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More NY Rock banter: - Music News - Movie Reviews - Indie Reviews - Soft Porn Central - Newz - True! Cartoons More NY Rock Confidential Installments 
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December 8, 2000 – I've been getting a lot of shit lately for looking younger than I actually am, therefore lowering my credibility in the eyes of the wrinkled and sagging. November 25th, I went to Arlene Grocery to see Joy Askew, and before I got to the stage area, the money-collecting lady said, "You don't look old enough." I smirked and jokingly offered to show my I.D. (again). "No," she said with a smile, "I mean," (for cryin’ out loud, just stamp my hand) "you just look so young." That's nice. I'm not exactly of the age where such a comment is flattering. "Oh yeah," was all I could think to say. "It's just that," (lady, enough already) "I have a 14-year-old daughter and she looks much older than you." No kidding? Well, that's super, I thought, and trudged off to the bar for some Juicy-Juice. To the music. Joy Askew is an extraordinary, under-appreciated local heroine. She's worked and toured with Joe Jackson, Peter Gabriel and Laurie Anderson, but was told that her solo stuff wouldn't sell. There's the door, thanks for coming. Discouraged by record companies, Joy stuck to her guns and plowed her own path. She released her first album, Tender City, in 1996, and in 1997, Lilith Fair recruited Joy for five dates of the tour. Joy organized benefit concerts for Kosovo refugees, and her songs have been included on albums like Women for Women 2 and Songs of the Siren in the company of artists such as Patti Smith, Indigo Girls, Carole King and Shawn Colvin. Yet, people say "Who?" at Joy's name. You figure it out. Jazzy, poppy, soulful and dreamy, Joy Askew gets past the nonsense of attempting to clarify emotions; she just lets them come out to play. A few days after her concert at Arlene Grocery, I spoke with Joy about her beginnings with an all-girl band, her fights and frustrations to get her music heard, and her take on the Britney-Christina wars. |
NYROCK: |
I'm having a hard time putting you in a musical category. It seems like you'd be comfortable in any kind of music community, from punk to classical to folk…. | ||
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JOY: |
Well, that's interesting. Hmmm, I like a lot of different things, it's true, but I'm not very comfortable in the folk genre. | ||
NYROCK: |
Well, where would you put yourself? | ||
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JOY: |
Oh boy! That has been a problem – in terms of companies not knowing how to market me. In '92, I worked with Rodney Crowell who's from Nashville, and he'd say, "You know, I hate it when people ask you what kind of stuff you do... I've discovered the first thing I say is 'I write songs.'" For him that worked, and for me, I would say 50 percent of it is "I write songs." And 50 percent of it is I'm writing a mood of music to carry my voice, you know. I never think of it like, "I'm going to do something folky." I never think of it in genres at all. | ||
NYROCK: |
I'm very interested to know about that old band you sang with as a teenager.... | ||
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JOY: |
Bitch? [She's referring to the band, folks, not to me.] | ||
NYROCK: |
Yeah. | ||
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JOY: |
(laughing) I remember opening Melody Maker, which was this big music newspaper, and seeing this ad in the back; it was very prominent: "All-girls band needs rock vocalist." At that point in time, all-girls bands were in. There were two bands from America called Fanny and Birtha and they were very big and it was all about Janis Joplin-type vocals. It wasn't like the Bangles or the Go-Go's. It was actually playing all the instruments and being really muscular about it, but still very feminine at the same time. I think I borrowed four pounds and got on the train to London and had no clue about London. They were auditioning in a pub way down in south London, and it took me virtually all day to get there. I barely made it. I walked into this place; I was so sure I had what it takes at 19. I was so sure I was going to get this audition; there was no doubt about it. And I think they had already seen over 20 people and I sang half a song and I remember Inga [the guitarist] looking at Eileen the organist, and nodding her head just saying, "You are it." I was in that band for a year and we were pretty popular in London. We toured Germany a lot; we did the same club scene that the Beatles had done 10 years earlier. We were really playing a lot. We seemed to live in the van. I think for the time it was pretty adventurous. The other thing was we had a residency at Ronnie Scott's jazz club; they opened an upstairs rock club. I started to meet all these jazz musicians and started to hear the greatest jazz musicians of all time and actually share dressing rooms with them. And it began an intense thing with me when I realized that that's what I wanted. My end of my time with Bitch, I ended up taking up the saxophone and going to jazz college. So that's what Bitch really did for me. | ||
