Rock Chicks

by Alison Stieven-Taylor

  Her lack of self-confidence also manifested itself in her on-stage persona. Incredibly shy, PJ was unable to talk to the audience between songs, which drew comments about her being arrogant and aloof. The motivation behind her stage garb was also misconstrued—hair pulled back tightly in a bun, black trousers and turtle necks, and perhaps a smear of lipstick. It was designed to obscure her sexuality,. Her fans had other ideas. She began to attract the kind of attention that belonged in Stephen King novels. Fans sent her bodily fluids through the mail and others shared their thoughts about suicide with her. The attention terrified her. The bone thin star lost more weight and began to fall apart.

  In the beginning it had been fun to do press interviews and read reviews. But the inexperienced PJ had much to learn about dealing with the media. Behaviour that she presumed normal—like peeing in a kettle she kept in the bedroom of her London flat in front of a Melody Maker journalist, or not washing her hair for two years because she believed it was self-cleaning—gave the media the hook they were after. PJ’s eccentricities became a talking point, as did her anxieties.

  Stress is very much a part of PJ’s makeup and she often suffered from the pressures she put upon herself in her pursuit of perfection. Being in control was central to her ability to function.

  As the career demands mounted, PJ began to unravel. By the time her first real romance ended in mid 1992 she was no longer coping. The crunch came at the Reading Festival in August when her stress level reached a crescendo. PJ fell in a heap. It took her months to recuperate.

  It was reported that she had suffered a nervous breakdown. Some intimated that perhaps her woes were the result of anorexia, or drug abuse—after all, her stick-like appearance was not dissimilar to that of a heroin addict, although it was a rumour that couldn’t have been further from the truth.

  PJ may have flirted with marijuana, but drugs made her feel nauseous and had no part in her life. More often she’d have a cigarette and glass of wine in hand, but even her drinking was largely measured.

  Her mother came to the rescue. She retreated to her parents’ farm before taking up digs in a seaside flat in Dorset, where she began to regain her grip on her strange reality. For the next two months she lived as a virtual recluse and started to pen songs, many of them about her feelings on the ending of her love affair with an un-named musician.

  the crunch came at the Reading Festival when her stress level reached a crescendo. PJ fell in a heap

  During those quiet days she breathed in the calm of the country as she readied herself to re-enter the world of rock, this time with therapist in tow. As others may take a stylist or hairdresser, PJ takes her stress management counsellor on tour.

  Back on her feet, and now signed to Island Records, PJ went back into the studio to record Rid of Me. Determined to do things her way, and with no perception of the supposed barriers that women in music faced, she shunned the list of producers the record company put forward and instead chose Steve Albini, formerly of 1980s US cult band Big Black, after hearing his work with Jesus Lizard and the Breeders. Albini had a reputation for deafeningly heavy and distorted guitar sounds which appealed to PJ.

  Rid of Me wasn’t for the faint-hearted. Its scarified delivery of visceral sexual encounters was anything but easy on the psyche, but the album captured the ferocious energy of the band live. PJ’s vocals raged from gutsy punk rock howls to high-pitch squeals and quietly ferocious hisses, prompting one reviewer to describe her as ‘a demonic fusion of Siouxsie and Patti Smith with a bit of Sinead and Kate Bush’.

  The album spawned the single ‘50ft Queenie’, inspired by the movie Attack of the 50ft Woman. The songs included ‘Man Size’, ‘Rub ‘Til It Bleeds’ and ‘Me Jane’, and all focused on a favourite PJ theme—sex. The only one not written by PJ was a torturous cover of Dylan’s ‘Highway 61 Revisited’. Although the songs were lyrically mature, many reviewers felt Albini’s harsh treatment didn’t do them justice. PJ disagreed. It was exactly what she was looking for.

