Judie Tzuke - Press Cuttings.
The following article was in Kerrang! Magazine.
Crunch and Judie
PAUL SUTTER nukes the Tzuke image
JESUS, here we go again. It’s getting a tad tiresome having to justify certain artists, Judie Tzuke more than most. Nevertheless it's probably necessary to grab you firmly by the collar and bellow into your ears ‘Judie Tzuke is not MoR-she's rock!’ and hope that the last Hagar album didn't deafen you and consequently waste my time.
'Rock' is a pretty vague term of course, both in the broader sense (funk, rock, punk rock, heavy metal, reggae etc) and the narrower one too- nobody's denying that Fleetwood Mac and Motorhead are both rock acts.
Unlike most rock acts Judie Tzuke isn't constrained by stylistic limitations and wanders happily from one extreme to the other, from 'For You' to 'Black Furs', and it's this brave refusal to be tied down and categorised that is ironically costing her dearly.
The media cringe away from her because they're not sure how to present her, and the consequently uninformed public (no radio airplay!) remember the frail waif who delivered 'Stay With Me Till Dawn' on TOTP clutching the mikestand as if it was her only friend in the world, see the occasional dewy eyed poster or photo, and draw the logical conclusions.
But Judie Tzuke is not a wimp- for heaven's sake, she's even been featured in Kerrang! Well, she will have been when I've finished writing this ...
She's disarmingly frank about her failure to put her true self across, but more than a little wilful in her unwillingness to co-operate. She knows what’s gone wrong, but she's not about to grovel apologetically to those who've drawn the wrong conclusions-the ones who haven't bought her records after all - and bluntly intends to do what she wants. If the mountain won't come to Mohammed then sod it, there's always soil erosion. Quick 'n' easy stardom isn't in this lady's line of thinking at all.
"Basically I do what I do for me, I don't do it for anybody else. They're the ones that are missing out!" she laughs, although thoughtfully adding, "but one day they might hear it. If not they won't catch on, but I'll still be doing it.
"It would be nice to be more successful, it would make things a lot easier. We're not doing badly-we sell the same number of albums every time- but possibly we're not going to be huge. The only reason that I would like to be more successful is so that I would have more facilities, be able to take more time over recording albums and so on, just to make them better records.
"Being huge frightens me anyway. It’s bad enough now, if I go out and haven't washed my hair or I haven't got make up on and somebody recognises me I'm embarrassed because they've seen me like that-and if they don't recognise me I wonder how awful I must look. There's a certain obligation, if people know who you are, to be the person they think you are, not to be a disappointment."
Eeeek, the image problem raises its beautifully coiffeured head! Remember those wispily romantic posters and photos that have misrepresented her so badly? Judie freely admits that it's her own fault.
"Now we're going to try and base my image on what I'm always like, rather than what I'm like when I'm at my best. If I've got to have an image then I might as well push what I actually am rather than what other people would like me to be. It’s what I've always wanted to do, but you go about it in the wrong way. In a photo session you naturally want to look your best-but in doing so you lose a lot of what you are."
So what is Judie Tzuke? Simply she's a musician who loves music and loves creating it, and detests the straightjacket that the music business can be. You can only play the business at its own game when you're part of it but to Judie it’s nothing more than machinery; she wants to make music, her music, and hopes that people will like it so that she can generate enough finance to keep on making it.
She's not crusading, not trying to deliver any great message- it's purely a personal pleasure and she's not about to manipulate the unaware in order to fuel that personal pleasure. The simple fact is though that manipulation shouldn't be necessary- if you listen to Judie Tzuke instead of dismissing her without hearing there would definitely be something there for one and all to savour. And never more so than on the new live album ...
Reviews of the album have been universally favourable, and tinged with tones of surprise- maybe the media in general are beginning to wake up to her. It’s rough and ready, a warts 'n' all package of excellent material well delivered, significantly different from the sanitised perfection cynics might have expected.
The mix is emphatically live, booming around the confines of the Hammersmith Odeon where it was recorded over a mere two nights on the current tour with one track from Hitchin and one from Glastonbury the only additional recordings that were available to choose from (and were used!) No string section, just vocals, guitar, keyboards, bass drums and percussion - you know, a rock band.
"Some of the tracks I really like, but some I wish could be a bit better. To be honest I was going to insist on overdubbing the vocals- I've always wanted to do a live album but I'm such a perfectionist with the vocals, I hear every note that’s even slightly out of tune and I never thought that I could do a live album and leave the vocals- but I caught the flu and couldn't overdub, so I had to!"
"Now I'm glad that we had to leave it as it is- it's got much more atmosphere, it sounds like I had always hoped that we sound."
"Funnily enough vocally I think the best track on it for me is 'Come Hell Or Waters High' which we did at Glastonbury, and I had a cold then, and I honestly thought I was dreadful that day. My voice was really going- usually when you're singing with a cold it doesn't physically hurt, but it was really painful that night - and all the way through the show I was thinking 'I can't do it, I've got to tell them I can't go on."
"But when I was about to do it I saw Jackson Browne standing on the side of the stage, and I've really liked him for years. That made me really want to do well and I thought ‘damn it, no!’ and went. When I heard the tape I couldn't believe it, we sounded really good ... considering it was live!"
Ironically the live album comes out at a time when the attractions of life on tour have reached their lowest point ever for Judie-the gruelling three months of dates that led up to the album have left their mark, and Judie and Pax (guitarist Mike Paxman) are now thinking about tracks for the next album, and not live dates to promote 'Road Noise'.
Not even one or two, because keyboards player Bob Noble is about to tour with Roy Harper, whilst bassist John Edwards is currently ... wait for it ... a Dexy's . Midnight Runner!
"After the tour I just felt like giving up completely, not because it was unsuccessful in fact it did really well, but the whole thing wore me out completely and I got fed up and frustrated. I got involved far too much in the business side when I didn't really want to, and I got to ' a point where I didn't like the whole thing any more."
"I'm sure we will go on tour again, it's just that after the last one I'm sure that I was very close to a nervous breakdown. I ended up with 52 teasets you know! I get nervous during the day before a gig, so to relieve the nerves I suddenly developed this interest in wandering around antique shops-I've been doing it now and then for years, but I suddenly became completely obsessive about it, with the result that I've now got a room full of antique teasets!"
"It killed my nerves completely... instead of going on stage full of nerves I was trying to remember the colour of the teapot I'd bought that day! Afterwards I honestly thought I must have been going mad, but I met someone from the Moody Blues and apparently he came back from an American tour with about fifty tracksuits and twenty-five squash rackets ... and he doesn't even play squash!"
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