She Loves Rock & Roll
The Joan Jett Barbie Doll was released in December of 2009 as part of Mattel’s Ladies of The ’80s Barbie Doll collection (which also included dolls created in the likeness of Debbie Harry and Cindy Lauper). While the doll is no longer being manufactured, a quick Google search reveals that the fashionable and highly collectible Ms. Jett can be purchased at various locales on the Interwebs for between $44 and $56 — quite reasonable for such a find! Happy hunting!
While the span of the band’s career was relatively short, The Runaways changed the landscape of rock and altered the perception of women making music forever. With The Runaways’ biopic just released last year, who would have imagined that their influence would continue to be topical several decades after their break up? I was around for the duration of their rise and fall and, the significant post-Runaways careers of Joan Jett and Lita Ford notwithstanding, I sure never thought we’d still be taking about them 30 years later. So it’s not surprising, really, that Main Man Records has compiled what can only be called the definitive Runaways tribute compilation; a two disc set called Take It Or Leave It. All you need to know is that this record fucking rocks. Continue reading Recommended Listening: Take It Or Leave It, A Tribute to The Runaways
“Neon Angels On The Road to Ruin…”
Few true tales have the power to compel and transport the reader quite like the life story of a bona fide Rock & Roll Survivor. Of Rock’s innumerable legends with stories worth telling, so many of them – Hendrix, Joplin, Morrison; the list is endless, really – never lived long enough to write their histories in their own words. And of those that have written autobiographies, no one ever really gets – or takes advantage of – the opportunity to go back and revisit his or her life on the written page, updating the tale or adding details that were perhaps forgotten or too painful to tell the first time around. Cherie Currie, former lead singer of the teenage all-girl rock band The Runaways is an exception to that rule.
Continue reading Must Read Book: Neon Angel, A Memoir of a Runaway By Cherie Currie
The biggest problem you generally encounter when Hollywood tries to make a movie about rock musicians is the overwhelming tendency to dilute reality and surrender to the cheese factor. Honestly, filmmakers have gotten it right exactly twice: first with Rob Reiner’s This Is Spinal Tap – a work of blindingly brilliant satire – and later with Cameron Crowe’s Almost Famous; which, though a work of fiction, would be hard to top for its feeling of authenticity, in my opinion.
Just a couple of days ago her Runaways’ band mate Lita Ford celebrated a birthday, and today guitarist / songwriter and all-around bad ass Joan Jett – an undisputed icon of feminist rockerdom, for sure – celebrates her Anniversary of Birth on September 22nd (Born 1958)! Happy Birthday Joanie!