May 2010 News

by Farah Ishaq

JOAN JETT has announced that she is to play her first small UK club show in 20 years, at Londons 100 Club on June 14.

The iconic rockstar, now 51, will be accompanied by the BLACKHEARTS, the band with which she recorded her biggest hit, I Love RocknRoll, in 1982.

The one-off intimate London club show comes a few days ahead of JOAN JETT AND THE BLACKHEARTS special guest support slot on the UK leg of Green Days European stadium tour at Manchesters Lancashire County Cricket Ground on June 16 and Londons Wembley Stadium on June 19.

Tickets for the 100 Club show go on sale Thursday, May 20, at 10am. Three hundred tickets have been set aside for members of the JOAN JETT AND THE BLACKHEARTS fan club, on a first-come, first-served basis.

Jetts live appearances in the UK are neatly timed, as the musical biopic about her all-girl band the RUNAWAYS -- which she formed aged just 15 in the 1970s -- will get its nationwide cinema release this August. Executive-produced by Jett herself, The RUNAWAYS stars Kristen Stewart as JOAN JETT and Dakota Fanning as Cherie Currie.

A two-disc career-spanning Greatest Hits album has also just been released on Jetts own BLACKHEART RECORDS, the label she founded in 1980.

by Nick Levine, Music Editor

JOAN JETT has announced her first UK club date in 20 years.

The iconic rock singer and her band The BLACKHEARTS will play London's 100 Club on June 14.

Tickets, priced at £20, will go on sale from 10am on May 20.

Meanwhile, Jett & The BLACKHEARTS are due to support Green Day on their European stadium tour this summer, including a date at London's Wembley Stadium on June 19.

Jett, 51, first rose to prominence as a member of all-female rock band The RUNAWAYS. Their story has recently been made into a film starring Kristen Stewart and Dakota Fanning.

She later went on to launch a successful recording career as frontwoman of JOAN JETT AND THE BLACKHEARTS, scoring a US number one single in 1982 with 'I Love Rock 'n' Roll'.

by Laura

JOAN JETT AND THE BLACKHEARTS will perform an intimate concert at the legendary London punk rock concert venue The 100 Club on Monday June 14th. Tickets go on sale Thursday May 20th at 10am on a strictly first come, first serve basis.

Tickets are priced £20.00, and will be available by calling the following box office number - 08700 603 777.

The 100 Club concert will be JOAN JETT's first intimate UK club performance in 20 years. Fans will get a chance to experience the music from one of rock music's best loved icons, known to millions for her milestone rock anthems I Love Rock N' Roll, Crimson and Clover, Bad Reputation, Do You Wanna Touch Me (Oh Yeah), and the seminal RUNAWAYS rock and roll classic Cherry Bomb.

by Kate Dingle

Only a handful of musicians' careers have had the staying power to last through multiple decades. With a career spanning over 30 years, JOAN JETT has continued to kick ass and take names and Saturday's performance at the Seminole Coconut Creek Casino was one big ass whoopin'.

Well before showtime, fans lining up overflowed into the parking lot in hopes of getting in early to find the perfect spot to witness JOAN JETT AND THE BLACKHEARTS tear it up. The majority of the (mostly female) crowd was decked out in black and leather and there were even some vintage Jett concert T's floating around.

When the woman (and men) of the hour took the stage, the crowd erupted into an all out frenzy. Without so much as a word from the front woman, the quintet burst into "Change The World" and a little ditty originally by the RUNAWAYS called "Cherry Bomb" (heard of it?). With each "Hello daddy, hello mom/I'm your ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-cherry bomb!" it seemed as though concertgoers would overpower the rockers. But the louder the crowd got, Jett and company made sure to get even louder. They went on to plow through tunes that spanned nearly the entirety of Jett's career like, "Do You Wanna Touch Me", "Bad Reputation", "The French Song", and "Fake Friends".

Other set highlights included "Naked", "Androgynous", "You Drive Me Wild", "School Days", and "Fetish".

