Rock Legends (above) writeup: Take five girls, the oldest one 17, with true roots known only to their hairdresser, give them a suggestive title and send them out on a tour of joints that they would be too young to enter as customers. That was The Runaways, but it was not all a gimmick -- it was a culture shock and an integral part of the '70's rock scene. The Runaways evolved as a master plot of Kim Fowley, the veteran L.A. record producer-composer who previously worked on gold records for people like Alice Cooper and The Byrds. In 1975, he signed the band to Mercury records and in 1976 the self-titled "Runaways" album was released featuring the hit single and sex anthem "Cherry Bomb" which launched them into the worldwide charts. Then followed the aptly titled "Queens Of Noise" album and American, European and Japanese tours where they played to thousands of kids their own age and cemented a relationship with the audience. They epitomised the early seventies scene. Bassist Jackie Fox said "You walk into The Rainbow in Hollywood and there's people O.D'ing in the parking lot, throwing up in the bathroom. People can relate to that". Runaways rock related to its audience. Whilst on the Japanese tour, they recorded their classic live album but then Cherie Currie and bassist Jackie Fox departed the band. Vicki Blue replaced Jackie and Joan Jett took over vocals and the "Waitin' For the Night" album was released, but achieved little success. The original Runaways in 1976 were: Cheire Currie 16 Vocals Sandy West 16 Drums Jackie Fox 16 Bass and Vocals Lita Ford 17 Lead Guitar Joan Jett 16 Rhythm Guitar and Vocals This album highlights the short but devastating career of The Runaways. August 1980 Compiled by Bob Aird
Mama We're All Crazy Now (above) writeup: The RUNAWAYS Featuring Joan Jett Mama Weer All Crazee Now A Four Song Mini Album To paraphrase an old saying, good songs are hard to find. Even recording artists with maximum songwriting abilities have, from time to time, recorded outside material. When artists look for outside (i.e., written by someone not in the group) material, there are two choices: familiar oldies made famous by other artists; and newer songs written by other writers, not necessarily well-known material. The Runaways, like many, knew fully the value of both kinds of outside material, and chose well. From the outset, the Runaways knew a good song when they heard one. One of the highlights of their live shows in 1976-1977 was Eric Carmen's "That's Rock and Roll" (later a hit for Shaun Cassidy), unfortunately never captured adequately on tape. Their rendition of "Wild Thing" gave Sandy West a chance to show her stuff both on drums and vocals. And guitarist Steve Hunter personally taught Lita Ford his arrangement of Lou Reed's classic "Rock And Roll," the arrangement Hunter used both as a member of Mitch Ryder's Detroit and, later, as a part of Reed's band that recorded his live Rock'n Roll Animal LP. Later, the girls also recorded four songs written by talented friends of theirs from other Los Angeles bands: "Queens Of Noise" by the Quick's Billy Bizeau, "I Wanna Be Where The Boys Are" by the legendary Ronnie Lee, "All Right You Guys" by Danielle Faye and Bob Willingham of the Zippers (check out their Rhino EP; Faye turned down the Runaways bassist job several times), and "American Nights" from the pen of Mark Anthony, leader of the pioneering L.A. band The Hollywood Stars. This tradition of recording good outside material has carried over, successfully, into Joan Jett's solo career, as you may have noticed. Beyond "I Love Rock And Roll," which was an obscure British single by the equally obscure Arrows, both of her solo albums have been chock full of good songs -- some of which she wrote, many of which she didn't. The thing of it is, The Runaways knew. A lot of you probably first learned about Cheap Trick from a) hearing about them in Runaways interviews; b) seeing Runaways wearing Cheap Trick t-shirts; and c) seeing Cheap Trick open for the Runaways in concert, which happened more than once, back in '77. And who can forget that it was the Runaways who came back from their first UK tour, in the autumn of 1976, filled with news about a new wave of punk rock in London led by a group calling themselves the Sex Pistols? In any event, all of this is by way of an explanation of this Rhino Records EP. Now everybody knows how difficult it is to cover Beatle songs, so great is our familiarity with their original versions. When Sandy and Joan went up to producer John Alcock's Hollywood Hills home to sing him their idea for a rearrangement of "Eight Days A Week," it was quite a bit different than the version they ultimately recorded. It was softer, slower, more like an Everly Brothers ballad. The recorded version, released here for the first time in the United States, does convey the sense of (dare I use this word in an essay on The Runaways) sweetness, though the cutting edge of the vocals clearly turns the "ooh I need your love" into more of a demand than a request, and Duane Hitchings' keyboard playing adds a nice flavor. From the outset, everybody wanted to record a Slade song, and "Mama Weer All Crazee Now" was the unanimous favorite. The connection between Slade and The Runaways is the key here -- these are the two groups that perhaps best combined the elements of heavy metal headbanging and punk rock headbanging. Both groups captured this best live, in concert (check out their respective live albums), and Slade was probably more effective at capturing the feeling on record, but this is as close as The Runaways, or anyone else for that matter, ever got. Again, the same feeling pervades much of Joan Jett's recent solo recordings. From the newer songs, not necessarily familiar, written by other writers category of outside material, came "Saturday Night Special", co-written by former Bowie guitarist (later to play with John Lennon/Yoko Ono and then to form Silver