER]

Wasn't that a problem? Freddie Mercury, somehow... I love him to death, but I couldn't imagine him really connecting with a really raggedy, long-weekend, Australia Day audience. There's something maybe too theatrical about him, perhaps.

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Yeah, they...

[JEFF APTER]

Was that a problem?

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Oh, they weren't... they weren't received very well at all. And Freddie Mercury said, 'Well, when we come back to Australia, we're going to be the biggest band in the world.' And of course...

[JEFF APTER]

He went away and wrote Bohemian Rhapsody.

[PHILIP MORRIS]

They did, they were the biggest band in the world.

[JEFF APTER]

But mind you, he would have been coming on after, or before Billy Thorpe, or thereabouts?

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Yeah, before Billy Thorpe.

[JEFF APTER]

It's an interesting contrast, isn't it, all things considered? And what about you? I'm interested in... So you're at a three-day festival and I'm going to say, Phil, that you probably engaged in the festival itself as a... as much as a... you were as much a punter as a participant.

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Oh, definitely. Definitely. We tried to... fitting in, and I'd be backstage with the bands, and just trying to get a good coverage of shots.

[JEFF APTER]

So many of your shots are from within the crowd itself.

[The photograph of the concert crowd where some men and women are topless]

[JEFF APTER]

People see coverage of festivals nowadays, it tends to be quite controlled. You know, you have certain shots, whereas Phil's right in the thick of things.

[Another black-and-white photograph of a concert audience where one man wearing a bra stands beside a woman dressed in a bikini top]

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Well, he had two beers. (Chuckles)

[JEFF APTER]

You've got to keep them cold, right?

[PHILIP MORRIS]

That's Courage Draught and backstage.

[A black-and-white photograph of a topless woman walking past parked vans as long-haired men chat behind her]

[JEFF APTER]

Guy from Daddy Cool.

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Yeah, Gary Young. Skyhooks before Shirley joined.

[A black-and-white image of a five-man band posing beside a white tent]

[JEFF APTER]

Can anybody tell me the name of the original lead singer in Skyhooks? Any music buffs out there? We were talking about it and couldn't come up with it.

[MAN]

Steve Hill.

[JEFF APTER]

Steve Hill. Thank you.

[Inside the theatre]

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Oh, yeah.

[JEFF APTER]

There you go. So, I mean, in your mind... I understand that you're developing you own techniques and approaches, but at the same time you're one of the punters, too?

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Yeah.

[JEFF APTER]

It seems to be a different philosophy nowadays, where, you know, you're given a certain amount of time, you have to capture whatever you can and then basically the job is done. I'm assuming you stayed the entire festival.

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Oh, yeah, absolutely.

[JEFF APTER]

Slept on site.

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Yeah. Saw all the bands and, yeah, stayed in the tent, and... yeah, that was part of it. You know, smoked a bit of weed and got right into the act. I tried to get the feel of it.

[A black-and-white image of a man grimacing and lying on stage as a shirtless man beside a drummer leans in from the back of the stage]

[JEFF APTER]

This is Daddy Cool.

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Daddy Cool. Ross Hannaford had a fake heart attack there.

[A young boy dressed in his underwear holds the hand of a long-haired girl dressed in a long dress and leads her across the field in front of the stage]

[PHILIP MORRIS]

There were children. They'd be in their 40s now.

[JEFF APTER]

Where are they now? But all these shots really demonstrate was anything goes. The access was carte blanche.

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Yeah.


[JEFF APTER]

You didn't have those controls that are now part and parcel of every festival - even, you know, the smaller ones. You don't really get that access you once did. I guess you didn't know it at the time, but on reflection, it must have been a real blessing to be able to work at that time.

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Oh, it wasn't... wasn't like now. You've got three songs and you're out. You can't use a long lens, can't use a zoom lens, you can't use flash, you can't... So there are a total... a number of restrictions. But back then, there were no restrictions. In fact, they encouraged you... encouraged you to report, take photos, and it kind of helped promote the festival itself.

[JEFF APTER]

Yeah. So it's still operating at a very grassroots kind of level. And did you ever get bands saying, 'Oh, don't show that shot where I'm naked?' or, you know, 'Please, not the one with the joint. No, no, no, no!'

[PHILIP MORRIS]

No, no, they didn't mind at all.

[JEFF APTER]

Really?

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Yeah, they were right into the feel of the festival.

[JEFF APTER]

You were just telling me a story about... Was it Billy Thorpe? Let's get the photographer stoned.

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Oh, Billy Thorpe, yeah.

[JEFF APTER]

Was that a constant when you worked with him?

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Whenever I met Billy Thorpe, he was always stoned, and he'd always... I thin k he'd say to the guys in the band, 'The Go-Set photographer is coming. Let's get him stoned and see what he does.'

[JEFF APTER]

(Laughs) Tough job. Phil got paid, I should mention this. You did get paid for this, didn't you?

[PHILIP MORRIS]

I was on a retainer.

[JEFF APTER]

It sounds like the perfect gig to me.

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Oh, I loved it. Brilliant musicians and it was a very artistic environment, and freedom. So it was the best job I ever had.

[JEFF APTER]

What was the staff? I'm interested. So were you... you were the staff photographer?

[PHILIP MORRIS]

I was the Sydney staff photographer.

[JEFF APTER]

OK.

[PHILIP MORRIS]

And there was a Melbourne photographer. Colin Beard was the Melbourne photographer. And so... Like I got the shoot, the Led Zeppelin... All of Sydney and the touring bands at a concert. I had a page called Seen Around that gave me the opportunity to photograph events like Martin Sharp's Yellow House opening, Jesus Christ Superstar, parties. I had the vehicle of Go-Set to promote the events. So...

[JEFF APTER]

It's a great time to have been involved with this because the music industry itself was starting to develop as well.

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Yeah.

[JEFF APTER]

It was before it became, you know... When people talk... The music industry, particularly now, they always talk in terms of money. What's it worth to the economy? How much is it generating? That kind of thing. I think then it created... contributed something vastly different. I think it just opened a lot of people's eyes to what we still call the counterculture?

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Yeah. It was a creative time in music.

[JEFF APTER]

We should talk a bit about Alberts. It's fair to say in the last 40 years, Phil, that you've become known as the man who shot AC/DC, the man who was there as the AC/DC phenomenon started to happen. What was it like inside Alberts? People talk about Alberts, you know, the house of hits and song. What was the environment like in there?

[A black-and-white photograph of AC/DC as young boys at the piano]

[The interview inside the theatre]

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Well, Fifa Riccobono, the A&R lady at Alberts at the time, got me to photograph their session for their third album, Dirty Deeds. I wasn't allowed to use the photographs in Go-Set. It was a closed set. So I agreed to that and then I arrived in the studio with a light that I set up to bounce off the ceiling, to keep it a dark, sort of moody atmosphere.

[The photograph of the young members of AC/DC at the piano]

[PHILIP MORRIS]

I tried to be unobtrusive, hide behind the amp or a screen, so I could... they weren't aware that I was there. So I was lucky to get that shot of the three Young brothers at the piano.

[JEFF APTER]

Which has been used particularly lately.


[JEFF APTER]

There's been a resurgence of interest in AC/DC. That shot has got some great coverage, hasn't it? 'Cause it's a very rare photo of the three Young brothers together.

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Yeah, they didn't often... be working together. So I was lucky to get that and then...

[The photograph of the Young brothers at the piano]

[JEFF APTER]

Angus is still on work experience at this point. He's about 14 years old. Smoking, though, which is nice. (Chuckling)

[On stage]

[JEFF APTER]

I wonder what song they were working on at that time. Do you have any...?

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Ah! I can't remember which...

[JEFF APTER]

But you said it was the Dirty...

[PHILIP MORRIS]

That was the Dirty Deeds album. And so I managed to do a few... Shot about half a dozen rolls over a period of...

[A black-and-white photograph of two men dressed in suits]

[JEFF APTER]

Harry and Young, of course.

[PHILIP MORRIS]

The two producers.

[A shadowy, black-and-white photo of a young Malcolm Young sitting with a guitar on his lap and looking up at a standing George Young]

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Harry had given Malcolm his Gretsch guitar, and during the recording session, he was watching over him to make sure that he had tuned it right, you know.

[Inside the theatre]

[JEFF APTER]

Now, you would have done a lot of shots in Albert Studios. Were you getting a sense, with AC/DC particularly, that something really big was in the making? Did they feel like a band, even... What's this? ..1976 at this point?

[PHILIP MORRIS]

They were starting to get some notoriety.