  Released early in 1993, Rid of Me was unlike anything at the time, a scathing collection of vitriolic songs of betrayal, lust and control with guitar riffs that flayed you alive. Her diehard fans and the music media took to the new offering as if it were the holy sacrament. Her songs fired overtly aggressive missives at men. Was she a feminist? Or a riot grrrl? PJ shrugged off the attempts to pigeonhole her, saying it was patronising to be labeled.

  the music was stripped back and raw. PJ’s vocals raged from gutsy punk rock howls to high-pitch squeals and quietly ferocious hisses

  The album’s cover was as contentious as its content. Again photographed by Mochnacz, on the front PJ is whipping back a long trail of dreadlocks. On the back sleeve is a close-up of her face with what looked like rope burns—in fact marks made by rubber bands—making her look like a victim of violence.

  Late in 1993 the band played their first major stadium gigs supporting U2. The mega-band’s manager Paul McGuinness would bring PJ into his star-studded management stable the following year.

  On her continual quest to extend her creative boundaries, PJ threw out the tight turtle necks and black clothing of Dry and introduced the PJ of Rid of Me. Decked out in glamorous 1950s dresses with feather boas, leopard skin prints, gold lamé pumps, enormous sunglasses and drag-queen make-up, she appeared to be a woman in control. But underneath the gaudy façade she was on the brink, consumed with self-loathing and driven to the point of collapse with her desire for perfection. As her records were charting and fans were queuing to get into her gigs, PJ was working on how she could become less successful, more invisible.

  As the tour progressed across America, she began to crumble. Her manic controlling ways began to affect her relationship with Ellis and Vaughan and the tension between the trio mounted.

  PJ roughed up her voice with wine and cigarettes and enlisted the help of two retired opera singers to give her singing lessons

  Within a month of singing the praises of her fellow band members—the two people she could rely on when the going got tough, she claimed—the pair had stopped talking to PJ. After a disastrous show in New Orleans in which it was obvious how pissed off the boys were, PJ said she never wanted to play with them again. Later she would concede that it was her control fixation that drove the boys away.

  PJ took herself out of the music circus at the end of the 1993 tour, returning to her new home in Dorset. She spent much of the next year working on new songs, putting together another band and focusing on her voice. She concentrated on roughing it up with wine and too many cigarettes and enlisted the help of two retired opera singers in her village who gave her singing lessons.

  She left her hideaway several times to work on other projects. She recorded ‘The Ballad of a Soldier’s Wife’ for a Kurt Weill tribute film September Songs, sang the Rolling Stone’s ‘Satisfaction’ with Bjork at the Brit awards, appeared on Moonshake’s album The Sound Your Eyes Can Follow and on the soundtrack to the indie film Strange Days.

  By the end of 1994 she was back in the studio recording her next album, which featured considerably higher production values than the stripped bare Rid of Me. PJ co-produced the album with U2’s producer Flood. A more emotionally mature album, To Bring You My Love featured old friend John Parrish, also in the role of co-producer.

  As a solo artist PJ now had the freedom to bring in various musicians to fulfill her creative vision. She enlisted the talents of ex-Tom Waits band member Joe Gore (guitar), Joe Dilworth (drums), Jean-Marc Butty (drums, percussion) and Mick Harvey, known for his work with Nick Cave, on organ and bass. Parrish also contributed on guitar, organ, drums and percussion.

  To Bring You My Love was more blues oriented, yet still carried PJ’s trademark of deeply primal, haunting licks around her favourite subject, sex. Her voice was at times almost a growl. This was the blues in its truest form, raw and at times brutal, promp
ting comparisons to Robert Johnson, the great southern blues man of the 1930s, and to John Lee Hooker, Jagger and Hendrix.

  The album showed off PJ’s talents as a musician—she played guitar, piano, organ, vibraphone, marimba, percussion, chimes and bell. The songs were heavily laced with biblical references. God, Jesus, Lazarus, Adam, Eve and the Devil all made appearances as PJ sang about sexual subjugation, carnal knowledge and sacrificing one’s soul for love.

  Once again she had delivered an album that challenged her own musical boundaries and brought the critics to their knees in adoration. The album won her 1995 artist of the year from Rolling Stone and Spin magazines. ‘Down by the Water’ was the first of her songs to make it into the Billboard modern rock chart, reaching number two.