Condor) Earl Slick and then-unknown songwriter Tonio K., who has since released two albums that have earned him a cult following. In fact, I believe this was the first of Tonio K.'s compositions to ever be recorded, which someday may be an important piece of trivia. Originally intended as a potential single, engineer Will Reid Dick and producer John Alcock took particular care with this recording, and it shows. The fourth song on this EP is Joan's "My Buddy & Me." While Joan has certainly written many songs better that this, it is clearly reflective of how she must have felt at the time, due to the ups and downs of both her personal life and her professional life, as the tensions had set in between her and Sandy and Lita and, in fact, were crescendoing throughout the recording of the album. In this song she cries out plaintively just to be left alone with her "buddy", not bothered by people constantly telling her how to walk, talk, dress, act and live her life. All in all, what we have here is some extremely potent and very representative samplings of The Runaways as they were in 1978. Their place in rock history is assured. Consider this Exhibit "A". Toby B. Mamis
Japanese Reissue - 1st album	Back side of Japanese reissue
Little Lost Girls (above) writeup: Taking for granted that, if you've bought this album -- the final recordings of the Runaways -- you're relatively familiar with the group, we'll dispense with the history and deal directly with this their final LP. Originally titled "And Now...The Runaways!," this album was recorded in September 1978 in Los Angeles. It was supposed to have been recorded a month earlier in London, but Phil Wainman, their slated producer, was frightened off and hastily beat it to the South of France for a premature holiday. Wainman, best known for his hits with the Sweet and Bay City Rollers, had seen the band at the Lyceum in London in July, and was excited about the venture. The girls were in the habit of throwing all night parties on their houseboat on the Thames -- with every punk rocker in London showing up -- to the accompaniment of the usual excesses, all of which left them in less than adequate shape to rehearse, much less record. The seeds of discontent within the group had been sown earlier, in the aftermath of the departure from the group of bassist Jackie Fox and singer Cherie Currie. Joan Jett, who had already been writing over half the material, and singing lead nearly half the time, became far more dominant within the group's structure. At the same time her interests and lifestyle became almost totally caught up in the punk revolution. Meanwhile Sandy and Lita had become, in response to the inroads punk was making all around them, more deeply entrenched in the familiar heavy metal. And what we thought was so special about the records that Wainman and his contemporaries (British producers of the 1973-75 teen glitter rock explosion) were making, was also what was so special about the best of the Runaways live performances: that tension between, and combination of, the energy and aggression of punk with the power and intensity of heavy metal. At their peak in live performance, I have always believed the Runaways were among the best at uniting those dynamic elements. Unfortunately Phil Wainman, who could have kept everything evenly balanced and possibly captured that essence on a studio recording, especially considering that the Runaways were performing at such a peak following a schedule of heavy touring, was frightened away by the girls themselves. John Alcock -- selected as a replacement from his fine work producing Thin Lizzy -- was not quite so overpowering or forceful an in-studio personality. Alcock's fondness for heavy metal, and lack of understanding of the New Wave, led to a heightening of differences. In retrospect, it appears that Alcock may actually have been consciously trying to separate Joan from Sandy and Lita, so as to destroy the band and launch a new, heavier band without Joan. This is mere speculation, but he certainly took less effort with Joan than with the others during the recording. Of course, Joan wasn't exactly helping her own cause. Her image had been carefully cultivated, and now she felt pressure to live up to it. It wasn't unusual to see her being carried out of the Whisky late at night down the hill the few yards to her conveniently located apartment, where the parties never seemed to stop. With Lita and Sandy carousing up at Alcock's Hollywood Hills home till dawn and beyond, the gap between Joan and Sandy and Lita was widening out of control, and Alcock didn't appear to be concerned with closing it. You may be wondering where Vicki Blue was during all of this. Well, to be fair to Vicki, it was beyond her control. She had a medical condition that precluded her from working at that time, and it was decided to replace her on a permanent basis following the recording. (Lita doubled on bass in the studio.) She was pictured on the cover because a replacement for her hadn't been found yet. She even appeared with the group when they performed at the opening night festivities for the Los Angeles premiere of "Annie," midway through the recording sessions. Sex Pistols' guitarist Steve Jones, who had written "Black Leather" for this LP, was also in town, and he too joined in for the set among the high society folks in Century City. The album was completed, with help on keyboards from Duane Hitchings (of Rod Stewart's band) who introduced the girls to his downstairs neighbor, a girl bass player named Laurie McCallister. "Saturday Night Special" was written by former Bowie and more recently John Lennon guitarist Earl Slick (currently in Silver Condor) and a then (and mostly still) unknown singer/songwriter Tonio K., and was considered to be a potential hit single. Alcock did a hell of a job on this one, and it is one of the two songs put on videotape after Laurie had replaced Vicki. "Mama Weer All