{"id":157,"date":"2019-08-22T03:00:18","date_gmt":"2019-08-22T03:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nwhellcats.org\/blog\/?p=157"},"modified":"2019-08-29T04:53:06","modified_gmt":"2019-08-29T04:53:06","slug":"the-runaways-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nwhellcats.org\/blog\/2019\/08\/22\/the-runaways-story\/","title":{"rendered":"The Runaways’ Story"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\u201cQueens of Noise the REAL story of the Runaways,\u201d that title is ample warning to the reader for what lies ahead. A sensationalized story about a band of teen rockers. The book is enjoyable in the main and my complaints settle around how McDonnell chose to tell the story of this barrier-shattering group.

Queens of Noise<\/em> is a follow-up to McDonnell\u2019s thesis on Runaways drummer, Sandy West. For this book McDonnell takes us back again to the Sunset Strip in the 1970s with its proto-punk scene. It was fertile soil for the all-female rock band that Sandy played in. It\u2019s a story that interests me. I grew up with Joan Jett\u2019s music and had heard hints of the fabled band that she started, which included heavy metal guitarist, Lita Ford. I was onboard. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I wanted it to be exhaustive, but the book fell short. Some of the band members declined to be interviewed, forcing McDonnell to rely heavily on previous magazine and newspaper articles, and Vicki Blue\u2019s (another Runaway) documentary, \u201cEdgeplay.\u201d The first-hand accounts come primarily from the Runaways bassists and Kim Fowley, the band\u2019s notorious manager, and the people around the group during the three or so hectic years of its existence. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There was one person I didn\u2019t expect to be included in the\nRunaways\u2019 story and that was McDonnell. Working primarily in an opinionated\nstyle reminiscent of \u201870s New Journalism, she comments on every player in the\nstory even describing a music critic of the day as a \u201csh*tty writer\u201d without\noffering anything to back up her opinion. Her subject would have been better\nserved by not inserting herself into the narrative. The block quotes she\nincluded from interviews are enthralling and would have been much more effective\nwith only minor editorial comment. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her description of \u201870s LA evokes a curious version of the\nsinner\/saint idolizing of women that flourished then. It was a dichotomy where few\nfemale rock groups could find success. Placing the Runaways in its milieu of\nthe hedonistic Sunset Strip gives clarity. These straightforward passages,\nuntainted by opinion, were where I found some of the best writing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before long, McDonnell focused on the Runaways through her own\nlens of understanding. It is a viewpoint that is not insightful and at times\nreads like a fan thwarted access to her idols. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

She does address the myth that they were a confectionary out\nof Fowley\u2019s fevered mind. While affirming that the young women created the band\nwith Fowley\u2019s help, McDonnell continually lists everything Kim Fowley did for\nthem. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The band was never allowed to be the subject of its own story but always the object. McDonnell even uses them as objects in her book. She dwells over imagery about Lita Ford\u2019s tight clothes. According to McDonnell, Ford\u2019s shorts were snug enough that part of her reproductive anatomy was in public view. She repeatedly mentions how pretty they were, imagines the reactions of the primarily male audiences, and describes guitarist, Joan Jett\u2019s \u201csweaty grinding\u201d on a bandmate. These short anecdotes are included for no other reason than prurient interest. One despairs that the Runaways will never be able to run away. Instead they find themselves trapped in another gilded cage to be adored, admired, and defined by others. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Errors or editing gaffs in the book are glaring. For\ninstance, claiming that the Runaways opened for Metallica before Metallica had\na formed left me wondering which band she meant. Listing Jett\u2019s role in The Rocky\nHorror Show as \u201cColumbine\u201d instead of \u201cColumbia.\u201d Strange nouns or verbs\nmuddled what McDonnell wanted to say. Perhaps she too struggled to grasp their\nmeaning? For example, the word \u201cgobbing\u201d or stating Lita playing a \u201cwank\u201d on\nher guitar. While I can hazard out the meaning, it drug me out of the story.\nI\u2019m still trying to figure out what a \u201ctotem manager\u201d is and if she didn\u2019t mean\n\u201ctoken manager.\u201d There were also repetitions of blocks of text in different\nchapters. A few but not all of Jett\u2019s solo hits that were mentioned did not\nlist the songwriter. The reader is left with the impression that Jett wrote \u201cI\nLove Rock n\u2019 Roll\u201d and \u201cCrimson & Clover\u201d which is not the case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Runaways\u2019 story would have been better served by letting the people who lived it simply tell their stories. As is, Queens of Noise<\/em> is an impediment with uncited interpretations that cloud a fascinating tale of teens who took the world by storm. Despite the morass, the Runaways and their story managed to get through, much as they did in the \u201870s, demonstrating the wit, the panache, and the perseverance required to bring their sound to the world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cQueens of Noise the REAL story of the Runaways,\u201d that title is ample warning to the reader for what lies ahead. A sensationalized story about a band of teen rockers. The book is enjoyable in the main and my complaints settle around how McDonnell chose to tell the story of this barrier-shattering group. Queens of … Continue reading “The Runaways’ Story”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33,5],"tags":[30,31,32,20],"class_list":["post-157","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bookreview","category-random","tag-bookreview","tag-iloverocknroll","tag-joanjett","tag-lovemesomebooks"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nwhellcats.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nwhellcats.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nwhellcats.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nwhellcats.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nwhellcats.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=157"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.nwhellcats.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":163,"href":"https:\/\/www.nwhellcats.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157\/revisions\/163"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nwhellcats.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nwhellcats.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nwhellcats.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}