  For much of 1995 PJ toured with a new band: John Parrish, Eric Drew Feldman from Captain Beefheart, Joe Gore, Jean-Marc Butty and Nick Bagnall. She left many concert-goers gobsmacked with her rock chick attitude. She wore a hot pink catsuit or a bikini bra and low-slung pants with bananas protruding from the pockets.

  By the end of 1995 she was back in Britain and back in intensive therapy.

  She reverted to a quieter pace and spent much of the following year at home working on several independent projects. She worked with John Parrish writing lyrics to his music—a first for PJ and yet another avenue for her creative exploration. The outcome was the album Dance Hall at Louse Point, a collection of songs not dissimilar to those on To Bring You My Love. The album was part of a larger project with choreographer Mark Bruce. In 1997 PJ and Parrish appeared in several shows with the Mark Bruce Dance Company performing songs from the album. The record executives at Island were less than thrilled with this digression, but they had never been successful in trying to tell PJ what to do creatively. She was a law unto herself and a tremendous drawcard for the label.

  her union with Nick Cave became all-consuming—‘we loved each other so intensely that it turned out to be quite damaging for both of us,’ PJ said

  She also hooked up with Nick Cave, both creatively and romantically. For the first time in her life PJ felt she had found a soulmate. The two fell deeply in love. However the fervour of their union became all-consuming—‘we loved each other so intensely that it actually turned out to be quite damaging for both of us,’ PJ said. Their duet ‘Henry Lee’ appeared on the Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds’ Murder Ballads album in 1996.

  By the following year the two were back to being friends, Cave reportedly heartbroken and pouring his soul out in The Boatman’s Call. PJ was also emotionally devastated, but she had ended the tryst, the intensity pulling her focus from what she was born to do—create music.

  In September 1998 her album Is this Desire? was released. Recorded over a twelve-month period, it was more experimental than her previous efforts and, according to PJ, contained more of her true self than any of her other albums. ‘I finally feel comfortable ... I am allowing myself to be myself for the first time ever,’ she said. Is this Desire? was heavily influenced by electronic/techno sounds. The album’s first single ‘A Perfect Day Elise’ became PJ’s highest charting success in Britain.

  Although Is this Desire? didn’t have the commercial success of her previous album, critics were satisfied she was still the creative genius. From PJ’s perspective, it was just a simple case of growing up and out of the image and labels that had been handed her in the early days—she was no longer the lady of darkness, pain and sacrifice. She had moved on.

  PJ’s first experience of producing another’s work was on Tiffany Anders’ debut 2000 album Funny Cry Happy Gift, on which she also sang, played guitar, bass and organ.

  In March 2000 PJ went into the studio to put down tracks for her own album, Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea, a collection of twelve songs that reflected her experiences in both New York and by the English seaside. PJ had finally created an album that didn’t ‘make you want to run screaming and crying from the room,’ as she said. There was still plenty of rock’n’roll grunt, but it had quieter, almost melodic moments also. The album featured a duet with Radiohead’s Thom Yorke, ‘This Mess We’re In’. Yorke also sang on other tracks and played keyboard.

  Her previous albums had a minimalist quality. But Stories had all the bells and whistles—acoustic and electric pianos, harpsichord, keyboards, synthesiser, drums, bells, tambourine, E-bow, djembe, maracas and, of course, guitars and bass. The result was a record that PJ described as beautiful. The critics agreed, many surmising that perhaps Ms Harvey was in love not only with New York, where she had written much of the new material, but also with a certainsomeone who was rumoured to be actor/musician/model Vincent Gallo. No one had heard her this happy, almost contented.

  ‘I finally feel comfortable ... I am allowing myself to be myself for the first time ever,’ she said about Is this Desire?

  Always ready to try something new, in 2003 PJ took up an invitation from Josh Homme, Queen of the Stone Age’s frontman, to play on his pet project, Desert Sessions 9 & 10. Homme has been working on Desert Sessions for years. It is a collaborative project in which he and his buddies spend a couple of weeks at Rancho De La Luna studio in the Mohave Desert, USA, and record whatever comes into their collective heads. The previous Desert Sessions albums (one to eight) were relatively obscure independent releases. But with Island’s star performer on the record, Desert Sessions 9 & 10 was elevated to new heights and the label put its muscle behind the release.

