|
All news is attributed to the source from which it was received so that readers may judge the validity of the statements for themselves.
Have Joan Jett news to report? Email us at jettfc@aol.com, and please include the source of the information so it can be validated.
Rock, marketing and legendeering; Is it possible that JOAN JETT is the last rock and roller?
from: geocities.com
by Kurt Hernon
"There are some people that if they don’t know, you can’ tell ‘em" – Louis Armstrong
Louis Armstrong was a genius. Hell, that statement alone proves how much of a genius he was, with words as well as that glorious goddamn coronet. He sure as shit summed things up neatly in just a few words when he laid down that riff above, and I’m not so sure that, at the time, anybody took it as much more than good ol’ Satch babbling off another mystical, strange quip. "Yeah, yeah Satcmoh, now play us another tune." What a cryin’ shame, because when you dig around those thirteen words, you find a pretty derned good lesson in dealing with this life we all try and live.
Armstrong could have been talking about anyone or anything, but right now – bear with me ‘cuz this is my gig here – I’d like to think he was, in some weird cosmic fashion, prattling on about none other than JOAN JETT.
What the fuck? Heez off his rocker… You’re thinking it, but back off already. Read Louis’ damn line; now think about it again…
"These guys at the record labels seem to be saying that they don’t know how to market JOAN JETT," KENNY LAGUNA, Jett’s longtime producer tells me when I ask whether there is a new platter on the horizon for Joan.
"What?" I shoot back in unfeigned exasperation. "Ya gotta be kidding me!"
But Laguna isn’t, and he’s as amazed as I am about the whole game being played. Not to say that’s gonna stop a goddamn thing, it never has. Hell, these are the people who shipped a cassette of the eternal rock anthem "I Love Rock and Roll" backed with Jett doing Tommy James’ "Crimson and Clover" to every fucking record making joint on God’s Earth only to get turned away repeatedly before taking their goods and playing the game by their own set of rules. "Either they didn’t listen to the tape, or they just couldn’t hear hits," Jett has said. You’d like to believe the former, because the latter just doesn’t seem realistic – there’s just no way. Tossing an unknown cassette into a tape player and hearing that king-hell crunch that opens "I Love Rock and Roll", then being shot through the temple by that lead guitar bolt of "holy-shit!" lightening – Christamighty, it’s got me smiling from ear to fucking ear just thinking about it. I could hardly imagine some label nitwit sitting in his office, golf shirt on, sucking down a Perrier…oh fuck! I can imagine it. It’s just like Louis said. Now do you understand?
One of the first things that sucked me into the whole rockroll-as-life thing back when I was just a little loner-of-a-kid was this sense of community, this ideal of being involved in a culture where people shared the experience. I was just a punk kid with nothing going on who did well in school until Junior High pretty much bored me to fucking tears. So I’d given up on the whole school thing as any sort of communal I wanted to partake in. Like most kids I started to dig rock’n’roll through my brothers records, Beatles, Stones, the usual stuff. Unlike most kids, I immediately (and I do mean pront-fucking-o!) got hooked. HOOKED. Nothing else mattered anymore. I lived for the stuff.
By the time I was thirteen or fourteen I became acutely aware of the fact that an even wider spectrum of this musical space dust sprawled across the ether – far away from the commercial radio that fed me up to that point. And although I was in no way directly connected to the various scenes going down in the netherworlds of rockroll, the music conveyed to me this fantastic sense of community. As I worked my way through punk, early 80’s indie rock (which JOAN JETT all but kick started with her own indie label BLACKHEART RECORDS), old country, stray singles from odd artists of the 50’s, 60’s, and 70’s, everything that rocked seemed intrinsically connected. The undercurrent of everything I heard, no matter whether it was pop, bubblegum, hardcore punk, power pop, reggae, or whatever, flowed this sense of being part of this culture beyond the monotony of the day to day every other sucker was trapped in. I was part of it all, whether anyone knew who the fuck I was or not.
One of my greatest reservations when I started to scribble my musings on this music I loved so dearly was, that I’d lose that sense of connectedness. I thought that if I had to "interview" artists I’d respected, if I had to do time digging around for a "story" by hanging around trying to find out who these people were behind it all, that I’d be nothing short of disappointed, if not repulsed. I preferred, still prefer and will always prefer, to write about the music in lieu of the artist, as it is the music that, to me, transcends all time, place, and people. I didn’t have the opportunity to converse with JOAN JETT in 1981 when I was fifteen and devouring "Crimson and Clover" on a daily basis and it didn’t matter – we had that conversation every time I heard the music. It answered me in many different ways, and I turned to it when I needed to. That was enough for me, and that, I will always believe, is what we should expect from music.