[JEFF APTER]

Did you get a sense that this was a band that could've become what they have?

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Oh, I had no idea they'd be as big as they are today. But I knew they had something, and especially with their brothers producing them, with George and Harry producing them. That was the difference with Alberts to other record companies, it was George and Harry, because they were the producers. Like, I did photograph The Angels in the same studio when they were recording as well.

[A black-and-white photograph of Malcolm Young sitting with his head hanging and playing the guitar, while Angus stands near him and yawns]

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Yeah, they used to work... they'd go and play, and then after the gig they'd come back and do some recording. So this would... when I took this shot - so it's probably about two in the afternoon - so they'd worked at night and then went to the recording studio. So that's why Angus is a bit... is a bit exhausted there.


[PHILIP MORRIS]

You know, probably they would've gone over and over it into different takes.

[A black-and-white photo of a shirtless Bon Scott wearing headphones and sitting in front of a microphone with a piano behind him]

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Now, on the way out in the goods lift, I noticed Bon, he was on the floor, screwing up all the scripts he'd written, all the lyrics. He was cursing and swearing and he just couldn't get the right lyrics.

[Philip Morris and Jeff Apter on stage]

[PHILIP MORRIS]

I said, 'Cheers, Bon. I'll see you.' And I thought, 'Well, yeah, he's going to get it.' And I thought, 'I know I've got some good shots.' So, it was a light-hearted session, but also there was some kind of moments that were a bit tense as well, because they were putting down their third album.

[JEFF APTER]

Now just... I don't think the shot's here, but you'd shot Bon in Fraternity, is that right?

[PHILIP MORRIS]

In 1971 he was in Fraternity.

[JEFF APTER]

It's in the book and, I mean, he was a hippie, wasn't he? You know, effectively.

[PHILIP MORRIS]

He played the recorder.

[JEFF APTER]

As everybody does.

[PHILIP MORRIS]

After... yeah. So, it was a big change to go from Fraternity.

[JEFF APTER]

There's some shots in the book of the transition, and it's significant, isn't it?

[A black-and-white photograph of Angus and Malcolm Young with Mark Evans playing guitars in the studio]

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Yes, he went from a hippie to the rock star.

[JEFF APTER]

I don't want to plug my work but I did ghostwrite Mark Evans' book.


[JEFF APTER]

The AC/DC industry is very good for writers and photographers at the moment.

[A black-and-white photograph of three young men in the studio]

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Yeah, they're still...

[JEFF APTER]

Of course, Alberts also included other people - John Paul Young, Ted Mulry and so on.

[PHILIP MORRIS]

They did. The Angels.

[JEFF APTER]

Were you invited into all these sessions? Were you given a lot of access to...?

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Yeah. It was mainly because of Fifa.


[PHILIP MORRIS]

She was great. She used to give... I used to do all their photography. So, especially JPY there, I was always photographing him.

[The photograph of the three young men in the studio]

[PHILIP MORRIS]

We became good friends, good mates, and we'd go fishing and... We started from the days when he was in Jesus Christ Superstar.

[JEFF APTER]

OK. Notice the can of KB.

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Yeah. KB...

[JEFF APTER]

Nicely located.

[A beer can, cigarettes and an ashtray sit on the controls table]

[JEFF APTER]

And Drum rollies, I think.

[PHILLIP MORRIS]

Yeah.

[Jeff and Philip on stage]

[JEFF APTER]

I want to talk a bit about shooting Led Zeppelin, I guess. Were they the first big international act that you shot?

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Yes, they were.

[JEFF APTER]

OK. So let's set the scene. It's 1973.

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Two. 1972.

[JEFF APTER]

'72. You were in the...

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Sydney Showground.

[A black-and-white image of a large crowd gathered within the showground and the stands around the ground]

[PHILIP MORRIS]

There's 26,000 people there.

[JEFF APTER]

It's Phil in the middle, front row, there.

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Luckily we got... With the Go-Set pass... I was with my photographer friend Patrick Jones.


[PHILIP MORRIS]

We drove in his Jag, we drove behind the stage, and we parked next to Led Zeppelin's caravan. We had complete...

[JEFF APTER]

There it is.

[A black-and-white image of a band performing on a stage set up on scaffolding bars with a couple of policemen between the stage and the crowd. A caravan is parked behind the stage]

[PHILIP MORRIS]

There's the caravan behind.

[JEFF APTER]

It's rock'n'roll production, 1972 style.

[PHILIP MORRIS]

So we had complete access for the whole of the concert from the front of the stage.

[On stage]

[PHILIP MORRIS]

So... it was amazing. I mean, I met Robert Plant there. I'll get that...

[Jeff bends down and picks up a copy of a Go-Set issue]

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Stephen MacLean wrote a great article in this...

[JEFF APTER]

Want me to read it?

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Yeah. ..in this Go-Set, which is... Five Pages of Plant. (Chuckles)

[JEFF APTER]

It says that, 'Imagery and talent permit Robert Plant to become whatever the music makes him. He didn't perform his songs at Sydney Showground, he lived them. When he said there were 26,000 of us, he was wrong. Robert Plant was completely different from anyone in that audience, which is why we, at last, had a concert genuinely worth the four bucks admission.'

[Audience laughs]

[Jeff puts down the paper]

[JEFF APTER]

Now, Phil and I have been doing... we're not economists, but I'm thinking, over 40 years, $4 then is probably worth, what, 50 bucks now? Would that be fair? How much do concerts cost nowadays? Yeah, hundreds and hundreds of dollars.

[PHILIP MORRIS]

I saw Robert Plant just... last year, or the year before, at the Entertainment Centre.

[The young members of Led Zeppelin perform on a rudimentary stage]

[PHILIP MORRIS]

I think tickets cost 160 bucks, but I wasn't complaining.

[A black-and-white photograph of a long-haired Robert Plant performing on stage]

[JEFF APTER]

Phil told me the story about getting into the concert.

[A black-and-white photograph of Jimmy Page playing the guitar on stage in front of amps]

[JEFF APTER]

He just... Again, it's interesting, and it's a theme that comes up throughout the book about the difference in access.


[JEFF APTER]

Nowadays, you know, you really have to go through quite a process to get even remotely close. And it's an interesting contrast. I guess Tony Mott, whose exhibit is upstairs, is an exception, that he does get close to artists, but that's very rare nowadays. But then... you might want to talk about how...

[A black-and-white photograph of Jimmy Page playing the guitar beside Robert Plant, who holds a microphone to his mouth]

[JEFF APTER]

How did you actually get into the Led Zeppelin show?

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Oh, we drove. We drove through the Showground and then we parked at the back of the...

[JEFF APTER]

Drove backstage.

[PHILIP MORRIS]

We drove backstage and you can see the... you can see, there's the car's just beside... on the right of the stage there.

[The photograph of Led Zeppelin performing on stage with the caravan parked behind the stage]

[PHILIP MORRIS]

And... Just a scaffolding stage with a canvas roof. And police guarding in the front, and that was the front of the stage. And behind was 26,000 people.


[JEFF APTER]

Not much security.

[PHILIP MORRIS]

No. No, no. And the security wasn't... they weren't as pushy as... as tough as they are today.

[JEFF APTER]

I think nowadays you'd see probably a marquee, some kind of, you know, VIP section. I don't know, what else would there be? A lounge, you know. You know, three layers of passes to get to the inner sanctum. Then, you just rocked up in the Jag backstage, right?

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Yeah. We had the Go-Set pass. 'Oh, yeah, fine.'

[JEFF APTER]

I'm assuming this caravan, that's the band's caravan.

[The photograph of the band performing on stage with the caravan parked behind the stage]

[PHILIP MORRIS]

That's their dressing room.

[JEFF APTER]

Very luxurious, isn't it?

[JEFF APTER]

OK, we'll move along a little bit.

[A black-and-white photograph of a young John O'Keefe dressed in a striped T-shirt and light-coloured pants sitting on an armchair. Music records are on the fluffy rug at his feet]

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Oh, the JOK.

[JEFF APTER]

Phil was lucky enough to become JOK's official photographer. How did that connection come about?

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Well, I probably started... that day I took those shots, which was in his girlfriend's flat in Rose Bay.

[JEFF APTER]

If you look closely, he's surrounded by JOK records.

[PHILIP MORRIS]

They're all his albums, yeah.


[PHILIP MORRIS]

I did that session for Go-Set, and we formed a friendship from that day. And then I became his photographer. I'd photograph his weddings and his kids' parties. When he would go to radio station interviews, Bob Rogers, and he'd present Bob Rogers his new album, and I'd get a photograph. And that gave JOK a bit of credibility, because he brought his own photographer with him.

