Novemember 2008 News

JOAN JETT was at her leather-clad best in a recent show staged for the "Nissan Live Sets" concert series. In addition to delivering full-throttle performances of classic fare like "Bad Reputation, "Crimson and Clover," and the RUNAWAYS' "Cherry Bomb," Jett included punked-up versions of the Replacements' "Androgynous" and Sly Stone's "Everyday People."

During the Q&A portion of the show, Jett fielded questions on topics that ranged from how she got into rock and roll, to the status of the forthcoming RUNAWAYS movie.

"As a young teenager, listening to Donnie Osmond and the Partridge Family - things like that - I transitioned to things like Black Sabbath, the New York Dolls, Free's 'All Right Now,' and T. Rex's 'Bang a Gong,'" Jett said. "Hearing those guitars made me want to do that. I asked my parents for a guitar for Christmas, and they actually got me one."

JOAN JETT is good to her fans, which is part of why she has so many of them. Recently, she was part of Yahoo!'s Nissan Live Sets, where she performed some of her greatest hits like "Cherry Bomb," "I Hate Myself for Loving You," "Bad Reputation" and "Crimson and Clover" for a small group of fans, who were then able to ask her questions as part of a Q&A.

The fans were clearly not just off the street Ñ many of them are pictured on the site with Joan tattoos and prefaced their questions to her with how long they've been listening to her (one girl even claiming "before she was born.")

In the question and answer session, Joan talks about her views on reincarnation, how she got into music as a teenager (Donny Osmond? Really?) and what she does if she has an idea for music when she's in the bathtub.

I remember sometime back in the '90s, the Lilith Fair tour was making its estrogen-powered sojourn across this great nation of ours, with nubile young granola girls from coast to coast stringing up their belly chains, reapplying their henna tattoos, and breaking in their Birkenstocks in preparation for the folky femme festivities. I was one female music-lover who opted out of Lilith, however.

Yes, I had a few problems with the whole "Women In Rock" thing back then. First off, it annoyed me to no end that such a tagline implied that women rocking out was a hot, recent new trend--a trend that, like all trends, would eventually go away--and that this media hype completely and condescendingly dismissed the many women rockers of all colors, shapes, and sizes who paved the way, from Wanda Jackson to Janis Joplin, Heart to the Go-Go's, Marianne Faithfull to Exene Cervenka, Chrissie Hynde to Siouxsie Sioux, etc., etc., etc.

And of course, let's not forget the Queen Of Noise, the Cherry Bomb herself, the one and only JOAN JETT.

"There is an audience that has embraced this movie and are showing up in droves, dressed as the characters, singing the songs. ThereÕs no money to market this movie. We have no one behind us. We're doing everything. I encourage, I urge and I plead with everyone out there to give it a chance. If you hate it, that's great, tell everyone how bad it is. If you love it, tell everyone how great it is. Just talk about the movie. If you don't, it's going to disappear."

Repo: The Genetic Opera one of the weirder movies you'll ever see. A goth rock horror opera about organ harvesting starring Alexa Vega from Spy Kids, Paul Sorvino, Anthony Stewart Head from Buffy The Vampire Slayer, Bill Moseley from Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, Ogre from Skinny Puppy, opera star Sarah Brightman and Paris Hilton. Yes, that Paris Hilton. All in a movie directed by Darren Lynn Bousman, who cut his teeth on Saw II, Saw III and Saw IV, but has always had a love in his heart for this passion project, which has finally come to fruition. It opens this weekend in selected cities, and it is getting a lot of interesting buzz in many different corners, and there's even a recommended accompanying dinner menu over at FoodVu. He's devoted his entire life of late to the single-minded goal of promoting this movie so it can find the passionate cult following it is destined to have. We talked to him recently about the passion of the Repo Man, the craziness of the cast and the torture porn milieu.

Tell us a bit of the crazy turmoil that this intense promotional process has been for you.
Darren Lynn Bousman: It's been crazy. It's been a grassroots marketing campaign. It's been myself and the writer, every single day, all day out promoting this thing. Without calling people out, I just think that there's not a clear idea what this movie is to some people. I've been in the thick of it. I've been in the forest, and I've seen trees falling, but if no one else is there, did the trees make any sound? That's kind of what it is. I feel that I'm seeing the fan reaction to this thing and it motivates me, it drives me, but the fact is more people need to see what's happening to this movie. There is an audience that has embraced this movie and are showing up in droves, dressed as the characters, singing the songs. Every single morning at 7am, I'm up and I don't go to bed until midnight all promoting just this movie.