They say the best TV is made by the Danes and the Israelis so we ponied up the five bucks to watch the Danish show about institutional corruption. The first two seasons were pretty good. The third, made years later, was great. But who is going to pay the extra money for Topic?
But since we had, I decided to comb the listings to see what else was available.
So we watched "When the Dust Settles." Which I highly recommend, which you also won't watch because it's on Topic. It's about a terrorist attack and how the people involved are affected and having finished that, we switched to "Autonomies," one of two highly recommended Israeli shows on Topic, the other being "Commandments." And "Commandments" got slightly better ratings, but they were remaking "Autonomies" in English and this usually indicates the more exhilarating show so we dove in. It's EXCELLENT! In the future Israel is divided into two fiefdoms, one of the uber-religious, the other of the less ritualistic Jews. And there's a custody battle and... You know when you're watching a great show, there's just this added element, a visceral feeling. But I wasn't going to tell you about "Autonomies" either, because it's on Topic.
But so is the Suzi Quatro documentary, "Suzi Q." And having just finished reading Jonathan Lee's new book "The Great Mistake," which is good but not as good as the reviews, I decided to watch "Suzi Q" on my new M1 iPad Pro, the speed is astounding.
Suzi Quatro. She was big in England.
What troubles me about these rock docs is they're oftentimes made with an inaccurate spin. Like that BeeGees one. Watching it you'd think the BeeGees were as big as the Beatles in the sixties when the truth is they were seen as a singles group with a number of hits and no gravitas.
As for Suzi Quatro... Most Americans of my vintage are aware of her because she played Leather Tuscadero on "Happy Days." But this was after the show peaked and even though there were only three networks, most dyed-in-the-wool rockers never watched prime time television.
The U.S. was quite different from the U.K. In many ways still is. In the U.K. the charts were dominated by what was played on the BBC, which dominated radio. So there was a unified culture. Whereas in the U.S. there was a bifurcation, there were AM and FM. FM was everywhere in the seventies and you only listened to AM if you didn't have FM in the car (or a tape deck!) or you were out of the loop. Therefore, in the U.S. it was all about album artists, hit singles on AM were a backwater. And that's why Suzi Quatro never broke in the U.S. "Can the Can"? If an FM station played it the phones would have blown up with complaints!
But stunningly, "Suzi Q" admits Quatro never broke in America, which lent credibility. That was my litmus test.
And the truth is there a documentary on everybody these days, and it's all hagiography and done on a budget and unless you're a diehard fan you don't need to watch.
But I recommend watching "Suzi Q." If for no other reason than the inclusion of Mickie Most and Mike Chapman, who both deserve documentaries more than most acts being featured.
Also, you can tell "Suzi Q" was not made on a shoestring. Some money was involved. And the truth is it ultimately devolves into a high budget "Behind the Music," with the uplifting ending about continued inroads into the music sphere, but before that...
Suzi Quatro needed to make it. HAD TO MAKE IT! Most people don't, but most people are not that dedicated, are unwilling to drop out of high school and go on the road with their teen band. I'd never heard of the Pleasure Seekers, nor Cradle, but this was when bands could still be regional, when if you never got on the radio and never got press you could be completely unknown.
But I knew about Suzi Quatro.
This was the heyday of the rock magazines. "Rolling Stone" was now mainstream, coveted for its political coverage as well as its music news and reviews. But "Creem" was all music, and before it turned into a Kiss devotee rag, when it still had credibility, it featured acts that rocked from both sides of the pond. You read about Suzi Quatro even though she meant nothing here.
But this was a very small pool of people. The talking heads in this picture were not typical. You had to follow the scene, be devoted in order to be aware of Suzi Quatro and her hits. Kind of like Marc Bolan and T. Rex. Over here, he had just one infectious big hit "Bang a Gong (Get it On)," but over there he was a monster, with multiple top ten successes, his career was a juggernaut.
Detailed in the weekly music press, "Melody Maker" and the "NME," which were part information and part gossip but ready by everybody and much more powerful than anything in the U.S. They were all about the new, they loved to boost the new, but once you made it the fangs came out, on some level it was like sports coverage. With the attendant winners and losers.
And then came Bowie...
By 1972 there was the glam rock movement in the U.K.
Over here...we got Alice Cooper. Who might have had glam makeup and clothing, but whose music was definitely more traditional rock.
And then by '73 Bowie had broken in the U.S. and eventually people knew who Roxy Music were, but it was really two different scenes. And this maintained until the advent of MTV, which was built on the back of new English acts.
So there was a quite tiny coterie of acolytes who were aware of Suzi Quatro, and knew she was American, but most never ever heard the records. You had to buy them to hear them. But the image...
