Culture That Made Me: Joan as Police Woman selects her touchstones
Joan as Police Woman has upcoming gigs in Cork and Galway.
Born in 1970, Joan Wasser, aka Joan as Police Woman, grew up in Norwalk, Connecticut. During the 1990s, she played violin with groups such as The Dambuilders and Antony and the Johnsons.
In 1997, Jeff Buckley, her boyfriend of three years, drowned accidentally. Later that year, she formed Black Beetle with his band’s remaining members.
In 2006, she released Real Life, her first, award-winning solo album. She will perform at Roisin Dubh in Galway on Thursday, April 10; and Cork Opera House, Friday, April 11.
Early teens, I loved the Bad Brains doing this incredible hardcore punk , but in a very different way to other hardcore bands. I loved Black Flag and Rites of Spring, but Bad Brains were special. First of all, they never counted off songs. They just started together. They were mind-blowing. It was like hardcore filtered through black American existence, Rastafarian culture and D.C. – they were from Washington, D.C. It was a huge combination.
There's no better band for an angry adolescent than The Smiths. Morrissey is like an endless angry adolescent. We need that.
We all have that part in us that’s saying, “This sucks and there’s nothing I can do about it! This person doesn't like me. No one is ever going to like me.”
We all have that person in us. It never goes away no matter what age we are.
Siouxsie Sioux was so chic. She was such a powerful force, a strong woman. I love Siouxsie and the Banshees’ music. I loved Budgie’s drumming. It felt on the tip of new wave – at times, it was anti-melody and dissonant.
I love so much music, but the combination of those three bands – Siouxsie, Bad Brains and The Smiths – got me through early adolescence.
Later in my teens, I discovered early, lesser known Bowie records like Hunky Dory, Diamond Dogs and then into Heroes. I was mind-blown by that music. I still am. He was such a good listener. The way his music sounded – it’s so subtle, the details never stop. I've listened to all that music for so many years. It still sounds fresh.
Joni Mitchell’s music is a thread throughout my life. She's an anomaly. She’s such a good lyricist. She was such a weirdo, singing all these totally “out” melodies.
Often it felt like, OK, what's the craziest melody that I could write over these chords? Then she would do it. She's clearly influenced by jazz. She has a freedom in her songwriting and singing that’s intoxicating.
I love Al Green. I wanna hear him sing anything. He’s so comfortable singing. He sounds like he just rolled out of bed and started singing. It's so relaxed. There’s no effort in that vocal. It puts me at ease. That’s a great delight.
Jeff Buckley’s humanity made him a special artist. He had a difficult upbringing. He really let it out in the music. You can hear it in every single second of his exquisite guitar-playing and his incredible voice. You can hear that compassion for humanity. He was a seer in a way.
Anytime I’ve seen Prince live was like seeing God. It was a spectacle – seeing him pull off those incredible songs, but also seeing him play bass, play guitar, do insane guitar solos, play the grand piano, and dance better than anyone else on stage. He was outrageous.
I remember seeing Stevie Wonder perform a number of times, which was like another facet of God for me. His songs are so gently loving and inclusive. Those records he made in the ’70s represent hope for what America could be at that time.
We've lost the plot, at least momentarily, but that music remains. He continues to be a beacon for us, to remember what's possible if we choose to look each other in the eyes and understand we're all the same person, basically.
Sly Stone is an outsized character. I loved that he had a couple of his siblings in the band. The band represented the whole of America. There were family members, white people, black people.
Everybody singing together, these thoughtful and intelligent songs, often about getting along. That band was so loose and funky. That’s a good feeling in one's body.
I didn't name myself. I used to dye my hair blonde. I was wearing this pale-blue, polyester, three-piece pantsuit and my friend Ruben saw me on the street and said, “Joan, you're channelling Angie from Police Woman.”
It's his fault I’m named Police Woman although I grew up watching TV cop shows in the ’70s and ’80s. Police Woman was special.
It was the first drama starring a woman, and Angie Dickinson was 40 when she started that show. I also drove a cop car irrespective of the fact I was named Police Woman. It was by chance. I love a bit of absurdity and comedy.
I love the 2012 movie Holy Motors. It’s directed by Leos Carax. It's surreal, and hard to explain. It’s about this guy who seems to dress up and play out different scenes and characters, driving around in an old stretch limo. Some of the scenes are wild and a little upsetting, but it's also very funny. It's all over the place and it's very weird. I appreciate weird because this world is weird, and we really know it right now in the United States of America.
I love The Mighty Boosh with Julian Barratt and Noel Fielding so much. The Mighty Boosh was the most important thing that ever happened to TV. I love absurdist comedy. Julian is from Leeds. Noel is from London. He’s on the cooking show, The Great British Bake Off, now. It was a brilliant combination – those two.
Anora is pretty special. I enjoyed the pacing of it. It moves in a way that I appreciate.
I love the ending. Give me a good ending and I'll love you forever. It’s an American movie, but it stars people from different countries. It takes place in Brooklyn and Brighton Beach, which is typically full of Russian immigrants. It’s a beautiful film.
I love this poetry book by David Berman, who was also a singer. He had this band called Silver Jews, but I never really got into the Silver Jews. He made this one poetry book called Actual Air. He knows how to use words. That book is something else.
I was in Madrid recently. I went to some of its incredible museums, including the Prado and the Reina Sofia. I saw so much amazing stuff like Guernica and that incredible Hieronymus Bosch stuff, which I had to leave – I had to stop looking at it because it made me sick to my stomach.
It was incredible. It was so horrendous! It was really over the top. That person was clearly troubled and so shaming.
