As with The Doors' latest celluloid outing 'When You're Strange', the story of THE RUNAWAYS is steeped in the romance and mystique of Hollywood.
Theirs is certainly a story worth telling and one in which a few myths ought to be exploded, so let's start at the beginning. The accepted story of the all-girl rawk'n'roll trailblazers has it that scenester/ svengali Kim Fowley discovered and moulded them. That's not entirely true. He gave drummer Sandy West guitarist Joan Jett's phone number and helped get the ball rolling. He also produced a fair bit of their stuff. However, the girls learnt their stuff and wrote the songs (save for a few choice covers) so Fowley's input is perhaps a tad exaggerated.
The second (broadly) inaccurate 'fact' surrounding The Runaways was that they were the first all-girl 'Punk' supergroup. Again not entirely kosher. They existed for an all-too-brief period from 1975-1978 and hung around with the Pistols and The Damned in the UK, thus establishing their Punk credentials. Rather like The Ramones, though, these lippy Californian girls loved their Rock'n'Roll and for them 1976 was hardly Year Zero.
That's made quite clear by this extensive 'Mercury Albums Anthology' set. It's an exactly-what-it-says-on-the-sleeve outing, collecting the band's three studio LPS and the self-explanatory 'Live in Japan'. The self-titled debut is the best, supplying the blueprint, but also showcasing a group in love with the past as well as present. Songs like 'You Drive Me Wild' or 'Is It Day Or Night?' are stuffed with the kind of heavy Glam riffs previously peddled by The Sweet or the original Riot Grrl Suzi Quatro, whose throaty vocal delivery is clearly the catalyst for Runaways singer Cherie Currie.
There IS Proto-Punk energy in spades, not least in the hormonal rush of 'Cherry Bomb' and the sassy, cowbell-infused cover of Lou Reed's 'Rock'n'Roll', but Lita Ford's flashy lead guitar and a song like the stack-heeled strut of 'Blackmail' would sit easier on Thin Lizzy's 'Jailbreak' than 'Never Mind The Bollocks'.The whole kit and caboodle is rounded off by the ridiculous Teen mag girlie borstal breakout number 'Dead End Justice', which is ridiculous but - like the whole LP - great, riff-heavy fun for all.
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They never quite matched it afterwards. There's a whole lotta myth-making going on during the follow-up 'Queens of Noise' (titles like 'Neon Angels on the Road to Ruin' and 'I Love Playin' With Fire' make that plain) but the production lets it down, especially poor Sandy West, whose drums sound like they were recorded underwater. There's the odd hint of progression (notably the Phil Spector sweetness of parts of 'Born To Be Bad' and the almost-ballad 'Heartbeat') but what possessed them to include the sludgy blues of 'Johnny Guitar' one can only imagine.
Outside of their native California, the girls' primary market was Japan and they experienced their very own bout of Beatle mania out there. It's accurately documented on the ecstatically-received 'Live In Japan', but this release was really a holding operation while singer Cherie Currie and bassist Jackie Fox quit, leaving Joan Jett alone in the vocal spotlight for the final studio effort 'Waitin' for the Night'. Again, it can't compete with the debut, but it's a spirited effort, with tracks like 'Little Sister' and 'Gotta Get Out Tonight' up there with their snottiest and best and 'Wait For Me' allowing a little romanticism to seep into the raunchiness.
Like all great Rock'n'Roll stories, The Runaways flew fast and burnt out quickly, literally falling apart after 'Waitin' For The Night'. They'd said and done what they needed to by then and left a very good-looking corpse. Joan Jett's would be the only notable solo success story later on, but the femme Rock baton they left continues to be passed from The Go-Go's to younger pretenders like The Donnas, enriching Rock'n'Roll's DNA along the way. Nuff respect.
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