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JOAN JETT will have them dancing in the streets at the LoDo Music Festival
from: Boulder Weekly Buzz UnCharted
by Andy Stonehouse
While the rock 'n' roll world prides itself on stories of how high-minded individuals make their break based on hard work and artistic purity, the fact of the matter is that the music industry is rarely that kind.
Dig into the "business" portion of the music business and you quickly uncover a world that's just as inclusive and dependent on meeting and working with the right people—and greasing the occasional palm—as any high-rolling real estate transaction. It really is all about who you know.
For hard-rocking grrl and feminist icon JOAN JETT—who plays this weekend at the LoDo Music Festival—the benevolent and powerful figure lurking in the shadows (or, as the case may be, playing keyboards or singing back-up vocals on stage) is her longtime songwriting and business partner KENNY LAGUNA. Laguna's colorful musical backstory fills up eight pages of unapologetically name-dropping tales of music business insiderism. But it's his 25-year run with Jett that's produced the most interesting tales.
"We first met back in 1979," Laguna says. "I'd heard her story before that, but when I got the call that the RUNAWAYS [Jett's first band, which she joined when she was just 15] had just broken up, I thought we might be able to work together. I was in London, doing publicity for the Who's record label, and we had access to the Who's studio during any downtime—Joan had a contract to finish and needed to do something like eight songs in six days. On my wife's insistence—she said that Joan had been the best one in the band—we met up and I instantly fell in love. I told her I'd get her a record deal."
Laguna's platonic infatuation for the very young, tough and talented Jett helped set in motion an independent, successful musical effort that continues to flourish for the duo today. For Laguna, it was nothing new, as he'd been involved in the music biz since he was a 12 year old playing sock hops for $20 a shot. Laguna first experienced success in the late 1960s as a songwriter and member of various bubblegum pop acts such as Ohio Express and the 1910 Fruitgum Company ("Those were the days where you'd record a single first, then put together the band afterwards," he says). His experiences range from working with Andy Warhol and Paul Morrisey to tours with Tommy James and the Shondels and Jay and the Americans. Mired in the mess that was late '70s disco, Laguna fled to the U.K. and hooked up with Jett.
Their first recording project, a self-titled release which included hits such as "Bad Reputation" and "Do You Want to Touch Me?" was rejected by no less than 23 different labels, so the duo opted to create their own independent label, BLACKHEART RECORDS, and push the record themselves. The disc eventually became one of the biggest-selling indie discs of all time.
Things snowballed when Jett returned to the United States and formed her own hard-rocking backing band, the BLACKHEARTS. Laguna's friend, Casablanca Records founder and KISS mastermind Neil Bogart, formed a partnership to release the record on his new label and the result was, after much hard work, I Love Rock 'n' Roll. The album spawned an incredibly successful run of hits and widespread fame for Jett.
"The thing with me is that I just don't give up," Laguna says. "We pushed like hell to get that record going, and the best thing was that we ended up owning it ourselves, which still drives the major record company guys nuts. That's also why you don't see her on any compilation records. Directors always want her songs to appear in movies but they always get bogged down when it gets to paying us to be on the soundtrack album. They offered me a million dollars to have her on the Charlie's Angels soundtrack, but I turned it down—we did give them the go-ahead to let the Olsen Twins put 'Roadrunner' in one of their movies."
The years that have followed have seen Jett remain a respected if not always especially high-profile musical innovator. While an appearance in Michael J. Fox's Light of Day and singles such as "I Hate Myself for Loving You" may seem a bit dated, Jett has retained her profile with gigs like a role in the Broadway revival of The Rocky Horror Picture Show and collaborations with indie queens Kathleen Hanna, Donita Sparks and Kat Bjelland.
And Jett and Laguna served as huge supporters for one-time Democratic candidate Howard Dean. It's their long-standing role as self-appointed entertainers for U.S. troops overseas that's remained Jett's most passionate gesture. The BLACKHEARTS were the first musical act to perform in East Germany after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Laguna and Jett have performed USO-styled shows for soldiers in Panama, Kosovo, Iraq and, most recently, two admittedly scary gigs in Afghanistan.
"I lived through Vietnam and I ended up avoiding having to go in to combat, but I was never against the troops and I didn't want to forget about those guys," Laguna says. "I met Joan and she had the same feelings, so we've been doing it ever since, which is funny because she's this big peace person. Unfortunately, she really likes going to the shittiest of places. I can just tell we'll be off to some hellhole in the horn of Africa soon."
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