[JEFF APTER]

He was very, um... media-savvy, wasn't he?

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Oh, yeah.

[JEFF APTER]

Ahead of his time?

[PHILIP MORRIS]

He had a publicity... Ingrid Berg was his publicist. And, yeah, he knew the power of the publicity. I mean, he became a publicity agent himself. JOK Incorporated.

[JEFF APTER]

Yeah.

[PHILIP MORRIS]

And, yeah, he managed artists like Dinah Lee and Jade Hurley.

[A black-and-white portrait of a middle-aged John O'Keefe dressed in a black suit with a white tie with a fedora on his head. He holds a cigar between his fingers and a white flower is on the lapel of his jacket]

[JEFF APTER]

What's the story behind this shot?

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Martin Fabinyi and I, we... Martin's here tonight as well, today, over there. We did this shot at JOK's house in Double Bay. He wanted a poster that read, that said, 'I'm OK. You're OK. JOK.'


[Audience laughs]

[JEFF APTER]

I'm guessing The Godfather came out around this time...

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Yeah, that sort of...

[The gangster-like photograph of John O'Keefe]

[PHILIP MORRIS]

And the hat, the hat that he's wearing, his hat, I photographed an album cover for John Paul Young called Hero, and John Paul Young was wearing the same hat.


[JEFF APTER]

There you go. From JOK to JPY.

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Yeah.

[JEFF APTER]

From one acronym to another.

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Exactly. So...

[JEFF APTER]

Now, there's another shot here I want to talk about. This one here.

[A black-and-white photograph of John O'Keefe with two others on stage as a seated audience look on]

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Ah, yeah, the Paddington Town Hall gig.

[JEFF APTER]

You became involved when JOK's career came through... underwent a bit of a resurgence.

[PHILIP MORRIS]

That's right. He had a rock revival.

[JEFF APTER]

This is the rock revival?

[PHILIP MORRIS]

The good old days of rock'n'roll at Paddington Town Hall.


[PHILIP MORRIS]

There was 1,500 people there. 500 people were turned away.

[JEFF APTER]

OK. Whereas probably a year before, he couldn't fill the Workers Club.

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Yeah. Well, I think he played Sunbury, and he did alright. But... I mean, not long after this, he did do a lot of club gigs. Like the Revesby Workers Club. I mean, he'd pack them out. And... this particular concert, it was amazing. I mean, you can see there are young people in the audience.

[The photograph inside Paddington Town Hall]

[PHILIP MORRIS]

He had... he spanned the age gap there.

[JEFF APTER]

I think it's very true and it was really interesting, we were very deliberate about using this in the book because if you look closely, you're right, it's a much younger audience. There's a young guy in the front row there with a beard who looks remarkably like a young Philip Morris, if you see him there, with a paisley shirt. Still in the wardrobe, Phil?

[On stage]

[PHILIP MORRIS]

No. No...

[Audience laughs]

[JEFF APTER]

But afterwards... Another interesting thing that I learned, working with you, was that afterwards, the show's finished, 1,500 people have piled back onto Oxford Street. And who do you bump into?

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Well, when everyone's leaving the Paddington Town Hall, I lived in Paddington, not far, so I was... I walked out the front, and I was heading home, and, to my surprise, John was hailing a cab out the front after playing this amazing gig. He was out the front... He had no entourage, no driver. He was out the front hailing a cab.

[JEFF APTER]

Where's the limo?

[PHILIP MORRIS]

And I said, 'Oh, John,' you know, and he goes, 'Oh, yeah. Hey, do you want a smoke?' And, 'Oh, yeah, OK.' So he pulled out a joint of Acapulco Gold, 'cause he'd never do anything by halves. It was... I had a take. It was the strongest I had ever smoked. It just spun me on my arse. I just... And John just patted me on the back. He said, 'Well, see you later.' And he jumped in the cab and he was off to the next gig. I mean, he was truly a one-off.

[The photo taken inside Paddington Town Hall]

[JEFF APTER]

It's a great photo, though. That really captures...

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Oh, it's the Paddington Town Hall. It's chock-a-block, you know? It was the rock'n'roll revival.


[JEFF APTER]

OK. Flashing forward through a couple of generations, but only a couple of years, as it turns out.

[PHILIP MORRIS]

'79.

[JEFF APTER]

Midnight Oil.

[A black-and-white photo of Peter Garrett dressed in a singlet and bandana standing on stage with his mouth wide open]

[JEFF APTER]

As a kid, as a teenager growing up, I used to see them play a lot in the inner city, Stagedoor Tavern and the Civic Hotel and so on as this was happening.


[JEFF APTER]

But this is somewhere else, isn't it? Tell me the story about this.

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Well, I had... at this time I had a studio in Oxford Street. It was part of a rehearsal studio. It was called Now Studios. And the manager, Anson James, was a huge Midnight Oil fan. And he said, 'Philip, you've got to see this band play live. They're amazing.' And I... 'Cause when they rehearsed at the studio, my doors would shake. It would be like an earthquake. So I said, 'Well, that will be great, Anson.' He said, 'They're playing at the Stagedoor Tavern on Saturday.' So I said, 'We'll go.' We went down, and there was a line, a queue around the block at the Stagedoor Tavern.

[JEFF APTER]

How many people are familiar with that venue?

[MAN]

Dive.

[JEFF APTER]

Like a... yeah, it was a dive. But it was...

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Yeah, it was.

[JEFF APTER]

But it was a very... it was a big gig to play in Sydney, wasn't it?

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Oh, yeah, yeah. It was.

[JEFF APTER]

They'd squeeze in, what, a thousand people into a 300 capacity...?

[PHILIP MORRIS]

It was... Yeah, it was... There was sweat running out from the walls. The band were amazing, the guitar and thrashing drum sound. It was a very low ceiling, and Peter Garrett's head was scraping on it.

[JEFF APTER]

Used to hit the pipes. There were exposed pipes.

[PHILIP MORRIS]

He was amazing. He'd be doing his wild thing and... 'Oh,' I said, 'Anson, you're right. Their intensity's incredible.' So, a week later, their manager, Gary Morris, said to me, 'Look, we've got our new album coming out, and we're looking for a good live shot for the cover.' And he said, 'We're playing at the Sands Hotel in Narrabeen.'

[JEFF APTER]

'Cause they were a Northern Beaches band, essentially. So they were on home turf.

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Yeah, yeah. And the same thing, I turned up at the Sands Hotel, it was packed, it was only a small hotel, but it was absolutely... And I spotted the, you know, the road manager, their roadie. A Dougie Dorrington.

[JEFF APTER]

Dougie.

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Dougie was a friendly chap and he could carry a Marshall amp with one hand. He was an incredibly big guy. And he said, 'Oh, come with me.' And he'd get to the front of the stage and the band came on and you just couldn't move. So he said, 'Look...' He hoisted me up on his shoulders. And I'm on top of Dougie's shoulders and Peter Garrett's on the stage, and he sees me, and he swings around with his hands out, screaming the words to the song.

[The photo of Peter Garrett with the bandana around his head]

[PHILIP MORRIS]

And just at that moment, I just got this one shot.


[JEFF APTER]

'Get me outta here.'

[PHILIP MORRIS]

I was just... I thought, 'Oh, I don't believe it.' And then... When I got back, I said, 'That was it.' That was the shot that was on their album cover, Head Injuries, in 1979.

[JEFF APTER]

If we fast forward 36 years, you bumped into Peter Garrett recently, is that right?

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Yeah, I was... He did a book signing.

[JEFF APTER]

Author, ex-politician, you know. Middle Australian... well, maybe not favourite son, but, you know, a public figure, a public figure. Did he remember this?

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Oh, I gave him a copy of my book and he gave me a copy of his.

[JEFF APTER]

A fair exchange. A fair exchange.

[Audience laughs]

[JEFF APTER]

And, yeah, this shot got great coverage, didn't it? It was the Head Injuries album cover?

[The photograph of Peter Garrett on stage]

[PHILIP MORRIS]

It was the Head Injuries tour. It was on the cover of the album and...

[JEFF APTER]

A fantastic moment, I think everyone would agree. It just captures a perfect live rock'n'roll moment. And again, I guess, maybe it is something about access... You were up on the roadie's shoulders, for God's sake.


[PHILIP MORRIS]

If I wasn't on Dougie's shoulders, I couldn't have got that shot. So, yeah, it was a great opportunity to be there.

[A black-and-white photo of a shirtless Peter Garrett sitting on the floor with his legs stretched in front of him, his skin shiny]

[JEFF APTER]

That's after the show.