But I chose to write about my passions, and the nature of that beast seems to be utterly personality driven. So there I was, cast into the fire of having to actually discuss the things that felt so deeply personal to me as a listener, trapped, having to approach the person who created such a moment (likely to have been far, far more personal than my listening to it) and attempt to pry some stupid nugget of pointless personality shit that would appease some editor who doesn’t know jack-shit about the true nature of a music addict. So I’ve done it…more than I am proud to say (although, I have adopted an attitude of "NO QUESTIONS", preferring to just talk enough to comfortably get a vibe and be able to straight-face an editor about having "interviewed" said artist).
Disappointments? Not as many as I’d assumed. Has it affected me? You betcha, I’ve written my share of shit with a positive slant about some pretty useless records that I wouldn’t give the time of day to if it weren’t for the ego-stroke of a by-line in some two-bit rag. Has it damaged my previously uncorrupted and unabashed love of music? Slightly, maybe a bit more than that…but when the subject is JOAN JETT real rock and roll passion just can’t be sullied. The woman is a fucking icon, a legend, a die-hard true-fucking-believer in the ghost called rock’n’roll, rock and roll, rock, rockroll, or whatever you tag the stuff. Moreover, her and her "people", friend/producer KENNY LAGUNA, and tour manager guy Elliot Saltzman are as fine a bunch of rock faithful folk as anyone you may ever encounter when dealing with these types in this generally disingenuous business. Talk about having faith restored. These cats, from Jett right on down to the people answering phones and e-mails associated with her, are fucking right on with their aesthetic – they treat rock culture as it should be treated, communally, respectfully, and passionately.
I know it sounds like so much smoke being blown up your ass, but this bunch is pretty reverent about their rock and roll. It ain’t gonna pay off one bit for me if I sit here and spew a shitload of insincere hog piss. JOAN JETT ain’t gonna call me saying, "Yo, Kurt, baby, I dig the whole thing you wrote and all. Whaddya say we go hang out for awhile?" And that isn’t the intent or point here.
The point is that Jett was cool enough to give up some time for a phoner interview, hooked us up with some royal treatment at her gig (via Saltzman, one king-hell of a front man, the best I’ve ever dealt with in this often shitty biz), and then fucking lays out an honest-to-God rockroll show for the people. It wasn’t the usual greatest hits, end of the line, goin-thru-the-motions spiel, nosiree, JOAN JETT gives everybody a taste of not only what they want (i.e. the usual hits – "I Love Rock and Roll" etc. all of which sounded fucking grand), but she doles out some pretty hefty doses of what the NEED. The Modern Lovers "Roadrunner", the Stooges "I Wanna Be Your Dog", and "Androgynous" by the Replacements all graced the Jett set. The renditions were respectful (as far as respect goes in the rock game – it’s a loose concept at best) and laid out heavy with the energy and subtly with what could only be considered LOVE, as corny as that sounds. But it’s tough to reach out across rock’s stratospheric genres without having your heart in it (rock and roll losers can see right the fuck through phony lip-service), and Jett seems, well, positively love struck with the racket she makes. I swear to god she gets all mushy-eyed and shit when she roars for a crowd (and I should know, her man Saltzman squared me off so damn good for the gig I saw – a folding chair, on stage! Rock pandering payoff deee-luxe!), and it ain’t for no reason other than the lady loves to ROCK.
Rock isn’t something Jett takes lightly either – so don’t fuck around with the word. "Cars don’t rock; Pepsi doesn’t rock; things don’t rock, only rock rocks." That’s what she said to me, sweartogod. She don’t dig, and won’t put up with the casual, hip, colloquial use of the word…the word…rock. Now that fucking rocks. "That" referring, of course, to Joan, or rather Joan’s attitude, or rather her thing she has for rock. She’s that real people, like it or not, she’s just that fucking unbelievably rock and REAL.
Who don’t know how to market JOAN JETT? I ask again KENNY LAGUNA – who don’t know how to market a JOAN JETT? ‘Cuz if you show me ‘em, I’ll ram my copy of that new "Science Fiction" single you sent my way right up their ass in a walkman and cram the headphones on their rotten skull (me, I prefer the "electronic" version of the cut, mainly because Joan’s voice is just gold on it, just aching, longing, sexual rockroll gold!). After that I’d like to hear the dolt say he don’t know how to market a fucking legend. I think he’d get the point, don’t you?
|
| |
This Week:
No shows scheduled this week.
Click on the LIVE DATES link for upcoming shows |
Item Of The Month:
|
