![]() ![]() The Runaways dissolved in 1979, and that year, the then-hard-partying Jett contracted a heart infection that nearly killed her. "Am I not a fan, a man who while not entirely asexual, bought the Runaways records right from the start and actually took off the shrink wrap and played them?" British writer Sandy Robertson asked in “Sounds” in 1977 - the type of sort-of-well-meaning, yet still-kind-of-gross returns to the sexist mean that tinged reactions to The Runaways and so many of the all-woman bands that followed them. ![]() Reading reviews of The Runaways from the time can be nauseating. "It went from 'cute, sweet' to 'slut, whore, cunt.'" (The film does not touch on allegations from 2015 that Runaways manager Kim Fowley, who has since died, sexually assaulted band member Jackie “Fox” Fuchs.) "But once they realized it was serious -that we planned to make an album, and go on tour, and do everything male bands were doing, the tables turned," she recalls in the documentary. Jett notes that when people involved with the Los Angeles rock scene - musicians, promoters, concert attendees - viewed The Runaways as a novelty act, their reception was positive, if pat-on-the-head condescending. They opened for the likes of Cheap Trick and Van Halen - but squaring the circle between being women and being rockers was difficult. (While her snarl has since become one of rock's most iconic voices, she felt too shy at first to handle lead-singer duties, which were handled by Cherie Currie until 1977.) The group, whose razor-wire guitars and unapologetic songs like "Queens of Noise" and "I Love Playin' With Fire," took cues from glam and punk as well as metal. Jett formed The Runaways, her first band, in California in 1975. ![]()
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