 | I am very pleased to be able to say that the Suzi Q documentary is finally now out, after a long four or five years in production, and it is pretty damn good. But how could it be not!? It’s Suzi! She is – well, she’s just Suzi Q and her magic is so spellbinding it even worked in reverse so that Dale Hawkins was able to predict her more than decade before she even hit the scene. Of course, I’ve been a fan since “Can the Can,” when I saw her on the ABC rock show GTK and she explained that she had a star tattooed on her wrist because she was one, a star. |
| When old friend Tait Brady, producer at Acme Films in Melbourne, got in touch just recently to invite me along to the Sydney preview of Suzi Q, I’d forgotten altogether that I’d something very minor to do with its genesis. The credit I shared with Jen Jewel Brown was for ‘Editorial Consultancy’, which meant I had a look at the script, the material, and offered up my thoughts. Can’t honestly see I did much at all really, but I can see that Liam and Tait have divined a really satisfying delicate balance between a sometimes confrontationally honest family saga and the consequently comparatively almost routine tale of one amazing woman’s determination to make it. |
| That she did so at a time before it had ever really been done merely redoubles the magnitude of her achievement, and is the reason why so many subsequent feminist icons of rock (Debbie Harry! Tina Weymouth! Joan Jett!) weigh in here with such clearly heartfelt admiration. That she did it too in such a sort of punk-prescient way probably explains why she struggled to crack her home market, and why she warrants even more admiration. I’m in love! But then I loved her from the moment I laid eyes on her anyway. And so how could I be anything but delighted to see this fine, fine film. Suzi endeared herself even more at this Sydney premiere by doing a quick Suzi-Q&A after its screening, and showed that her apparent humility, humor and straightforwardness is absolutely for real. |  |
| My only regret is that when audience-members were asked to offer a three-word encapsulation of this five-foot wonder, I didn’t get a chance to offer mine – simply: Hot, hot, hot! See the film. |
