Maybe contraversial, but I have always had a thing for both the delectable Jane Wiedlin and Belinda Carlisle and I just love this song....

Yes, the Go-Go's were great.

Belinda Carlisle, one of the first west-coast punks, has written her autobiography, "Lips Unsealed". I haven't had the time to read it all, but her story - from the Germs, Black Randy & The Metrosquad to the Go-Gos's and a solo career - should be very interesting:

"We were different from even most of the kids at the Rainbow. I'd say 99.9 percent
of them wanted to be rock stars. Only a handful of freaks and misfits thought of
themselves as punks. I'd say there were only fifty people in all of L.A. like us who were
paying attention to the Sex Pistols in London, the bands at New York's CBGB, and the
new era that dawned when Rodney played the Ramones' first album.

We read NME and Melody Maker, not Rolling Stone. We knew that Malcolm
McLaren had spotted Johnny Rotten, aka Johnny Lydon, on Kings Road wearing a Pink
Floyd T-shirt over which he had written "I HATE," and so we wrote on our T-shirts.
When Rodney declared he was "anti-the Eagles," we nodded in agreement and ventured
out of the shadows, realizing we were part of the same intense tribe--a tribe that would
soon ignite a full-fledged revolution.

We stayed in touch with Bobby and Georg and eventually got around to making
good on the idea of forming a band. We jammed in Georg's garage and started messing
around with lyrics. It was fun. Georg was the only one who played an instrument, but
actual proficiency was not a requirement in a punk band. Theresa, who dyed her hair
platinum blond, picked up the bass. I sat down on drums, and Bobby, as we assumed he
would, stepped to the front as the lead singer.

We went at it with a noisy recklessness and disregard that was so much fun we
didn't care what we sounded like, though we thought we sounded pretty good, or at least
good enough. In the spirit of Johnny Rotten, we adopted noms de punk. Bobby became
Darby Crash. Georg became Pat Smear. Theresa came up with Lorna Doom. And I chose
Dottie Danger.

Why Dottie Danger? It sounded cute and angry at the same time.

Darby and Pat had been down this road before. They'd started a band after being
kicked out of high school. They called it Sophistifuck and the Revlon Spam Queens--a
great name. But when they couldn't get all those letters on a T-shirt, they renamed
themselves the Germs."

This really ought to be over on the Tipsheet board but I'm so useless technically I don't know how to move it and neither do any of the other board keepers BUT...

I'd like to know where Joan Jett fitted into the American punk scene, and Kim Fowley, my old friend (who I gather visits here - how are you, Kim?).

Also; more stuff on Rodney Bingenheimer please - is he still around?

An early JK supporter.

JK2006 wrote:
This really ought to be over on the Tipsheet board but I'm so useless technically I don't know how to move it and neither do any of the other board keepers BUT...

I'd like to know where Joan Jett fitted into the American punk scene, and Kim Fowley, my old friend (who I gather visits here - how are you, Kim?).

Also; more stuff on Rodney Bingenheimer please - is he still around?

An early JK supporter.

Sorry JK, I hedged my bets and put this here!

You're a very norty boy Steve and there MAY be spanking!

Have just seen the Runaways...it's superb !

very difficult making a movie about pop music but this one does it. Dakota Fanning is superb.

Fancy the punk scene now being a legend...I feel sooo old !

The Runaways were pre-punk, the female version of the New York Dolls (both acts were on Mercury).

Not very well known is the important role of peermusic for The Runaways:

"The publisher's offices happened to be in the same Hollywood Boulevard building as Mercury Records, which signed the Runaways. Fowley recalls going to the peermusic offices without an appointment and subsequently receiving a phone call from peermusic executive Mario Conte from peer's New York office. Conte believed in the Runaways "like they were going to be the next Beatles," Fowley says, prompting the manager to sign an "industry-standard subpublishing contract with peer.

Peer, who had just moved to the company's Los Angeles office after spending his first six years at the company in New York, says his recollection is that the original deal was for co-publishing with administration. Eventually, peermusic acquired Fowley's share of the publishing.
"Peermusic believed in the Runaways at a time when an all-female rock band was considered outside the box," Peer says. "At the time it was a pretty exotic undertaking whose time had come. I took an interest in the project and shepherded it through.

Peer subsequently spent many nights at the Whiskey A Go-Go and in the studio with the band.
"Mercury was not getting any traction in licensing the record to its affiliates around the world," Fowley recalls. "But each peermusic local office contacted the Mercury affiliate in their local markets and said, 'Why aren't you releasing product on this band? We are behind them.'"

The result, Fowley says, was that before the band's self-titled debut album had charted in America or the Runaways had played outside Southern California, Peer had helped secure a global release of the "Runaways"
record." More here: URL: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100503...nm/us_runaways/print

Mercury signed the Runaways in the mid-70s ... and Capitol rejected the Go-Go's because the were girls years later. Belinda Carlisle:

"After impressing all the right people [in the UK, where Stiff released "We Got The Beat"], we returned home with a lot of heat and
momentum. All the labels knew about us, and I am positive we would have been signed
right away or perhaps even earlier if we had had a guy or two in the band, especially as a
lead singer. Joe Smith, the head of Capitol Records at the time, personally told us that
even though he adored us, he couldn't sign the Go-Go's because no female band had a
track record worth investing in.

Yet we were the cool band in town and execs and A&R men from all the labels
came to our shows that summer, including a big one in August at the Whisky with Oingo
Boingo and the Surf Punks. We were also filmed for Urgh! A Music War, a British
documentary on punk and new wave bands that featured Joan Jett, the Dead Kennedys,
the Police, XTC, Devo, UB40, and Echo & the Bunnymen, among the who's who.

As I recall, we were shot performing "We Got the Beat" in the back of a truck as
it cruised down Sunset. I wore a red Chinese dress and weighed about 175 pounds--
excess baggage from London and New York. At the time, Ginger was offering all of us
ten dollars for every pound we lost.

Miles Copeland, the founder of IRS Records, was working on the movie. At
thirty-six, he was a music-industry powerhouse and visionary who had started his label
when none of the established companies would sign the Police, which he managed. His
younger brother Stewart was the group's drummer, too. Now IRS was also home to the
Buzz-cocks, the Dead Kennedys, the Cramps, R.E.M., and Oingo Boingo.

We sensed that Miles was going to sign us. He had been sniffing around the band
for a long time. Ginger had been in discussions with him off and on. We liked him. But
as we wondered when it might happen, other questions about the band took precedence."

Westcoast meets eastcoast:



Also; more stuff on Rodney Bingenheimer please - is he still around?


In 1983, Christiane F. (Berlin/Bahnhof Zoo/Bowie) gave Bingenheimer some german records: Among them one from my first band. On his radioshow he played "99 Luftballons" from Nena ... and the rest is history.



This photo was taken years later, when Nena visted Rodney at K-ROQ to thank him for the support. The (almost) white square on the left is the cover of our single. At least he liked the cover.

I went to see a Belinda Carlisle gig at Liverpool University about 7 years ago. I was very diappointed when it turned out to be an unplugged concert. Had this been announced or made known I would not have gone. I have to say though she looked terrific for her age.
Here is one of my favourites which isa a Go gos song but she does a great job with her band.
Shades of Michael Angelo is another corker.