CHAIN LIVE
(c. 1969 from Chain Live back cover left to right: Glyn Mason (guitar/vocals), Warren “Pig” Morgan (electric piano), Phil Manning (guitar/vocals), Barry Sullivan (Big Goose – bass), Barry Harvey (Little Goose – drums)
A big ice-cream cone appears in the middle of the road. The driver swerves to avoid it. The van careers off the road into a ditch. Big Goose says that Little Goose was never the same after that accident. Little Goose had badly damaged his right arm and for a drummer this was a serious handicap. [But this accident happened years before Chain broke up]
Little Goose was an incredibly technical drummer. He’d listened to John Coltrane
Video: Matt Taylor on Little Goose
Little Goose recalls working with his friend Big Goose;
“Here’s the incredible thing about Big Goose: Big Goose and I had a really close bond; the Wild Cherries had broken up; we were living in St Kilda and the night man walked on the moon (Ed: 20 July 1969), he came home and he had this new guitar case. The man was walking on the moon on the TV and Big Goose’s guitar case had gotten longer. And I said to him ‘hey man, what’s with the guitar case?’ and he said ‘oh, I swapped my Fender Strat for a Fender Jazz bass with Tim Piper’ and I said ‘oh, at last you’ve given the guitar away’
“So we spent three months in the practice room just playing bass and drums and then Chain started. It was amazing because Big Goose only told me maybe about six months before he died that when Chain started he was petrified because it was his first bass gig and he was playing with Phil and Pig and me and we’d been our instruments all our lives. But those three months we worked out with just the bass and drums that really paid off” [From 2010 interview with Ian McFarlane – Chain Live CD liner notes]
Video: CHAIN – Gertrude Street Blues
“The two Geese [Gooses] got their name because the sharpies used to call everyone ‘goose’
When Thursday’s Children played at the Bowl in Melbourne, the sharpies would shout out requests: “Play ‘Standing in the Shadows of Love’, goose” For some reason, the nickname stuck. To differentiate between them, they became Big Goose – Barry Sullivan who was the taller one and Little Goose – Barry Harvey
Big Goose listened to Hendrix, Page, Mick Taylor of the Rolling Stones, Honky Tonk Woman 1969 and Eric Clapton. Blues
The Gooses lived in a couple of little rooms in Jackson Street, St Kilda. When Thursday’s Children broke up they struggled along a bit, Big Goose started out as a guitarist, gave up the guitar and took up the bass
The Jam Factory South Yarra
It’s hard to believe that only under 50 years ago, Melbourne’s scene was mostly café’s and lunchtime gigs. Venues seemed less transient than today. No-Alcohol was allowed. In 1969 when Matt was struggling with keeping Genesis relevant, he met up with Big Goose who invited him along to a jam session. A jam session at The Jam Factory [coincidentally] The Jam Factory was a large club, which had actually been a jam factory … for making jam… and we know this because some of the original machinery was still on site
When Matt went to see them, he “just sat there and thought: this is mind-blowing. It was the best Australian band I had ever seen up to that time and that included the Meteors, and Thorpie, and all of those people. These guys were so good.
Video: Matt Taylor on Big Goose
The Red Orb night club in Brisbane was the place that Barry Harvey and Barry Sullivan played with Lobby Loyde. The Purple Hearts and Thursday’s Children” (Burrows & Riseborough pp 101-130)
You’d see a 20 year old surfer enjoying the strong blues undercurrent of The Red Orb and of course dances at Brisbane Trades Hall. Jiva Lawler was a Brisbane boy. He loved the energy that Lobby Loyde and the Coloured Balls radiated. Jiva was on his way to England, when in Perth, he went to say hello to Thursday’s Children at a nightclub. They offered him the job of roadie. Jiva bought a transit van in Perth and became the Wild Cherries roadie
(c. 1986)
Crossing the Nullabor Plain [and in those days not all of it was sealed] the Wild Cherries with Jiva Lawler as their roadie made their way to Melbourne
Jiva recalls that Lobby was something special, he would play unexpected stuff and eventually ended up with Billy Thorpe. After they broke up, The Wild Cherries reformed without Big Goose and Little Goose
Jiva would carry in the gear. “Instead of today’s gigantic big PAs, in those days there was just two columns with four speakers and he’d just throw them over his shoulders. Remember too in those days on a Saturday night especially in Melbourne you may do three gigs. You’d start off at the Sandringham and then you go over to Collingwood and then you’d go to the one of the clubs Berties or Sebastian’s or The Thumping Tum, which was great but the gig didn’t last long. So you had all of that organising and you needed a roadie cos Chain would come off stage and be half dead. Jiva would set it up and they’d go out and do it again and then he’d set it up again and do it again” (Burrows & Riseborough pp101 – 130)
“I don’t think Jiva needed to mother me too much but Little Goose and Big Goose I think did. They could get themselves into incredible spots, I think he was good for them, I think they may have gone a little bit off the rails when Jiva wasn’t around
We had the most highly educated road crew in the whole of Melbourne. We had two road crew at that stage. Jiva, Roger and we had all of these different University students which Roger was. Roger was the original head banger while we were playing
They were Magic days” – Matt Taylor December 2017
Jiva was being paid in dope. Even though Chain had a number one record they’d only get paid $200 in the pubs
5 gigs on Saturday – 5 set up times
Chain’s equipment was a step up from the previous bands. Matt bought his own PA from a manufacturer in Brisbane. “I went in and told the guy that I wasn’t interested in amplification, just in magnification. I wanted this exact sound. But he explained that there’s always some alteration to the sound of the voice. He made me a double-column PA with eight speakers in it. It was two hundred watts, and that was big for those days.” Jiva would bring the gear in, and then look after Matt’s system during the gig. When Matt was playing harmonica, Jiva would turn the PA down, because otherwise it would feed back. When Matt sang, he’d turn it back up again. Because of that, says Matt, Chain played in perfect balance. It wasn’t until a little later that PAs became more sophisticated” (Burrows & Riseborough pp101-130)
Roger Taylor got goosebumps the first time he heard the band, Them with Van Morrison singing “Baby Please Don’t Go” and “Gloria”
Roger grew up in the 60s and fell in love with the blues. When he heard British bands covering songs of Muddy Waters he explored the music even further. A re-generated Billy Thorpe was all the rage at University. Every Thursday night, he saw Lobby Loyde, Warren Morgan, Kevin Murphy and Paul Wheeler at the Thumping Tum, he decided that all he wanted to do with his life was be involved with the scene. He was in Queensland living with a Uni friend when he approached Phil Manning at a gig and asked if he could help out with the band. Phil offered him a job as Chain’s assistant roadie to Jiva
Before Roger worked for Chain he saw them play at the first Australian music festival in Ourimbah NSW. “The Pilgrimage of Peace” held on Australia Day long weekend 1970. At that time Chain was Warren Morgan – Piano (to July ’70); Phil Manning – guitar/vocals; Barry Sullivan – Bass; Barry Harvey – Drums; Glen Mason – guitar/vocals (Jan-July)
Video: ONCE AROUND THE SUN TRAILER
Chain singing ‘Sweet Little Angel’ [01:57 – 02:18]
After Warren and Glyn left Chain, Phil and the Gooses went to Brisbane
Video: Matt joins Chain
Thanks to Phil Manning, Matt Taylor, Linda Bester, Roger Taylor, Clive ‘Jiva’ Lawler, Peter Maloney, Ron and Jeff King, Philip Morris and Stuart Coupe. I am very grateful for their generosity
continued Chain “… and the night man walked on the moon*” Part 3
© Amanda Dweck 2017