[PHILIP MORRIS]

The... I mean, just the power and the passion. When he came off, he had to pour jugs of water to cool down, over his head. There, his jeans are soaked and he's sort of...

[JEFF APTER]

He's done.

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Yeah.

[A black-and-white photo of the five-member band Midnight Oil with their instruments standing at a bar]

[PHILIP MORRIS]

But he put so much into every performance.

[JEFF APTER]

This is what would happen at Labor Caucus meetings, I believe.

[Audience laughs]

[JEFF APTER]

And this is also backstage.

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Yeah, this is the Sands Hotel in Narrabeen, in the back bar there. So I just got a shot of the band.

[JEFF APTER]

It's an ad for Nobby's Nuts, if anybody knows the sponsor.

[Audience laughs]

[JEFF APTER]

OK.

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Ah, yeah, OK.

[A dark and shadowy black-and-white photo of two men leaning against a wall, while another squats on the floor between them. One man stands silhouetted against verticals bars behind him. The floor in the image gleams]

[JEFF APTER]

Now, this is The Angels.

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Take A Long Line. Yeah, this... The Angels.

[JEFF APTER]

Give me the background. Had you shot them and seen them play live? Did you know much about them? Again, another Alberts band, weren't they?


[PHILIP MORRIS]

Yeah. I did their first publicity shots for Alberts in 1974.

[JEFF APTER]

OK, you'd shot them as The Moonshine... Someone help me.

[PHILIP MORRIS]

The Keystone Angels.

[JEFF APTER]

Keystone Angels. Jug... Jug and String Band, is that right?

[WOMAN]

Yes.

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Keystone... yeah.

[JEFF APTER]

Which are, again, in the book, those early shots, but Doc's become a completely different persona by this stage.

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Well, I'd photographed the inner sleeve of their first album, which was Face To Face. And... Actually, Martin will remember this because he was there at that session as well. In fact, he's credited... The photograph credit is Phil Morris and Martin Fabinyi...

[JEFF APTER]

There you go.

[PHILIP MORRIS]

..on the Face To Face...

[JEFF APTER]

What was the brief for this shot?

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Their manager, John Woodruff, was after a location that gave a trapped, sort of claustrophobic, can't get out of... it's a no...

[JEFF APTER]

No exit.

[PHILIP MORRIS]

No exit. It was the name of one of the songs on the album. Uh... so I gave it some thought and I remembered a film I'd just seen that David Elfick produced. It was called Newsfront. There was a

scene in it where the actor, Bill Hunter, was walking down a corridor and it really had that... it was perfect.

[The photograph of The Angels in the dark corridor with the bars behind them]

[PHILIP MORRIS]

It was perfect for the no-exit feel.

[JEFF APTER]

Where was that shot?

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Well, that was... turned out a friend of mine worked at the... Steve Wood, he worked at the Prince Alfred Hospital in Camperdown, which was where they'd shot Newsfront and that tunnel, that scene.

[On stage]

[PHILIP MORRIS]

He managed to get us... to get the access for us to shoot the band. But it had to be after midnight because the...

[JEFF APTER]

That was part of the hospital?

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Well, the tunnel was underneath. It was the tunnel that led to the morgue.

[Audience laughs]

[The dark photograph of The Angels with the bars behind them]

[PHILIP MORRIS]

When we... I shot the... I had hired a Hasselblad Superwide camera that had a 38mm lens that... for a 6x6 format film camera.


[PHILIP MORRIS]

It didn't distort. So you could put...

[JEFF APTER]

Yeah, how long is this...?

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Not like Tony's wide-angle shots. You could get the person in the foreground.

[JEFF APTER]

How big is this space?

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Oh, it's quite a big space.

[The photograph of The Angels]

[PHILIP MORRIS]

It's a tunnel that leads... But I had the same lighting technician that shot for Newsfront, Brian Bansgrove. He lit this for me. He also... the tunnel, he put like screen paper and wooden makeshift bars at the back to give it that sort of locked in, no exit... And then he hosed the floor down, so that it had that extra gleam.

[JEFF APTER]

Yeah, being a hospital, I wasn't quite sure what was on the floor.

[Audience laughs]


[JEFF APTER]

Is it true the shoot had to stop at certain points?

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Well, occasionally they wheeled past someone who didn't make it through the night, which gave it an extra sombre feel for the band.

[JEFF APTER]

How many nights were you down there?

[PHILIP MORRIS]

We were there for three nights, 'cause the second night I couldn't hire the Superwide camera, and John Woodruff said, 'Right, no shoot' - he closed it down. He loved that camera. He closed it down. So, the third night I managed to hire it and... So we continued after midnight and... with Brian's help, the lighting. We managed to get the... we managed to get that shot. But the downside was I had the... The Superwide camera was in my camera bag, and then the following week I had to photograph their record launch. And... someone stole the camera out of the bag. The camera company wasn't... wasn't happy at all.

[JEFF APTER]

This camera that should be in the Powerhouse Museum, a hall of fame somewhere.

[PHILIP MORRIS]

But that was one... that was my favourite album cover, and also The Angels, that's their favourite.

[A colour image of Doc Neeson holding his arms over his face, revealing only his eyes. An orange glow falls over his green eyes]

[JEFF APTER]

'Cause that led to... These shots are related, right?

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Yeah. That was...

[JEFF APTER]

Anybody who knows The Angels' work would recognise that image, correct? I mean, that's the one that was used on... Is that No Exit?


[PHILIP MORRIS]

Well, that was shot at the same time. That's on one of their DVD covers, but, yeah, Doc was...

[The photograph of Doc Neeson with his arms over his face]

[PHILIP MORRIS]

The record company, actually, on that No Exit album, retouched so that it was just his eyes, you know, it was just that middle bit there they retouched that out, so...

[The interview in the theatre]

[JEFF APTER]

You'll be looking at your record covers quite differently from now on, won't you?

[PHILIP MORRIS]

And, yeah, that was also Albert Studios, recording that album, that was in their studio.

[A black-and-white photograph of a dark-haired man dressed in a suit and leaning over the control panel of a recording studio]

[JEFF APTER]

Now, Billy Thorpe was someone that you captured in transition, didn't you, essentially?

[A black-and-white photograph of Billy Thorpe playing his guitar with his mouth wide open]

[PHILIP MORRIS]

I first used to see him on TV. He was on Bandstand, singing Poison Ivy, and Over The Rainbow, and Sick And Tired and Mashed Potato.


[JEFF APTER]

He was a pop star.

[PHILIP MORRIS]

He was a pop star. He played Surf City up in Kings Cross, alternatively with Ray Brown, Ray Brown & The Whispers. But when I met him in the '70s, he'd changed. He became somewhat heavier. I think it was mainly due to a guitarist who joined the band called Lobby Loyde. Lobby was... influenced Billy quite a lot. So he did change, and his albums had different titles. One of his albums is More Arse Than Class. The Hoax Is Over. But my favourite album is Tangier, the last album he made. It's brilliant, it's a brilliant album. I love it.

[A black-and-white photograph of three long-haired and bearded young men standing in a footpath outside a townhouse. An elderly man in a hat and sweater looks at them as he walks past a parked car]

[JEFF APTER]

This shot's really interesting. It got quite a lot of usage. I think I've used it in books that I've worked on as well. I'd like to know who the old bloke is.

[PHILIP MORRIS]

I don't know. He was just walking past. This is shot in Pyrmont and one of those houses alongside there... 'Cause when I turned up, there was the usual...


[PHILIP MORRIS]

You know, they were down in the basement rolling joints. And then they finally emerged into the street, and you can see they look pretty stoned. And the guy, he was just walking past, which was perfect.

[The photograph of the old man looking at the young men]

[PHILIP MORRIS]

I mean, he's looking at these light-haired ruffians, scruffy sort of... He was not impressed.

[On stage]

[JEFF APTER]

He was on his way to the pub.

[PHILIP MORRIS]

(Laughs) Yeah. So, yeah, he was a fantastic live entertainer.

[A black-and-white shot of a long-haired Billy Thorpe dressed in dungarees and playing a guitar, his hair tied in a ponytail]

[JEFF APTER]

The shots used in the book, most of the shots I was lucky enough to go through with you when we were working on this, he always had this look of absolute glee in his eye when he was playing. In this era anyway, you know? He obviously really... He loved his work.


[PHILIP MORRIS]

He did, yeah.

[JEFF APTER]

Probably not so much being a pop star before. This must have been a real...

