When Joan Jett was 13 years old she got a guitar for christmas. She had never played guitar before and sat there and ground on the low E-string so obsessed that her parents finally sent her to a gitarrlärare, just to get a little peace. Jett took the guitar and a mental image of her idol, Suzi Quatro from the rock band The Pleasure Seekers (which, among other things, made immortal: ”What a way to die”), and went to the gitarrskolan to learn how to play rock ‘n’ roll. The lesson went quickly, her gitarrlärare had just a hint: ”Girls don’t play rock ’n’ roll.” And thus begins one of the rockhistoriens greatest stories.
the Event launches the documentary ”Bad reputation”, which is about Joan Jetts rock and living. And the interesting thing is not really gitarrlärarens avighet in itself – people who are tired of their job will always say no to övertända teenagers. The interesting thing is the wording. He did not say, as some of the others, ”Girls can’t play guitar”. This was, after all, a gitarrlärare, a trained man. Probably he had listened to both on Elizabeth Cottens distinctive picking, Joni Mitchell’s sophisticated folkmusikgitarr and Karen Dalton’s heartbreaking, tolvsträngade games. He said not even the ”Girls don’t play electric guitar”. He was the least interested had he heard of Sister Rosetta Tharpes ecstatic electric guitar-gospel and maybe with Sister Ola Mae Terrells self-taught sydstatstwang.
rock ’n’ roll, and the genre’s all innuendo: sex, aggression, cultural mobility, things that blow up. Or maybe he was just a little bit psychic, and had the feeling that as soon as Jett had learned to play, she would use the rock to brutally expose the deep, harmful double standards that exist around girls and sex.
Joan Jett look kind of like a child’s version of Ulrike Meinhof.
With themselves on the adventure had Jett’s band The Runaways. The first time I heard their debut album, I sat in the bed with your legs crossed and your chin in your lap. I found (thanks to the handy åldersangivelserna on the back of the board) to those who played on the album was my own age. Lita Ford was the only one who managed to fill 17. Joan Jett looks pretty much the same as a child’s version of Ulrike Meinhof. Shortly thereafter, I got me a pin with the acronym WWJJD – an updated version of the christian american minnesramsan ”What Would Jesus Do?” but with Joan Jett in the role of the Messiah.
when the album actually came out, people were less ecstatic. The band was met with contempt and mockery from the audience and the press who should have known better. Verbal attacks escalated into physical abuse, adults, people in their neighborhood did their best to steal their money and manipulating them. The Runaways crashed and burned. And Joan Jett could never start a band with female musicians because they would immediately be compared with The Runaways. And because The Runaways were born under such special circumstances, long before Joan Jett knew that people would come to throw car batteries at her when she stood on the stage, was a big risk that the new band would appear to be a little pale about the nose. And that is the fast cop. And so on.
is so clearly no snyfthistoria. She started Joan Jett & the Blackhearts, got monsterhits and seems, according to the interview in the ”Bad reputation”, still able to indulge themselves to live life’s happy days. In the documentary, it also becomes clear that she, above all else, is just a masterful rock guitarist. Her best songs are often covers, but played in a unique way: rhythmically, aggressive, nonchalant. When Jett himself took the role of gitarrlärare and gave a quick lesson to Kristen Stewart, who played Jett in The film ”The Runaways”, she was also just a single tip: ”Pussy to the fucking wood.”
When I seen the clear ”Bad reputation” I pick up The Runaways debut album, and laughs when I flip through the song list. There is another layer of meaning, another obstinate joke, a very internal message in a bottle from Jett to the very first person who failed to trap difficulties for the rock star she would become. The last song on the first page is a cover of a song by The Velvet Underground. More difficult than it was for the girls to play ”Rock & roll”.
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