Suzi was cute and sexy all at the same time. She was irresistible!
And she wasn't fake. She played the bass and sang.
But meant nothing.
So...
Suzi comes from a musical family. She slogs it out in the trenches and when her brother Mike brings Mickie Most to a rehearsal, the English producer signs her to a deal with his RAK Records and flies her over to London to make a record, which she does not.
She's a lonely young girl living in a tiny apartment on the fringe of depression. She believes in herself, but she's been cut off from the troops at home, since she sacrificed the band, her sisters, in pursuit of solo fame and...Mickie's got no idea what to do with her.
Mickie Most. Let's see, he had hits with the Animals, Herman's Hermits, Lulu, Hot Chocolate, he even produced the Arrows' original version of "I Love Rock 'n' Roll" ultimately brought to the top of the chart by Joan Jett six years later in 1981.
Joan Jett. She's featured heavily in this documentary. She talks about being confused for Suzi. But... Joan can't hold a candle to Suzi, who paved the way and had more hits. Suzi started before the Beatles, she was a lifer. She was not part of Kim Fowley's two-dimensional Runaways which got tons more ink than airplay. The Runaways were totally artificial, Suzi Quatro was much more authentic, more real.
But Mickie couldn't make hits with her. But Mike Chapman came along and said he'd write a song for her, he was new and hungry, and then in the studio he focused on Suzi's assets, the range of her voice with edge, and voila, hits!
No one under the age of fifty, certainly forty, ever talks about Mike Chapman anymore. As a matter of fact, I don't think most people have any idea who he was (or is, he's still alive!) But for a while there, starting over there and then coming to Los Angeles, Chapman owned the airwaves. More lightweight stuff in the U.K., but over here he took the overhyped and musically overlooked Blondie from nowhere to everywhere with "Parallel Lines," a record that jumped out of the speakers from the very first note and kept us hanging on throughout, on a twisting, turning adventure that was far from monochromatic. And Mike had hits as both a writer and producer, sometimes both, like with Suzi Quatro, other times acts just picked up his songs. He was Mutt Lange before Mutt Lange.
And then Mike faded away. His Dreamland Records stiffed and his time was over.
Sustaining is nearly impossible. You've got to change to sustain, and almost no one is willing to do this. Because you risk losing your old fans and you're essentially starting all over. Even Garth Brooks tried to reinvent himself as rocker Chris Gaines but was rejected by the public, it's very hard.
But David Bowie did it. Madonna did it.
And so has Max Martin. Who is more than a knob twirler. A hell of a lot of his records could be issued under his name, they're essentially his, like with Chapman and so many of his acts. But Martin continues to be on top of the game over two decades later. He doesn't desire widespread acclaim, but if you pay attention you know, and are just wowed.
So you see the starmaking machinery in action. The leather jumpsuit. The press. It was a different era. There were winners and losers. If you had no deal you were already a loser. And very few acts could get deals. It was very different from today.
And very different because in order to play you had to pay your dues, learn and rehearse, and you couldn't self-promote online, your best advertisement was your live gigs, so you trudged across the country trying to convert people one by one, and it was far from easy.
So, Suzi Quatro makes it and then her hits dry up and she goes into legitimate theatre and then hosts a chat show and writes a book and...this is when the documentary falls apart.
Unfortunately, either the real Suzi is relatively two-dimensional and vapid or the filmmakers didn't capture her essence. Was the magic all an illusion, or under it all was she really a rock chick?
We see Lita Ford, a true rock chick, who looks like it, but Suzi who is much older looks younger, but they never illuminate the dark spots, other than Suzi complaining that she missed growing up and her father and sister wouldn't acknowledge her success.
The truth is most famous people do it for the acknowledgement. They're trying to fill a hole from childhood that just can't be filled. And usually after they realize this, they can no longer create, at least at the previous high level. There's a dream that things will change, but they don't.
So, Suzi...
Sex?
Drugs?
You might have been faithful to your bandmate/boyfriend/husband, but certainly in the seventies you were hit upon, what was the experience like?
The grind is so heavy that everyone self-medicates. How did Suzi cope?
And Suzi does delineate the grind, the radio station visits, the press conferences, which is why you should watch this if you wanna make it, but the toll, the real effects, the person inside? To a great degree all we get is facts.
How did she decide to go into legitimate theatre? Which her husband disapproved of. Was she just that hungry, or scared she would drop off the radar screen or did she just need the money?