NYROCK: |
Incidentally, what made you decide to go out on your own after backing Joe Jackson, Peter Gabriel and Laurie Anderson? | ||
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JOY: |
Well, it was the ability to, to do that. Actually, in England, I had my own band in '76 and didn't have much success. The way I always earned a living was as a musician. I felt that if I came to America it would be the place that would more accept what I was doing. Straight away, I got off at Joe's [Jackson's] gig. On that first tour we did Saturday Night Live, we did TV shows, and when I got back from that, I was like, "Okay, now I'm going [to do my thing]." The second half of the '80s and the beginning of the '90s were very painful for me. I almost got a deal with RCA, and I didn't. I almost got a deal with CBS, and then I didn't. It just seemed to be never-ending. I supported myself as a musician, so I'd have to take those tours, but I poured all my money into gigging and recording. | ||
NYROCK: |
It's unbelievable that you don't have more recognition than you do. | ||
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JOY: |
I'm trying to make a change for that, but in my mind it is. I wonder what it is that's keeping me away. It's kind of interesting that you said to me my music covers a lot of different genres because one of the things about the music industry is that it has to be marketable. If they don't hear a style, then they're not going to know how to market it. I mean, if I was 22 and looked like a bombshell, they'd market anything. But a 22-year-old, as I remember, would not be writing the kind of music that I am now. | ||
NYROCK: |
How do you manage to keep writing? Do you ever get frustrated? | ||
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JOY: |
Oh yeah, of course! I get frustrated. I think all artists deal with this when you go in and out of, you know, when somebody's majorly popular, and they go out of popularity; they're still an artist. You still have to write. You still have to be searching your own grounds and it's very difficult when the outside has changed. | ||
NYROCK: |
You're quite the humanitarian. You use your music for wonderful causes. | ||
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JOY: |
Well, I like that. | ||
NYROCK: |
Was this your intention? | ||
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JOY: |
Well, Refuge [the benefit album for Kosovo refugees] was obviously intended and the song I put on that record, "Here in America" and also the one I did with Melanie Gabriel were alert ideas to what's going on, you know. I think this record, The Same Desperado [Joy's latest release], I just delve into my own thoughts and what's happening. "The Voice" was an old song that I wrote in '93. It was very definitely one where I was having to struggle and fight for self-assertion against a team of people that seemed to say "you're a dud" kind of thing. | ||
NYROCK: |
And they know everything. | ||
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JOY: |
Yeah. That was a difficult fight. I think when you do that, when you concentrate on that, those things apply to everybody. We all have that in our lives. Somebody could listen to "The Voice" and say that's what a struggle for freedom is like. That's basically what it is but I brought it out of myself which is I think the best way to do it. | ||
NYROCK: |
Who's cooler, Britney Spears or Christina Aguilera? | ||
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JOY: |
(laughing) Well, here's what I know about both those girls. I have heard "Genie in a Bottle" and that's all I've heard of Christina Aguilera. I teach a 14-year-old and we did some songwriting and she said she loves this song. So we turned the radio on and waited for it to come on. It came on within about a minute, and I loved that chorus where her voice changes and I think it's absolutely ingenious. But it was no surprise to find out that that was written by somebody that was a contemporary of mine in the '80s. This guy that used to share a loft with us all. You know what I'm saying, the same age as me. And Britney Spears was on Saturday Night Live last week, so I saw her and I thought she was quite the confident young lady and she's got so much presence. But I did not like her singing at all. I think it was trapped in her throat and not going anywhere. She did not have the ability to push it out there. Maybe she's going to become more of a celebrity. That's my take on it. But who's cooler, I don't know. They both have the same hairstyle, though, don't they? | ||
NYROCK: |
Yeah, and then there's the body and the boobs... | ||
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JOY: |
Yeah, and that is so unhip to me. [Their style is] manufactured, and I don't think either of them are cool. More NY Rock Confidential Installments:
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