But it was the last three songs of their main set that sent fans over the edge. As soon as the signature first two chords of "I Love Rock And Roll" made their way to the ears of listeners, the deafening roar from the crowd seemed to silence the rest world. Throughout the rock anthem, JOAN JETT AND THE BLACKHEARTS gave everything they had. The momentum was kept up as Jett slid into "Aw, now I don't hardly know her/But I think I can love her/Crimson and clover". The set was finished off with a rip roaring rendition of "I Hate Myself For Loving You".

JOAN JETT AND THE BLACKHEARTS emerged after a short break to end the show with the 2006 hit "A.C.D.C." and the 1968 Sly And The Family Stone hit "Everyday People".

JOAN JETT has been a continuous driving force in the music industry for three decades and is showing no signs of slowing down. Whether she's performing with The BLACKHEARTS or fostering new talent at her own BLACKHEART RECORDS, Jett will continue to be the ever fearless rock icon we have all come to love her for.

You know, growing up my mother always told me that I could be anything I wanted to be. She always told me that I could do all the same things the boys did, and that I could probably do it better. After seeing JOAN JETT AND THE BLACKHEARTS perform on Saturday night, I think I have finally decided on what it is I want to be. I wanna be a rock star. Just like JOAN JETT.

by Harvey Kubernik

Rock 'n' roll was, for the most part at least, strictly a man's game until The RUNAWAYS came along. Mere teenagers when they formed, under the guidance of rock visionary Kim Fowley, The RUNAWAYS constantly had to fight to be taken seriously by a music scene that stubbornly refused to accept them.

But The RUNAWAYS persevered, and though they flamed out almost as suddenly as they appeared, JOAN JETT, Lita Ford, Cherie Currie, Sandy West and a revolving cast of bass players inspired girls across the globe to throw off their oppressors and take up arms, or in this case, guitars.

"Here in this country we shape our own destinies." -- Barack Obama.

"Cherry Bomb" might just be the anthem that defines The RUNAWAYS.

The all-girl rock 'n' rollers that stood up to a male-dominated music scene in the mid-1970s are hotter than ever, thanks to a new movie about the band, "The RUNAWAYS," and an avalanche of book and CD releases.

But if you want to understand the essence of The RUNAWAYS, give "Cherry Bomb" a listen. Though the song was written about the band's blonde bombshell lead singer, Cherie Currie, it could just as easily tell Jett's own story.

by Amber James

Ê Holy rock 'n' roll, is that JOAN JETT? That was the question everyone was asking themselves recently when the rocker was in New York's Union Square handing out copies of PETA's vegetarian/vegan starter kit. Jett has been a vegetarian for almost 20 years and admits to PopEater that she could not "see the distinction between a pig and a cow or my dog." Now, she's urging others to think about their health before they chomp into another hamburger. Jett spoke with PopEater about her latest campaign and JOAN JETT AND THE BLACKHEARTS' upcoming tour with Green Day.

Rocking out on stage, Jett didn't want to be weighed down by the food she was consuming. "I didn't feel good eating meat. It felt very heavy, like it never left my body," she said.

"Being on stage, I didn't want to feel [that heavy feeling], so I stopped eating meat initially for that reason."

Her health is the "number one reason" for not eating meat. Then came her moral decision. "I've been an animal lover since I was conscious," she said.

"It was really about reassessing what I had an appetite for. I always liked fruits and vegetables, so it was really just a matter of cutting out meat and adding more of the other things -- like pasta and beans. "

by Anne Sullivan

What Would JOAN JETT Do (WWJJD--get it)?

Well, last Tuesday what JOAN JETT did was help launch PETA's Vegetarian Starter Kit (VSK) "blitz" of Manhattan in which thousands of VSKs were to be stocked at 30 stand-alone newsstands throughout the city. PETA rep Amanda Schinke explained that they decided to start offering VSKs at newsstands after the group filled more than 400,000 requests for the brochures in 2009 alone. There are also stands in Chicago and DC; those of you not lucky enough to live in any of these veg-awesome cities can order a free copy on PETA's site.

Jett has been veg for 20 years and has done a "vegetarian testimonial" for PETA as well as helped out Farm Sanctuary in the past (check out the amazing photos of her visit to the farm).