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Yeah, he... 'Cause a lot of the music was his music, and he was... He'd jam and he'd just keep going and he was... became a very good guitarist, as well as having that most incredible, powerful voice.

[The photo of Billy Thorpe dressed in dungarees]

[JEFF APTER]

There was a look in his eye in this shot that is a mixture of kind of glee and, I don't know, manic. He looks a little manic, you know.

[The interview]

[JEFF APTER]

This is a guy having the time of his life, isn't it? But don't get too close, just in case. I think that really sums him up, too, because he really was in transition, becoming something vastly different.

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Yeah. Yeah... (Speaks indistinctly) Yeah, he liked the loud. It was the loudest band. He didn't last very long in the UK, did he? He played the UK and...

[JEFF APTER]

Yeah, that's right. I was lucky enough to work with Michael Browning, who was Billy Thorpe's manager for a while. I think they played at the... (Speaks indistinctly) It was one of those very influential clubs, and they played so loud that they shut them down after one song. And this was the big gig that was going to make him a big star in the UK, and they just raised the middle finger to the British audience and said, 'We'll play like we normally do.' It lasted about two minutes. So much for that career.

[PHILIP MORRIS]

FU and No.10.

[JEFF APTER]

Now, you're capturing all these great local artists, but at the same time you are continuing to shoot international acts. Nothing says rock'n'roll more than the old Spaghetti House.

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Spaghetti Factory down at The Rocks.

[JEFF APTER]

Sorry, Spaghetti Factory at The Rocks.

[A black-and-white photograph of the Rolling Stones dressed in suits and standing inside a tram carriage]

[JEFF APTER]

Which is where this shot comes from.

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Yeah, I was lucky. This was on their 1973 Australian tour. And I was lucky Molly Meldrum was with me, 'cause it was big reception for the 1973 tour.


[JEFF APTER]

It's worth saying Molly was also part of the Go-Set staff.

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Yeah, he wrote for Go-Set and... So he was working for Go-Set at the time. So he managed to tee up a lot of the shots for me. But, unfortunately, this time my flash wasn't working. So Molly would get the guys in the back of the tram in the Spaghetti Factory...

[JEFF APTER]

Does anybody remember this place?

[AUDIENCE]

Yes.

[JEFF APTER]

Yeah, OK. It was a restaurant, but it was also kind of a venue. But not a live venue. It was more a place you had, I don't know, parties and things. Is that correct? I can't think of a modern equivalent. I guess like a down-scaled Ivy or something, isn't it? I mean, I don't know. I don't know. But anyway, anyway. They've got a tram in the middle of the place.

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Yeah, Bondi tram in the middle. That's where they were lined up. My flash wasn't working, so I'd go, 'Oh, no.' And then they could go, 'Look, we'll come back when you've got it together.' I had Mick and Keith in front of me. 'Oh, no.' So finally I got it working and Molly said, 'Alright, OK.' He got them back in again and this time I'm... It's not working, it's not working, and then it worked.

[The photograph of the Rolling Stones inside the tram carriage]

[PHILIP MORRIS]

And what's happening is Charlie's really going, 'Oh, eff this.'

[Audience laughs]

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Mick Taylor and Nicky Hopkins, 'Oh, we don't want to be here.'

[JEFF APTER]

And Keith's...

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Looking for his dealer.

[Audience laughs]

[JEFF APTER]

And Bill Wyman - I think we agreed on this, Phil - he's just looking for a blonde.

[Audience laughs]

[JEFF APTER]

But it's great, it's a real slice-of-life shot.


[JEFF APTER]

It's not staged... Well, it is staged, but it didn't quite work out as it should.

[PHILIP MORRIS]

No, it's on-the-road sort of...

[JEFF APTER]

Turned out a lot better.

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Yeah, it was a bit more spontaneous, but...

[A black-and-white photograph of a baby-faced and smiling Mick Jagger dressed in a suit and bow tie and holding a cake with lit candles]

[JEFF APTER]

Mick's birthday.

[PHIL MORRIS]

Yeah, Mick's 30th. JEFF APTER: 30th?! Is anybody having trouble thinking of Mick Jagger as 30?

[Audience laughs]

[JEFF APTER]

Unfortunately, he's locked as a 70-year-old man.

[A black-and-white photo of the Rolling Stones on stage with lights shining behind them]

[PHILIP MORRIS]

That was... they played Randwick, and, yeah, that was amazing.

[JEFF APTER]

Night concert.

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Randwick at night.

[A black-and-white shot of Mick Jagger holding a mic to his open mouth]

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Yeah, it was a great concert.

[JEFF APTER]

Now, we're back to some...

[A black-and-white photo of Angus Young dressed as a schoolboy, performing on stage with his guitar]

[JEFF APTER]

OK. This gig - I think it's fair to put AC/DC amongst those international acts - the final... your final encounter with Bon, wasn't it?


[PHILIP MORRIS]

1979, the last time that I saw Bon alive.

[JEFF APTER]

What was happening?

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Uh, they... I got word from their sound guy that they were going to do a surprise gig at the Strata Motor Inn at Cremorne. Um... a band called The Ferrets from Melbourne were playing.

[JEFF APTER]

It's an interesting double bill, isn't it? (Laughs)

[PHILIP MORRIS]

So I arrived and AC/DC - Bon and Harry and George - they were backstage having dinner, and Bon had a few scotches. And I had... my girlfriend at the time was Rosie, and I introduced her to Bon. I said, 'Bon, this is Rosie.' He goes, 'Arr! Rosie. Ha-ha-harr!' (Slurs) 'Oh, he's had a few too many scotches.'

[JEFF APTER]

(Chuckles) Or, 'Does he know my girlfriend?'

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Oh, I thought, 'Does he know...' (Mumbles) And so, like, they got... they walked on stage, and the hundred punters in the pub, their jaws dropped, they couldn't believe it.

[The photo of Angus Young playing his guitar]

Like, Angus would be up on the table with his shirt off and doing his trade there, just not missing a beat in this small pub.

[A black-and-white, side profile photo of Bon Scott holding a mic to his mouth with one hand, while the other arm is raised upward]

[PHILIP MORRIS]

And then, three songs in the set, he sang Rosie and I go, 'Oh, no.'


[PHILIP MORRIS]

And then... So, later on, afterwards, he did come up and say, 'No, Rosie is actually a friend of the band, a really good friend.'

[JEFF APTER]

A very big friend of the band.

[Audience laughs]

[PHILIP MORRIS]

I was relieved. But, yeah, that was an amazing gig because it was hundred people and... I had... This time my flash did work, and I was the only photographer there. So I just kept shooting.

[JEFF APTER]

It's amazing, isn't it?

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Yeah. Like, this was the first live gig they did in 1975, Victoria Park, and you've got that...

[A black-and-white photograph of Angus Young standing on an amp and playing the guitar]

[PHILIP MORRIS]

They were, again, incredible because Bon would be on one... Like, he's on one side of the amp and Angus at the other, and then he'd go down in the audience...


[PHILIP MORRIS]

This was before the radio mics. The road crew would just be...

[JEFF APTER]

Feeding.

[PHILIP MORRIS]

..feeding, yeah, the cord while Angus was on Bon's shoulder in the audience. They were just incredible action.

[A black-and-white snapshot of AC/DC being accosted by policemen outside a brick building]

[PHILIP MORRIS]

This was another shoot...

[JEFF APTER]

Video shoot.

[PHILIP MORRIS]

..down in Lavender Bay near where my studio was in Blues Point Road. And that's my old Celica car there with the police light on it. And the policemen themselves were all... Michael Browning's on the right, he's their manager. And it was a staged sort of jailbreak.

[JEFF APTER]

Who's the other one? (Speaks indistinctly)

[PHILIP MORRIS]

The other guy was one of their roadies.


[PHILIP MORRIS]

So, yeah, that was a great session. We were drinking lots of...

[JEFF APTER]

Yeah, I can't help but notice, you know, there seems to be strategically placed bottles and cans in almost every shot that you took. You know, you mixed work and play, right?

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Yeah, they did.

[JEFF APTER]

Paul McCartney.

[A black-and-white shot of Paul McCartney sleeping on the shoulder of Norman Gunston who, in turn, is sleeping on the shoulder of a smiling man wearing sunglasses]

[JEFF APTER]

You spent a lot of time with him when he was here in, what, '70...

[PHILIP MORRIS]

1975. The Wings tour.

[JEFF APTER]

It's not the Norman Gunston tour, it's the Paul McCartney tour.


[PHILIP MORRIS]

Yeah, this was funny because Norman Gunston, or Garry McDonald, he... this was in Perth, at their record reception at the beginning of their tour.

