Marie Hoy began as a musician in the Melbourne punk band, Thrush and the Cunts, in 1978. One of their tracks, "Diseases", appeared in soundtrack of the film, Dogs in Space, which depicts the local little band scene from the late 1970s. She was also a member of Too Fat to Fit Through the Door, alongside Marcus Bergner, Michael Buckley, Tom Hoy, Dave Light and Stuart Grant. They issued a track, "Flintstones Meet the Flintsones", on a four-track split extended play, Little Band, with one track each by Morpion, the Take, and Ronnie and the Rhythm Boys. As an actress Hoy appeared in the short film, Incubus, working with Bergner and Buckley. In the same year she appeared in another short, Etrusco Me, directed by Bergner. It was screened at the Melbourne International Film Festival in July–August 2009, and "was originally conceived as a prop for a performance by the singer and musician Marie Hoy. The film juxtaposes and intermixes sculptural and linguistic usurpers or shifters of meaning and sense, and as such, parallels and can be seen in relation to the off the limb theatrical atmospherics and ballistics later characteristically employed in the plays by the Austrian writer/artist Werner Schwab." Hoy also appeared in Dogs in Space, as front woman of Marie Hoy and Friends, to perform the Boys Next Door's track, "Shivers". Tim Groves of Senses of Cinema observed "Nick Cave fans will appreciate a snippet of the Boys Next Door's version of their classic 'Shivers'." In 1984 Hoy formed a post-punk band, Orchestra of Skin and Bone, on lead vocals and keyboards with Arnie Hanna on guitar, David Hoy on cello, Tom Hoy on saxophone, Lochie Kirkwood on vocals and saxophone, Ollie Olsen on lead vocals and guitar, Dugald McKenzie on vocals and harmonica, John Murphy on drums, James Rogers on trumpet and Peter Scully on guitar. They issued a self-titled album in 1985 before disbanding in the following year. Hoy on keyboards, vocals and samples with Murphy and Olsen formed another post-punk band, NO, in 1987 including Kevin McMahon on bass guitar and Michael Sheridan on lead guitar. They released two albums, Glory for the Shit for Brains and Once We Were Scum, Now We Are God, before disbanding in 1989.
