Original Sinner

ALIZA SHAPIRO — Wed, 11 Oct 2006 22:09:12 GMT

Joan Jett gets back in black
I met Joan Jett because of Lisa King. Unfortunately, it didn’t happen the way it was supposed to. Joan Jett, "A.C.D.C." (QuickTime)

SNARLING: Both in image and action, Jett the rebel helped lay the groundwork for the ’90s riot grrrl explosion.

I met Joan Jett because of Lisa King. Unfortunately, it didn’t happen the way it was supposed to. Lisa was a friend and an inspiration to many, a local punk poet and a National Poetry Slam champion. She’d invited me to NYC to meet her pal “JJ.” But I was always too busy, and I suggested they bus it to Boston for one of the shows I was producing. I had no idea that “JJ” was Joan Jett. Lisa had met Joan at a reading and the two had become fast friends. In 2004, Lisa moved back to Cambridge, and in February of this year she died unexpectedly. Her funeral services would be where “JJ” and I would ultimately meet.

Jett achieved mainstream stardom and MTV success in the ’80s. And she’s been a trailblazer for three decades. At 15, she joined the all-girl band the Runaways. When she wasn’t able to find a label deal after that, she and her manager/producer, Kenny Laguna, started their own — Blackheart. Both in image and action, Jett the rebel helped lay the groundwork for the ’90s riot grrrl explosion.

The snarly punk inside Jett was still very much alive in the ’90s, when she helped raise funds to find Gits singer Mia Zapata’s murderer by recording Evil Stig and then touring with the remaining members of Zapata’s band in ’95. Among other things, she produced and played on Bikini Kill’s “Rebel Girl” single and sang back-up on Paul Westerberg’s “Someone I Once Knew.” And now she’s back with her first album of new material in 12 years, Sinner, on Blackheart, and a show this Friday with Eagles of Death Metal at Avalon. She spoke with me over the phone from her home in New York.

You’ve always collaborated with Kenny Laguna, and on the new album you wrote with other people. Talk about your writing process.
I’m such a Virgo. I’m verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, verse, chorus. That’s how I learned when I was a teenager, and that’s how I write. I’ve got riffs recorded all over the place. My notebooks are full of chord progressions, song titles, and themes. I try to put it together like a puzzle. If I’m going to write with someone else, that’s what I’ll take to the session. I’ll go through my stuff, pick out what’s resonating with me, and carry those riffs or ideas to the session.

Forced exposure

ALIZA SHAPIRO — Thu, 20 Jul 2006 22:35:04 GMT

Peaches sounds off on sex, education, all-girl bands, and why the '80s were the gayest decade ever
Does Kate Moss really love Peaches more than she loves cocaine?

Peaches once appeared on an album cover wearing a fake beard, and she’s put together a shit-hot rock and roll band — including Samantha Maloney (Hole), Radio Sloan (the Need), and JD Samson (Le Tigre) — to tour behind her latest album, Impeach My Bush. ThePhoenix.com asked Aliza Shapiro — who booked Le Tigre’s first Boston show and produces Boston’s transgender cabaret spectacle TraniWreck — to interview Peaches, who is embarked on a tour opening for an enormous heavy metal band. During Shapiro’s interview, Peaches is riding on a bike across a fairgrounds in Milwaukee before a show with Nine Inch Nails. Like, she is on the bike and on the cell phone at the same time — totally multitasking, totally trying not to run down little babies, and occasionally allowing Nine Inch Nails fans an advance peek up her skirt. They talk about gender, Kate Moss, feminism, Ludacris, identity, and rock 'n' roll. What follows is, like, edited. Sort of. But not much. Seriously: don’t stop reading until you get at least as far as the part where she almost runs down the baby.

I think the Phoenix was interested in having me talk with you because I produce shows here and have worked with Le Tigre and the Need, so there was that connection, but I also produce a drag show called TraniWreck and it has lots of amazing gender-bending in all directions. That’s my way of saying I’m not a professional journalist and I just want to have a conversation and see what comes of it. Is that cool?
Yeah.

So you’re on tour with Nine Inch Nails now. How’s that going?
Surprisingly amazing.

Really?Are you getting a good response from the audience?
Yeah, I’m stage diving and they’re catching me. They’re not dropping me.

That would suck.
Yeah, but it could happen. They could be like, “Uggghhh, who is this bitch?!”

Do you ever worry about that? That people are gonna maul you?
Well, people have mauled me. Not very often. Id say 90 percent of the time it’s a good experience. But I’ve had some horrible experiences. You know, people just wanna put their hands where they shouldn’t go and stuff. I just grab their hand and I either pull them on stage and rat them out or I grab them in the same place, harder. I try to take action right there.