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WARPED TOUR 2006: Jett plays with fire
If it's not edgy, it's not rock, says the bad girl
from: freep.com
by Brian McCollum, Free Press Pop Music Writer
Photo by Scott Gries, Getty Images
JOAN JETT rocks hard for 30 minutes each night on this summer's Warped
Tour.
JOAN JETT still loves her rock 'n' roll. Even if she's not real keen on what
has happened to the phrase.
"Things with a softer edge are getting called 'rock 'n' roll,' " laments
Jett, who with her band, the BLACKHEARTS, will perform at Saturday's Vans
Warped Tour stop in Detroit. "People use the label 'rocking' or 'rock star'
really loosely now. It's become a stylish word that's used when they want to
give somebody that edge. Even politicians, they're 'rock stars.' It's really
diluted the meaning."
For Jett, whose life as a bona fide rock star began at 15 as a member of the
influential group the RUNAWAYS, real rock 'n' roll is what she's been seeing
at this summer's Warped Tour, where the 45-year-old vocalist-guitarist is
billed among more than six dozen younger bands.
"I definitely get the fire in the belly still," says Jett of performing on
the road. "When you're able to still talk to (fans) and hang out and
recognize the connections -- you remember your first record, your first
concert, those times when music felt really special or really transcended
problems in your life. That's what keeps me going."
Making those connections is a big theme on this latest edition of the Warped
Tour, which has grown massively since its 1995 founding as a punk fest with
a skate-and-surf flourish. Warped still caters to a youthful demographic, a
teen and early-20s crowd weaned on rock in the post-Nirvana age, but
organizer Kevin Lyman personally invited Jett to help show "how this music
they love started," she says.
"I thought it would be a lot of fun -- a great way to be out on the road, to
get out there and let everybody know we're still here and still viable."
Jett's new album, "SINNER," was released one week before Warped's June 21
kickoff -- and a long 12 years after her last record of new material. In
line with a career of work that has served its rock 'n' roll straight-up,
the album is quintessential JOAN JETT, equal parts crunch, glam and sexy
swagger.
"SINNER" was released independently by Jett's Blackheart label, a decision
made by Jett and longtime collaborator KENNY LAGUNA after a decade of
watching a deal with Warner Bros. Records get hamstrung by ongoing turnover
among the label's top brass.
Onstage this summer, three or four of the new songs are worked into a set
list that's continually rotated.
"Every band gets 30 minutes, us included," says Jett. "That's what we do --
it's zero to 100 pretty much for 30 minutes. With this particular crowd and
audience we want to keep things fairly up-tempo. We don't want to come in
there and be plodding. We want to fit into the feeling of the tour."
With Warped rolling through its second month, Jett says a welcoming
atmosphere -- "a punk party, circus vibe -- has settled in backstage and
among the convoy of tour buses that are home to the event's 70-plus bands.
"When I say a block party, it's really like that," says Jett. "Some of these
bands have done this tour several years running, and they all bring out
things to make it more comfortable -- BMX bicycles, little scooters to get
around from stage to stage, a blowup pool. The Against Me guys bring
weights. It's just a lot of different things to make it very comfortable,
and it's a lot of fun."
But it's that half-hour onstage where Jett is getting her real satisfaction.
"All those moments, those millions of connections you make with people.
That's what you take away with you -- to look out in the crowd, meet their
eyes, see them singing," says Jett, who is preparing a fall club tour. "You
have to work at it. If you just get complacent it's easy to lose that
connection."
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