When I asked Jett why she decided to do the launch for PETA, she explained that she liked the organization because it's "intense" and it "doesn't stop." Explaining that you "can't always do things with smiles and kisses," it was clear that Jett approved of this grassroots approach to spreading the veg message (though this event featured more polite conversation than in-your-face ranting).


Joan engaging a passerby

Accompanying Jett was KENNY LAGUNA, her long-time business partner, collaborator and friend. He chimed in to say that because of the health and environmental benefits of a veg diet, more people should go veg purely out of self-interest. Kenny went vegetarian at age 11 while growing up in the Village. His parents thought he had a screw loose but that didn't stop him on his quest to kick the meat habit and he never looked back.


Kenny & Joan

Judging by the gaggle of rock chicks hanging around her in Union Square, Jett attracts fans wherever she goes (and probably even more so these days with The RUNAWAYS biopic having just played in theaters across the country). So it was cool to hear that she gets lots of positive feedback from fans in response to her animal advocacy work and regularly meets people who credit her for turning them on to vegetarianism (I can imagine that it's not hard for Jett to turn fans on--did you see her in a bikini top on the Warped tour? Yeow!).

I also asked Jett for some of her favorite restaurants in the city--she prefers 'sNice and Indian food. Kenny likes Angelica's and Soy and had a hunkering to try the Chipolte vegan chix burrito. I steered him in the direction of the 6th Ave location and recommended SuperVegan's restaurant guide for future dining excursions (and because I might be wrong about which Chipotle location features the veg chix burrito)!

WWJJD? She'd rock the veg gospel...and take a Tempeh Reuben to go.

by Erica K. Landau

Virginia Woolf once said, "All women together ought to let flowers fall upon the grave of Aphra Behn...for it was she who earned them the right to speak their minds." Had Woolf been a teen with a 'zine during the late '70s or early '80s, she might have said the same about JOAN JETT -- sans the whole "grave" part, since Jett is still very much alive. Instead of "the right to speak their minds," the literary figure could update it to "the right to plug in and rock out."

It's hard to overstate the scope of Jett's influence -- especially on the female rock musicians who followed. Courtney Love, L7, Bikini Kill, Bratmobile, and the Go-Gos all name her as an inspiration. Jett's four years leading her original group is currently being eulogized on the big screen in The RUNAWAYS. After the RUNAWAYS split, Jett went solo, but it wasn't until she formed the BLACKHEARTS that she gained the acclaim she deserved and established her place in rock history.

A slew of Top 40 hits followed, including punkish classics "Bad Reputation" and "I Love Rock 'n' Roll." Even if the hit momentum waned, Jett built a substantial base of fans who sing along to her songs in bars and at karaoke nights across the globe. Drunken karaoke anthems aside, any girl who thinks rock 'n' roll's not just for boys should look to Jett as one of the matriarchs who carved the way.

Details
JOAN JETT AND THE BLACKHEARTS, 8 p.m. Saturday, May 15, at Seminole Casino Coconut Creek, 5550 NW 40th St., Coconut Creek. Tickets cost $35 to $40. 866-222-7466

JOAN JETT AND THE BLACKHEARTS

Rock icon JOAN JETT is back in South Florida and will be performing all our her greatest hits including ÒI Love Rock & RollÓ, ÒCrimson & CloverÓ and ÒI Hate Myself for Loving You.Ó Come see this extraordinary performer rock the house along with the legendary BLACKHEARTS. May 15 at the Seminole Casino Coconut Creek. Tickets start at $35. www.seminolecoconutcreekcasino.com.

by PETA

If you enjoyed rock 'n' roll in the '70s, you can only love JOAN JETT. If you just saw the film about her life, The RUNAWAYS, you can only love JOAN JETT. And if you were walking by our literature stand at Union Square and 14th Street in New York City this afternoon, you can only love JOAN JETT!

Further proving my point that you can catch a glimpse of rock and roll glory anywhere in the Big Apple if you keep your eyes peeled, today vegan party queen JOAN JETT was handing out copies of PETA's vegetarian/vegan starter kit in Manhattan.