Runaways - 1970s' Bad Girls With Guitars

In the mid-1970s', long before women like Madonna and Courtney Love became household names, long before Riot Grrls and the Lilth Fair, pickins were bleak for teen-age girls looking for musical role models. In 1975, the world was in the throes of "performers" like Helen Reddy, Toni Tenille, and Olivia Newton-John, gals who made Stevie Nicks look like a thrash-rocker. In 1976, The Runaways was released, an album that actually featured five rebel teenage girls who could sing and play guitar. In tight jeans, heavy black eyeliner, semi-unbuttoned shirts, and Farrah hair, they epitomized the suburban bad girl juvenile delinquent, and sang about sex, murder and partying. Five Southern California teenagers brought together by grade B rock n roll sleazemeisters Kim Foley and Rodney Bingenheimer, the Runaways caused a minor stir in the mainstream media, and were treated as a novelty act by rock 'n roll press. They were never appreciated for their music when they were together, and were often the subject of snide gossip, such as an item in Rona Barret's Gossip that insinuated they were lesbians. Despite songs with heavy guitar riffs, screeching vocals, and titles like Neon Angels On The Road To Ruin, You Drive Me Wild, and Cherry Bomb, the band received virtually no radio airplay, and broke up in 1979.

The group consisted of singer Cherie Currie, the sloe-eyed blonde sex symbol who later acted in Foxes and a Close Encounters of the Third Kind rip-off. She had a solo album out in Japan, then disappeared. Joan Jett, the main songwriter,fared better, moving on to solo success in the '80s with I Love Rock N Roll and other hits, and along with Chrissie Hynde, she heralded the trumpets -- or guitars -- for women to rock on an equal pare with men. Joan also fared better in the film world -- playing Michael J. Fox's errant sister and bandmate in the Paul Schrader drama Light of Day, which actually got a thumbs up from Siskel & Ebert. Then there was Lita Ford, who played up the heavy metal slut queen persona of the '80s, and penned such immortal lyrics as "went to a party last Saturday night/didn't get laid/got into a fight". Her biggest claim to fame was her duet with Ozzy on Close My Eyes Forever. By 1991, her solo career ground to a halt ,and to my chagrin, even her gig at a tiny Chicago nightclub was cancelled. Lita's forgotten accomplishment was a song called Trash Can Murders, which was featured on a Runaways album long before serial killer tributes became de rigueur.

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