Crazee Now," the Slade song, was part of their attempt to capture the excitement of those British mid-Seventies hits. Perhaps some handclaps and greater attention to the vocals would've helped. Lita's guitar playing stands out on "Black Leather." Of the five songs written by the girls on the album, everybody thought that Sandy's "Right Now" (her first self-written song!), which she also sang, had the most potential as a hit single. Lita's two contributions, "Little Lost Girls" and "I'm A Million," and Joan's two songs, "My Buddy and Me" and Takeover," don't really do the talents of either justice. Lita makes her singing debut on "I'm A Million." Joan, who was going through a particularly avid obsession with James Bond and international intrigue at the time, came up with a remarkably accurate prediction of a return to the Cold War politics with "Takeover," in which she accuses the Russians of trying to take over the world by controlling weather patterns. It also must be noted that Joan, Sandy and Lita were performing at a certain peak capability when they recorded this album. Sandy's drums sound incredible (though perhaps the beat wavers from time to time), Lita's bass playing is solid and her lead guitar parts are top-notch throughout, and Joan's rhythm guitar, long unheralded instrument in rock, provides the steady undercurrent. Some additional credit must go to engineer Will Reid Dick, imported from the Who's Ramport Studios in London. Once the album was completed, Laurie joined the fold officially. While making plans and beginning rehearsals for touring, a movie agent introduced us to a low budget movie company, Z Productions (a combination of a movie person with no money, and a money person with no movie savvy), that wanted to make a feature film about an all-girl band. Unfortunately they wanted an all girl country-band. More unfortunately (at least for them, in the long run), they changed their plan and, after they met the girls and came to a rehearsal, the various wheels were set in motion for "We're All Crazy Now," a full length feature film starring our Runaways. As script after script, writer after writer, and a few directors were hired and then fired, the deal was completed, and advance money paid to the Runaways when they signed on the dotted line with Z Productions. Then came the fun part. In the middle of a meeting with the producers to arrange costuming, make-up, hairstyling and rehearsal scheduling, Sandy and Lita refused to participate. This precipitated a major crisis and resulting in endless meetings, during which Lita and Sandy brought in Alcock to represent their interests (vs. the interest of the Runaways as a group). Before long, things got so polarized within the band that they literally were breaking up in front of everyone's eyes. In the middle of all this, there were two weeks of gigs in California, planned as a warm-up for regular touring in support of the release of the album: Los Angeles, Huntington Beach, Palo Alto, Santa Cruz, San Francisco in various clubs plus a concert at UC Irvine with Cheap Trick. During the Golden Bear gig Laurie McCallister had just about the worst case of the flu in history. You have to give the Runaways credit; they cancelled very few gigs in their career, and they didn't cancel this time either. Mid-set, Laurie threw-up onstage, managing to sneak behind her amplifier, and then raced to the dressing room. She wasn't much better on the 31st when they flew to San Francisco. So, after checking into the hotel, a doctor was summoned. He wasn't exactly pleased to get a call at 5 PM on New Year's Eve -- already dressed in his tux and gathering a half dozen friends together for an evening on the town -- but in exchange for $100 and eight tickets and backstage passes to the show, he agreed to come to the hotel, treat Laurie, ride with her to the gig, stay with her backstage and onstage until the set was over, and make sure she survived. According to tour manager Rory Johnston, the ride in the station wagon to the gig was beyond belief. The good doctor had given Laurie some "snake serum" as medicine, and as they rode to the Cow Palace he was putting acupuncture needles into her: "Hey, Rory, pull over and stop for a minute, I've got an important needle to put in." Backstage he gave her more "serum," checked the needles and disappeared. The set went extremely well for both Laurie and the band. Laurie -- with Lita and Sandy -- flew home to L.A., and awoke the next morning feeling totally recovered. Shortly thereafter, Laurie quit, surfacing later in the Runaways-inspired Orchids. That left the Runaways pared to three. With complete disagreement over the movie deal, this album's lack of commercial success in Europe, and less than mild interest from U.S. major labels, the Runaways came to an end in Spring 1979. Subsequently, Sandy and Lita tried to form various bands and record demo tapes with Alcock, to no avail. Joan honored the Z Productions movie contract and filmed "We're All Crazy Now," co-starring Arte Johnson and Peter Noone, with actresses playing the other Runaways. The movie was never completed, and a soundtrack with New Wave rock heavyweights Louie Maxfield, Joel Turrisi and Richard Dandrea backing Joan, was never released. Joan then recorded a solo single and album, and formed a new band, the Blackhearts. The Orchids broke up after one album for MCA Records. Vicki Blue made an unreleased album with (you might not believe this) Laurie's ex-boyfriend. Lita has also record, recently, an as-yet unreleased album with Neil Merryweather. And Sandy, wherever you are, the folks at Ludwig drums in Chicago would like to hear from you. The Runaways are no more. But this album provides a last glimpse of a still potent band, one that was the prime inspiration for thousands of girls throughout the country picking up guitars and drums and forming bands themselves. Toby B. Mamis

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