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Jett still flies the flag
from: au.news.yahoo.com
by MICHAEL DWYER, The West Australian
She loves rock'n'roll. So put another dime in the jukebox, baby. On face value, it's among the most mindlessly hedonistic sentiments that ever distorted a car radio speaker. But given the weight of JOAN JETT's legacy, these days it sounds more like a call to arms.
"Women playing rock'n'roll is a political statement in itself," says the former Joan Larkin of Philadelphia, a teenaged Suzi Quatro obsessive who forged a path for independent women with electric guitars everywhere.
Sure, she copped her share of corporate manipulation and abuse early on, as dramatised in the recent movie about her pioneering all-girl 70s band, the RUNAWAYS. More about that later.
But from the moment she released her first solo album on her own BLACKHEART RECORDS label - a rare gamble for any artist in 1980 - she became a role model for future generations of self-determined female rockers.
Bikini Kill, the Gits, Peaches and the Eyeliners are just a few who have since borrowed her production expertise and emblematic presence.
It's not something she bestows lightly. Calls from Taylor Swift or Britney Spears would likely fall on deaf ears, she claims.
"I'd have to know what they want from me, what the deal is," she says. "Why in the world would they be asking me on their record? If it's just for, you know, the genre-hop, well, that's not for me. I've never been a genre-hopper.
"Even the word rock'n'roll has been co-opted now. People take the word and apply it to anything. Food rocks. Clothes rock. Pop stars rock. Everybody's rockin' and the word loses its potency," she says.
Having recently been through the Hollywood wringer as executive producer of the RUNAWAYS, Jett is acutely aware of the dilution necessary for mainstream consumption.
"Let's just say that I felt the final result really gave you a sense of what it was like to be in the RUNAWAYS and, for me, that was mission accomplished," she says of the movie. "My main concern was that they didn't f--- it up and it was respectable and it didn't make us look like fools.
"It was a very difficult process though. Not working with the actors - Kristen Stewart (as Jett) was great; Dakota Fanning (as singer Cherie Currie) was great - but the writing, the filming, everything was just...you know, very intense.
"I was there every day on set to make sure that we stayed true, basically, to what was going on. But it is a movie. It's based on a real story with real people and a lot of those things did happen, but there are parts that are obviously embellished."
Her ambivalence turns to contempt on the subject of the other recent film about the RUNAWAYS: Edgeplay is a shockingly revealing documentary by the band's one-time bass player, Victory Tischler-Blue.
In stark contrast to the Hollywood buddy flick, which focuses almost exclusively on the Jett/Currie relationship, Edgeplay shows the lingering damage and bitterness among the former "jailbait rock" group via candid interviews with all members - all except Jett, that is.
"Oh yeah, I saw it," she sneers. "I didn't wanna be involved because I didn't want to do a Jerry Springer show.
"For me it always comes back to the music, and to have everybody whining about who did what to who, it's like talking about what you did in high school. I don't understand that the girls didn't see the broader picture and didn't have more fun. Is that all it was to them?"
Tischler-Blue claims that the first cut of her film was much more about the RUNAWAYS' music. It was only after Jett refused to hand over her songs that she was forced to recut her footage to squabbling heads.
"Why would I let them use it? To put out this s--- documentary about the RUNAWAYS?" Jett responds with some passion. "That was me saying 'No, you can't use the songs that I wrote in the band I started to sit there and pick apart something I care about'.
"I guess I just had a different view of what we were and what it was. Maybe it was just a passing fad for everybody else. I don't know. For me it was a mission."
Evidently, it still is.
JOAN JETT AND THE BLACKHEARTS play the Southbound Festival, Busselton, January 1-3. Tickets from Moshtix outlets.
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