  PJ became the first rock artist to perform at the Tate Modern in London. The concert, with Rob Ellis and Mick Harvey, featured PJ in a white fringed catsuit playing guitar and bellowing expletives as the audience of rock fans and art lovers circled uncomfortably. She also found the time to write and produce five songs for Before the Poison, the Marianne Faithfull album.

  By the time Uh Huh Her was released in 2004 PJ was back to her old angst-ridden form, prompting rumours the love affair that had inspired Stories four years earlier had crashed and burned. Assumptions that a song like ‘Who the Fuck’ was a rant against an ex-lover prompted PJ to set the record straight, something she wasn’t fond of doing. The song was about having a bad hair day, she explained.

  Uh Huh Her was recorded over a two-year period, with the majority of the tracks put down at her home studio in Dorset using four- and eight-track systems. PJ played every instrument except drums, and produced the album. She strove to capture ugly, distressed sounds with guitars tuned low and played through poor quality amps. But distressed and depressed are two completely different states—PJ has said this was one of her most uplifting and hopeful records. Uh Huh Her was a slow mover, but still turned in a respectable performance on the charts. However success is not PJ’s motivation. She has said that if she didn’t perform, write, sing or play music she would die.

  PJ continues to work, often with Flood and Parrish, on new music. Whatever she produces next, it is certain to introduce a new chapter in the life of this ever-evolving rock chick.

  MELISS A ETHERIDGE

  The Boss-ess

  Often referred to as the female Bruce Springsteen, a compliment she relishes since the Boss is one of her greatest influences, Melissa Etheridge first hit thescene in 1988 with her impressive self-titled debut album.

  Melissa was born in 1961 in the conservative prison town of Leavenworth, Kansas, in America’s Mid West. Her love affair with music began early in life. She picked up her first guitar at eight and was songwriting by the time she was in high school. During her teenage years she played acoustically at local venues, performing her own material as well as covers of those who inspired her—her musical influences extend from Springsteen, to Bob Dylan, Led Zeppelin and Janis Joplin, with whom she has been compared.

  Escaping Leavenworth for Boston, Melissa spent a year at Berklee College of Music before dropping out in the early 1980s to try her luck in LA. After several years playing acoustic gigs and
developing a loyal following, she signed to Island Records.

  Melissa’s guitar playing and deeply personal lyrics created a melodic bluesinfused, folk-rock sound that was a welcome antidote to the manufactured music that was filling the airwaves. Her hit single from her debut album, ‘Bring Me Some Water’, was nominated for a Grammy in 1989 but it wasn’t until 1993, after four nominations, that she picked up her first award—for ‘Ain’t It Heavy’ from her third album Never Enough, released in 1992.

  An outspoken supporter of gay rights, Melissa ‘came out’ in 1993 at the Gay and Lesbian Ball held as part of President Clinton’s inauguration celebrations. She announced to the 2000-strong crowd she was a lesbian. Fears that her sexuality would encumber her reputation were unfounded with the release of her fourth album, 1993’s multi-platinum Yes I Am, which elevated her to the rock hierarchy on a global scale.

  Yes I Am featured the singles ‘Come to My Window’, ‘If I Wanted to’ and ‘I’m the Only One’, all of which made it into the US top ten. ‘Come to My Window’ delivered Melissa her second Grammy in 1995. Having toured continuously since 1988 and released five albums in seven years, she took a break between 1995’s Your Little Secret and 1999’s Breakdown.

  Melissa’s trademark is her introspective and personal lyrics. When her relationship to filmmaker Julie Cypher ended after twelve years and two children, she poured her anguish into a collection of songs which became Skin, another top ten album. In 2004 Melissa was diagnosed with breast cancer—the same year she released her album Lucky. Sporting a bald head, the result of chemotherapy, she took to the stage at the 2005 Grammys to pay homage to Janis Joplin.