[The photograph of the sleeping men]

[PHILIP MORRIS]

And... Norman Gunston came up to me and said, 'Don't tell him who I am.' So then he started to interview them, and while he was interviewing Paul and the band, he fell asleep.


[JEFF APTER]

(Laughs)

[PHILIP MORRIS]

So... eventually I think Paul got wise to what was going on, and so he fell asleep too.

[The shot of the men sleeping]

[PHILIP MORRIS]

So, yeah, I got a shot, they were all sleeping, and the press was, 'What's going on there?' They're just on the couch, asleep.


[PHILIP MORRIS]

Yeah, they... It was a fun time. So, I did... I did get some good shots on that tour in 1975. I think there's some shots there of...

[JEFF APTER]

Phil's not mentioning, too, that he shot Nylon Degrees' cover, which was Norman Gunston's album, if anybody's familiar with that. It's in the book.

[PHILIP MORRIS]

A send-up of...

[JEFF APTER]

Silk Degrees.

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Silk Degrees. Boz Scaggs.

[A black-and-white photograph of Paul McCartney with a young, blonde girl in a frock standing outside a fenced paddock with horses]

[JEFF APTER]

That's still McCartney, isn't it?

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Yeah, this was... when we travelled, the band and the crew, we'd stay in hotel rooms, but Paul, Linda and the family, Stella, would stay in private houses.


[PHILIP MORRIS]

So when they were in Adelaide, they stayed up in Adelaide Hills on a farm there.

[The photograph of Paul and Stella McCartney with the horses]

[PHILIP MORRIS]

I was lucky, they had a film crew with them as well because they were shooting for their... Wings Over America was their next big stop, and they were filming it for a documentary.

[On stage]

[PHILIP MORRIS]

So I would try and get with the film crew, like the film crew would have more access to than me, have a greater access to... They'd be going to their houses, and so I got word of this. So I'd try and travel with the film crew, which they let me do. So I managed to go to the... on the Adelaide Hills and to Palm Beach when they were... they stayed.

[A black-and-white photo of Paul and Linda McCartney at a piano]

[PHILIP MORRIS]

This is during the rehearsals. So, yeah, got quite a lot of...

[JEFF APTER]

Did you get a little... It was a Beatle. Did you get a little overzealous?


[PHILIP MORRIS]

Yeah. I tried to take as many photographs of him as... I was always photographing him. So he did... he did reprimand me because there was a Japanese photographer on the tour as well, 'cause they were going to Japan after that. He said, 'Look, Philip, get out of the way. You've got to let... The Japanese photographer, he's got to take some shots. You're just in the way. Get out of the way.' So I was... I was like, 'Oh, OK, I'll let him in.' But I just... I couldn't help it. It was just... He was a Beatle, and I was just trying to get as many shots as I could.

[JEFF APTER]

Meanwhile you brought a friend into the group. Is that true? A friend of yours?

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Well, when the band stayed, a friend of mine... He was a... He used sell a bit of dope, a bit of grass, he'd use a bit of weed. The band... the band were partial to a smoke, and so this friend of mine would... he came up to the Sebel Townhouse and he... he sold bags of dope to the guys.

[JEFF APTER]

It's bragging rights for life, isn't it? 'I sold dope to Paul McCartney.'

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Oh, he was sitting there, getting stoned with the band.

[JEFF APTER]

Because, I think, a year later, Paul McCartney of course got busted, you know. I don't think he blamed you, though.

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Oh, no. Well, no.

[JEFF APTER]

This is Pink Floyd.

[A black-and-white photo of the members of Pink Floyd sitting at a table in a room overlooking a runway]

[JEFF APTER]

What's really interesting I think, here, this is Pink Floyd. They probably got off, what, a 30-hour flight from somewhere?

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Yes.

[JEFF APTER]

There's a shot I've used in a book I wrote about the Bee Gees. It's the same situation.


[JEFF APTER]

You'd fly in from the other side of the world, get to Sydney Airport and there's no time... They whisk you into a room and decide to do a press conference, right? You know, it's full on. So these guys look like they're fit to nod off at any point.

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Yeah, that's right. Bands like Yes and Pink Floyd, the Bee Gees. Lou Reed was... used to do press conferences and...

[JEFF APTER]

Some called them press conferences.

[PHILIP MORRIS]

..at the airport and Go-Set was... Musicians worked for Go-Set. So when they were at a press conference, they'd ask intelligent questions. There's a famous interview that Lou Reed does with Australian press, and they'd asked ridiculous questions like 'Do you take drugs?'

[JEFF APTER]

'No!' Do you reckon? (Chuckles)

[PHILIP MORRIS]

'Are you transvestite? Are you homosexual?' And Lou Reed sort of played along with it. But, yeah...

[JEFF APTER]

There is great YouTube footage of, I think, Lou Reed's Sydney press conference, and the disdain with which he treats the mainstream media is just fantastic. He just cuts them to shreds, doesn't he?

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Oh, this is part of the... Pink Floyd in Randwick.

[A black-and-white photograph of a long-haired David Gilmour sitting on the floor of the stage and playing a guitar lying flat on the wood]

[PHILIP MORRIS]

David Gilmour, he's an amazing guitarist. It was winter and very windy and cold, and it made it hard for them to...


[PHILIP MORRIS]

Their instruments were blowing over and... just keep their guitars in tune. It was very difficult, but they still managed to perform an amazing show.

[JEFF APTER]

And that's the guitar he still uses?

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Well, yeah. He... That guitar is the Black Strat he still uses today on all his albums and tours.

[A black-and-white photo of a man standing in front of large cymbals. A gong stands behind him]

[JEFF APTER]

And what says '70s rock more than a gong, right? (Audience murmurs)

[PHILIP MORRIS]

That's the guitar, the Black Strat, that he...

[A black-and-white photograph of David Gilmour with his guitar]

[JEFF APTER]

There's been a lot of demand for that photo? Guitar magazines and things.

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Yeah, that's right.

[A black-and-white photograph of David Gilmour playing the guitar with his hair flying as Nick Mason is seated behind the drums]

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Yeah, you can see how windy it is there.

[JEFF APTER]

Tell me a little bit about this shot.

[A dark and shadowy black-and-white portrait of a bushy-haired Frank Zappa squatting on stage and lighting a cigarette]

[JEFF APTER]

You know, obviously Frank's just decided to stop and have a smoke mid-show.

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Yeah. He wasn't... He wasn't a flashy entertainer like Little Richard or Gary Glitter. But he was an amazing musician.


[PHILIP MORRIS]

I couldn't take my lens off him. He just moved about the stage... He was so cool, he just moved about the stage and played amazing guitar.

[The photo of Frank Zappa lighting a cigarette]

[PHILIP MORRIS]

So, well, he'd just kneel down and light up a fag and then just sort of get back up and start playing the guitar. He was just incredible.

[At the interview]

[PHILIP MORRIS]

But in those days, I was shooting on film, always shooting on film. And then after the concert, we'd have to go back into the dark room and choose the shots and then print them. And then we'd have to get the car and drive out to Mascot to make the Go-Set deadline, which was in Melbourne. So... I mean, now you'd probably just email it.

[JEFF APTER]

Yeah, the shots taken right now could be anywhere around the world in five seconds. And that's what I wanted to ask you. The key differences about... obviously, you were lucky enough to work at a time that you didn't have these restrictions, where a lot of things were formulative and, really, just starting to develop. And, let's face it, a lot of the bands were just much, much cooler. Do you ever look back and look at the contemporary music scene and go, 'Thank God, I was working at a certain time and place'?

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Oh, yeah, it was amazing. It was amazing period in... It was the golden years, you know. That was an amazing period in rock music. Everything was... at the beginning, you know, like they were all... Things were just happening, you know, invented as it went along. It was the same as the festivals. So it was a very creative period. So, yeah, it was the best time to be involved with music, you know, on a magazine like Go-Set.

[JEFF APTER]

Yeah, absolutely. What about questions? I see a raised hand there.

[WOMAN]

What year did you start at Go-Set?

[PHILIP MORRIS]

What year. Um, probably 1968, 'cause I was with them about a year... a year, bit before, when I did the Ourimbah festival. So 1968. So I managed to get some early shots of Jeff St John and some of the bands of that time.

[A black-and-white portrait of Lou Reed dressed casually and in sunglasses sitting with his elbow resting on a table beside him]

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Oh, yes. Lou Reed.

[JEFF APTER]

Nice perm.

[PHILIP MORRIS]

(Chuckles)

The press... that's the... Yeah, the Bee Gees of course at the airport.