And ultimately she becomes an entertainer. And the truth is the greats are singular, their careers are not this malleable. They can do one thing and one thing only. Be a rock star. Write and record these songs and play them live. So when you're taking every paycheck that comes along, you look more like John Davidson than John Lennon. Then again, even Steven Tyler became a judge on "American Idol...BECAUSE OF THE MONEY!
We never hear about the money. Did she make any? Did she spend it or does she still have it? Does she need to work to survive?
Suzi keeps saying she's just a regular American mom when the truth is her upbringing and road work were anything but typical. Come on, what was it like as a woman trying to sustain your career as you raised kids, and what price did they pay?
And it all happened so long ago. It appears Suzi has had a facelift (and men get them too!), but the truth is she's 71 and it's all in the rearview mirror. As are we. Those of us who are aware of her. Her fans. It's over. Done. All she wrote.
But it's bigger than Suzi...
Forget the sixties, the seventies are done, the era when rock became ubiquitous and rained down so many dollars.
And the MTV era? Poof! History!
As is grunge.
Rap survives, but it's no longer the fresh, breakthrough sound it once was.
But my point here is you watch this movie and if you followed the dots back then, you suddenly realize there are not many dots in the future. And this history will not survive, other than the Beatles it's a blip on the radar screen, never mind being addicted to the rock press, yearning to see your favorites on TV and going to the show because that's the only place where you could get that hit.
So, as you can tell, I've got mixed feelings. Ultimately I'm thumbs-up on "Suzi Q," I just wanted the filmmakers to push the envelope just a bit more. And to tamp down the adulation and constant testimony as to how great Suzi was. No, she was a moment in time. She had a career and hits and meant something in the U.K. As for everybody wanting to be her...the truth is the next big female star after Debbie Harry was Pat Benatar, who didn't play an instrument but had outrageous pipes and was birthed by...
Mike Chapman. And his number two, Peter Coleman.
Listen to Pat's very first album, 1979's "In the Heat of the Night."
She made John Mellencamp a star. Without her cover and the money it rained down he and his team would have been far more discouraged. I could go track by track, "Heartbreaker," I Need a Lover," "If You Think You Know How to Love Me," "We Live for Love"... The energy alone!
But Pat Benatar is not in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, yet Joan Jett is. And if you lived through the era, Jett had merely a sliver of Benatar's mindshare and success. Hell, remember the joke in "Fast Times"?
But Benatar doesn't fit the narrative. She's not a grungy rock chick who came from nowhere and beat the odds to...exactly what? Image and little success?
And once again, the thread is the Commander, Mike Chapman.
But Benatar did not need Chapman and Coleman to continue to succeed, unlike Suzi Quatro, she moved on to Keith Olsen and had even greater success!
Not that I need to put down anyone who had any success. I'm just trying to add some context, some flavor, some reality.
We're constantly bombarded by these documentaries telling us someone from the past was the giant they were not. And youngsters' perception is skewed. Kind of like the new "All Things Must Pass" remix... Just give a listen to "My Sweet Lord," it's been remixed to the point where the magic is gone, it's no longer a hit, it sounds like something coming from a transistor radio in the next room. Why can't they leave the past alone? Let us remember the way it was? Have youngsters exposed to the original article, which thrilled us so much to begin with. We age, we show the lines and experience, but too many classic rockers get plastic surgery to look like they did way back when, when the joke is their dash for relevance is laughable. No one looks identical after a facelift, no one!
Not that my words are gonna stop anybody.
And I haven't read a single negative word about this George Harrison remix, and there are all these hosannas about the Beatles remixes when they're tripe, which Geoff Emerick told me and so many others but he's now gone and nobody who was there then is in control now. Let's repaint the Sistine Chapel! How about redoing the Mona Lisa, it's not clear whether she is smiling or not, rumor has it Leonardo was rushed at the end, let's subtly change it so she's smiling. Huh? THAT'S SACRILEGIOUS!
But since "Suzi Q" is not on Netflix, nobody will see it.
Are you in it for the money or the reach?
It's all about the reach in art. You make these documentaries, you play them at film festivals, then you put them behind paywalls that disincentivize people to ever see them. Maybe we need a rock doc streaming outlet, this stuff 24/7! The new MTV/VH1 model. But even though story is the hook, all we've got is live performance, which doesn't translate to the flat screen.
But l recommend "Suzi Q," not so you'll be convinced she's a forgotten superstar, but to demonstrate how hard it is to make it, how you have to dedicate yourself and still pay dues once you've had a hit, how you end up in the maelstrom and only those in it with you can understand your plight. That's why the audience reveres you, YOU'RE DIFFERENT!
But Suzi keeps telling us she's just the same.
I don't buy it.
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