[A photograph of the three Gibbs brothers sitting beside each other and looking to one side. The letters C-I-A are embroidered on the arm of Maurice Gibbs' sweater]

[JEFF APTER]

Maurice Gibb and his rarely-known alternate position of working for the CIA, if anybody didn't know.

[Audience laughs]

[JEFF APTER]

Back to the start.

[PHILIP MORRIS]

So that's it.

[JEFF APTER]

There's another question.

[In the theatre]

[MAN]

Phil, it's been a great talk, by the way. Very good.

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Oh, thank you very much.

[MAN]

And of all the acts you saw, the Australian acts, who was your favourite live act?

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Uh, Lou Reed. Lou Reed would be my favourite.

[MAN]

Of overseas, but what about Australia?

[JEFF APTER]

What about Australia?

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Oh, Australian. AC/DC. Yeah, yeah.

[MAN]

And last question - and of the girl singers, the rock'n'roll singers you've seen in your time, who was your favourite girl singer?

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Wendy Saddington it would have to be. She was an amazing blues singer. And put so much emotion and feel. She was only tiny, and she really put a lot of soul. Yeah.

[JEFF APTER]

That was a tough edit for the book, wasn't it? I think we had probably seven, eight, maybe even ten, shots of her that were just fantastic. I think we got it down to a couple in the end.

[PHILIP MORRIS]

She was great to photograph.

[JEFF APTER]

Second book.

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Yeah. (Chuckles)

[JEFF APTER]

Yes?

[WOMAN]

You've both worked with Marc Hunter, with Dragon, certainly as you went on to RAM and Juke Magazine and freelancing. Just interested, were either of you involved in photographing Marc in the later stages of his life?

[JEFF APTER]

I only wrote about him.

[WOMAN]

Maybe some stories?

[JEFF APTER]

Phil photographed him. There's great shots in the book. And you caught them just as they came over from New Zealand.

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Yeah, I did their first publicity shots, but I'd photographed Marc a couple of times for his solo albums, Fiji Bitter and Big City Talk. And then a few times after that... but mostly, yeah, in the early '70s.

[WOMAN]

You showed us ones that you'd taken of him.

[JEFF APTER]

I think the photos in here are very much the heroin and champagne kind of phase of the career, aren't they? They do, they look like, you know... INXS had that term, 'elegantly wasted', and that's exactly what Marc, in particular, looked like.

[PHILIP MORRIS]

He was amazing. He was of the calibre of Jim Morrison, with the charismatic... He'll always be remembered as an icon and a charismatic frontman.

[JEFF APTER]

Mm. Yeah. So, there's some great shots in here. But you're right. The physical, I guess, and the visual evolution of Marc Hunter was pretty interesting because ultimately he got pretty damn big.

[WOMAN]

Thank you for your work on Marc.

[JEFF APTER]

The book. It was a tough one to write, that one, yeah. It's a very sad story. There must be more questions, surely.

[WOMAN]

I have one.

[JEFF APTER]

There we are.

[WOMAN]

Are you safely keeping all your archives together?

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Oh, I've started to digitise all my negatives. So I've scanned most of them. So, I've started from the beginning, the ones that were more in demand, like the AC/DC, Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin. And then I hope to that with all my negatives because, you know, they start... quite a lot of them have become damaged. Mostly moisture is a bit of a killer with film.

[WOMAN]

Yes. It's nice to know they're all safe.

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Oh, yeah, yeah. 'Cause it's hard when... Photographers I know, Colin Beard, who worked for Go-Set in Melbourne, a lot of his work was damaged. So, yeah, it's important to be able to archive them and digitise them, keeps them like that.

[JEFF APTER]

I have a question for someone in the audience. I'm not sure if everybody can see this.

[Jeff Apter holds up Phil Morris' book opened to a page where two John 'O'Keefe photographs are on adjacent pages - one the gangster photo, another where a woman sits on his lap]

[JEFF APTER]

This JOK shot with Madame Lash. The director of that particular piece, Martin Fabinyi, who's here, Martin, can you explain what was going on there? It's afternoon underworld, is that correct? Can you see it? Can everybody see that?

[MAN]

(Speaks indistinctly)

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Now, I was hoping...

[JEFF APTER]

We do have some others I think. But this is... is this from the set?

[MARTIN FABINYI]

Yes.

[JEFF APTER]

OK, OK.

[MARTIN FABINYI]

That was an avant-garde piece being funded by the Experimental School of Arts. And Philip and I worked on the idea of a talk show called Afternoon Underworld.

[JEFF APTER]

'Cause the idea of Madame Lash and JOK coming together, it's an interesting concept. (Martin speaks indistinctly)

[JEFF APTER]

Who else was there?

[MARTIN FABINYI]

Stephen MacLean, Julie Clarke, Kate Fitzpatrick, Art Dignam and a few others were involved.

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Adam Bowen.

[MARTIN FABINYI]

Adam Bowen.

[JEFF APTER]

Plus male and female models, if I'm not mistaken. (Martin Fabinyi speaks indistinctly)

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Todd... (Mumbles)

[MARTIN FABINYI]

Male models, too. (Speaks indistinctly)

[MARTIN FABINYI]

We talked about things of... that you wouldn't have... (Continues indistinctly)

[JEFF APTER]

And the networks didn't pick it up?

[Audience laughs]

[JEFF APTER]

It's great. It's well documented, but, Phil, in your archive, there's some amazing shots of that. It's really, really funny. JOK did look a little out of his element, just a tad. Just a tad. Just a tad.

[MARTIN FABINYI]

Those were the days when anything was possible.

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Yeah.

[MARTIN FABINYI]


[PHILIP MORRIS]

Yeah, we did.

[JEFF APTER]

Captures it pretty well.

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Rocky Horror was... Jim Sharman and Rocky Horror was the same time, round that time. So it was... a bit of that... similar influence. Yeah.

[JEFF APTER]

Any other questions?

[MAN]

Phil, are you still active? Still doing gigs?

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Oh, I went to the Blues Festival last year and photographed a lot of the bands there - the Dewey Brothers and Buddy Guy and... But I just don't have the access now to... to magazines, you know. So, yeah, that was just... that was the period, the Go-Set years, was when I mainly shot. But I still... I still like going to see the current crop of bands, and there's a lot of really good ones out there, too. So, yeah, I still love going to gigs and taking the camera occasionally and trying to keep my eye in and...

[JEFF APTER]

You've got your new camera down there.

[Jeff Apter points to something on the floor beside Philip Morris]

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Oh... (Chuckles) This one here, yeah.

[Philip Morris picks up the bellows camera]

[JEFF APTER]

Cutting edge.

[PHILIP MORRIS]

(Laughs)

[JEFF APTER]

Yes. Sorry, I'll come to you next.

[WOMAN]

As you said, you started off on film, which meant that you had to do the actual processing and then get the shots in. Now, with the digitised era, it also means that there's a lot more freedom for people to freelance. So, in a sense, I've just done freelance photography for the Nimbin papers on and off for years, unpaid, because everybody's got a digital camera, but I just happen to be there. It kind of takes away from what a photographer could do, the skill. How do you see the changes?

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Yeah, that's right. You had to have a bit of... an idea of the lighting and how to push the film and how to process it. It was a skill and now, with high-quality digital cameras, you can shoot video, pick a frame out of the video, and basically use the frame. And you can just go through and delete and then, 'Oh, that's a bit out of focus,' and take another one. So, yeah, the skill, the craftsmanship of shooting live gigs is... is gone.

[WOMAN]

And, therefore, the setting up of shots like you did, also isn't happening as much, like the album covers you set up for.

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Yeah, it's a different technique I guess. Like, The Angels' No Exit have a film technician like Brian Bansgrove come and light... light that tunnel and then shoot it on film, was sort of a craft that I don't know if it's still... or very seldomly used today.

[JEFF APTER]

Let me ask you this. If you had the digital technology that's available now, shooting in the 1970s, how do you think you would have fared? You think it would have made your job easier or...? What changes would it have brought to your gig, do you think?

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Oh, well... It would have made it a lot easier to shoot, and, of course, there would be a lot more people that would be photographers because you didn't have to go through the learning the craft to know about exposure and how to process film and how to judge lighting. Because it's all done on computer now.

[JEFF APTER]

Sure, sure. Might have made you a little lazier perhaps.

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Not...

[JEFF APTER]

Sorry, you had a question.

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Sorry.

[WOMAN]

I was just going to say, before I ask a question, when I go to concerts, everybody seems to want to be a photographer.

[JEFF APTER]

And they want to be writers, too, trust me.

[WOMAN]

And you want to have a big bloody sign... Even if the management or whoever says, 'Please turn your mobiles off,' or whatever, and I just think, 'I wish they had a dirty big sign at the front, "Please leave your mobile at the door," or something.' You know, like those old Westerns.

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Yes, leave your...

[JEFF APTER]

Hang on. If you're at a show nowadays, you have to ring your friends to tell you were there while the show's going on.

[WOMAN]

I find it really frustrating, even with all the merchandising and that now. Once upon a time, if you had the stub of the ticket, that was like... euphoria, you know. But now you get bombarded with merchandise every which way. Now, my question is, Phil, did you manage to do any photography with The Easybeats or Bob Dylan?

[PHILIP MORRIS]

I photographed The Easybeats quite a lot. Unfortunately, I missed Bob Dylan concerts, but...

[WOMAN]

Was that on purpose?

[PHILIP MORRIS]

No, no, no. Oh, no. I just happened to be... When he was touring, I probably was somewhere else.

[JEFF APTER]

The Easybeats, that's a good question, 'cause you captured a big moment in Easybeats' history, didn't you, really? The end of the line. The last tour.

[PHILIP MORRIS]

It was a bit before the... not their reunions, but when they came back from the UK in 1970, they did a show at the Trockadero, and that was quite a... an interesting show. They still had the fans, you know, they still had the screaming fans...

[JEFF APTER]

I think you captured the last wave of, you know, Easybeat mania, as it were.

[PHILIP MORRIS]

And then Stevie went on with a solo career, and he played the Opera House with his huge hit Evie.

[JEFF APTER]

A good man to shoot, I would imagine.

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Oh, he was amazing to shoot. In fact, that AC/DC Victoria Park gig, they supported Stevie Wright. Stevie Wright was the headliner, of course, but I think AC/DC kind of stole the limelight.

[JEFF APTER]

They would have been a hard act to follow.

[WOMAN]

My sister and I used to hang out in front of their house... (Woman continues indistinctly)

[PHILIP MORRIS]

(Laughs)

[JEFF APTER]

OK.

[WOMAN]

Angus used to... he was about seven, and he used to sort of play round that fence. It was a Uniting Church or something at the end of the street... (Speaks indistinctly) And I used to think... (Speaks indistinctly) 'Oh, God!' like, 'Who are you?' And, you know, when they came back from England with all the Edwardian...

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Yeah.

[JEFF APTER]

I think if you look at the shots in the book that Phil, particularly with Stevie Wright, you can see a little disintegration of character there, too, can't you? You can see him heading into a fairly dark phase of his life, too, I think.

[WOMAN]

That whole thing of Evie down at the Opera House still makes me cry.

[JEFF APTER]

He was fantastic.

[WOMAN]

He had so much talent and such a brilliant voice... (Continues indistinctly)

[JEFF APTER]

But aren't you glad that was filmed? That's one of the great moments in Australian rock history performing that song.

[WOMAN]

It's really beautiful footage, and he sings it with so much passion, but it just... I don't know, it just sort of gets me...

[JEFF APTER]

It would be nice to... well, it would be good to have frozen that moment in time I guess. Absolutely. And, yeah... I don't know, is that shot in...? There's a lot of Stevie Wright in the book.

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Oh, yeah, from the Opera House. In fact, there's some shots of Stevie at that Opera House gig where it's got Harry. Harry plays guitar, Malcolm plays guitar and... So it's a bit of the Easybeats and AC/DC. They all... it was the Alberts family.

[WOMAN]

Oh, God, yeah.

[PHILIP MORRIS]

They all helped each other.

[JEFF APTER]

A real moment in Australian music history, isn't it? Yes?

[WOMAN]

Just a... (Speaks indistinctly) ..because this is all archival material, we're in the State Library, and you've talked about this is... being in the genesis of all of that. But with the advent of digital photography and the fact that everyone can be a photographer... And I'm just wondering now if people will be able to... You know, because there's still music still evolving. There's new bands and all the rest of it. If you go to, like, Byron Bay and you've got, you know, 20,000 people with their digital cameras where digital photography for the complete dummy, you know what I mean? A lot of people go, 'That's a great shot,' and they go, 'No, that's just the camera. I haven't really got talent.' Where's the place for someone like you to document that history? Because there'll be so much stuff out there. Are people really going to be going, 'Well, I want to see a book like this anymore'? You know what I mean?

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Yeah.

[WOMAN]

Is this a real end-of-an-era thing?

[PHILIP MORRIS]

It sort of is an end of an era, but there are some very good photographers still out there that have the eye to capture on digital.

[WOMAN]

Oh, yes, yes.

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Then they have really good equipment and they can... Because the cameras are so advanced, that you can use a long lens and shoot from further away and get a really sharp picture...

[JEFF APTER]

Maybe that's it. The use of the new technology, learning... Those who are going to use it best are the ones that are going to be... They'll be more proficient if you really explore the possibilities, rather than just point and shoot.

[WOMAN]

Will they be working in this field. Will they have access? (Woman continues indistinctly)

[JEFF APTER]

There's not so many outlets now.

[WOMAN]

..in digital photography, because that's a medium on its own. There's got to be people who know how to take that par excellence. But are they going to be working in this field? Like, if Pink or someone like that come out on their big tours, do they have people like you who go and document all this, or is this just...?

[JEFF APTER]

I mean, from a writer's perspective, there's just not many outlets for it anymore. Rolling Stone magazine has shrunk to about one tenth of its former size. Most good photos are posted online straightaway. As far as capturing something and really utilising and developing its fullest potential, barely exist anymore.

[PHILIP MORRIS]

A lot of photographers will be shooting video, too. A lot of concerts are videoed, with a lot of detail with the digital cameras now. And then from the video, you can pick a still shot from that. So it'll get that... there won't be the... There definitely won't be the craft, and there won't be the amount of photographers that specialise in music photography, like Tony Mott or Bob King or myself.

[JEFF APTER]

Yeah, it's definitely the end of an era, but probably the beginning of some new type of presentation. But... don't know what it is. I mean, it's interesting, though, because writers are going through the same crisis. 'Crisis' sounds a bit heavy, but everybody's a blogger now, too. You know? And, look, the one good thing about being a writer is that it's easier to tell the difference between good and bad writing. You know, because... what I'm trying to say is if you've got a good camera now, there's a chance you'll take a good photo. But it's still... there's a little bit more involved, I think, in writing a thousand-worder that will really grab the attention of someone and scribbling a thousand words on a page. So... probably if... probably should make this the last question. Thanks.

[WOMAN]

I just wondered, can you expand a little on it for us, not so much Go-Set 'cause I'm just a little bit younger than that, but you and Bob King - great admirer of your craft. You and Bob King, was it a competition all the time?

[PHILIP MORRIS]

No.

[WOMAN]

Did certain artists sort of select you to stand on as their photographer, as you say it, whereas Bob had other sort of bands or record companies that preferred him?

[PHILIP MORRIS]

No. See, I'm a great friend of Bob. In fact, we started off at the YMCA camera club in the '60s together.

[Audience laughs]

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Bob worked for Kodak and I was working as an assistant fashion photographer. So we were great mates. Bob worked in camera stores. He worked for Kayell and he worked for L&P Photographics. And it wasn't till later on... He could see that I was photographing these bands and Daryl Braithwaite used to come in. Daryl Braithwaite and Rick Brewster from The Angels were keen photographers. I'd send them along to Bob and I'd say, you know, 'Daryl's interested. Can you recommend a camera?' So Bob sort of started to get interested in... in bands back then. So then he started coming along to the gigs. And so he kind of took over where I left off.

[WOMAN]

So you realise you've created a monster.

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Ah, yeah, yeah!

[Audience laughs]

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Bob can't stop.

[JEFF APTER]

Who are your other peers?

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Well, there was Peter Garette. He was...

[JEFF APTER]

He was a more paparazzi style.

[PHILIP MORRIS]

More paparazzi style. Patrick Jones. Uh... I'm trying to think who else was around at that time. Um, yeah, see, as I say...

[JEFF APTER]

Just a handful of people.

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Just a handful of people. And that's why the Led Zeppelin concerts and the Stones concerts, we had the access, because it wasn't like now. If you go to a blues festival or a concert, there's like about 20 photographers in the pit.

[MAN]


[PHILIP MORRIS]

120? Where was this?

[MAN]

Blues Festival.

[PHILIP MORRIS]

At the Blues Festival. (Applause)

[PHILIP MORRIS]

Thank you.

Documents

[Warning - This film contains nudity and references to drugs]