The Runaways (Film Review) and Keith Richards: Life (Book Review)

I became curious about The Runaways because of this review; the music and the group itself, I have to admit, was unknown to me. (I mean, obviously I know who Joan Jett is, I know several of her solo songs, and I saw her on screen in Light of Day with Michael J. Fox, not to mention that appearance in Highlander, but the Runaways as a group I hadn't known existed. I probably was too young in the mid-70s.) So I had no bias, preferences or expectations other than of the genre - rock group makes it and breaks - and how it would play out with a female group, based on the autobiography of one member, co-produced by another and directed by a female director.

( Sex, drugs and rock'n roll, female version )

I also got around to reading the much discussed Keith Richards memoirs, Life, which made for an interesting counterpart.

( Sex, drugs and rock'n roll, male version )

Something, or the perils of marrying a Beatle, plus photos by Linda McCartney

Treasures you find at YouTube, #14533: the original promo for Something. Which is... something. Apparantly whoever shot it - the busy Michael Lindsay-Hogg, or was he too busy being traumatized by the rough cut of Let it Be at that point? - had the bright idea that since this is a love song, the four Beatles should pose with their respective significant others (at that point: Yoko, Linda, Pattie and Maureen) and demonstrate the joys of romance. Now, the ladies are doing just fine in the result, but the guys... George, whose big song this is, glowers throughout as if someone just told him Frank Sinatra called it his favourite Lennon/McCartney tune. (Or as if Eric Clapton just broke the news of being in love with Pattie, but I think it's a bit too early for that.) John is stone faced throughout, with a very brief grimace of an exception. Paul by contrast tries desperately to look jolly and cheerful and only succeeds looking like a crazy axe murderer (the beard helps). Ringo looks like he's thinking "are we done shooting this yet so Mo and I can go home?" Though he and Maureen win the most convincing on screen couple stakes. Judge for yourself:

How is this for a depressing thought: more than half of the people in this video are dead now (John, Maureen, Linda and George), with Yoko, Paul and Ringo as the sole survivors. On a related but brighter note, this reminds me of something I've been meaning to post. Pattie once joked that dating a Beatle, let alone marry one, was like joining the French Resistance, and she wasn't completely wrong. At least at the beginning of each relationship, fannish hatred was certain to be yours. Cynthia Lennon was the only one who went through the indignity of being hidden away and having to pretend she didn't exist at the start because Brian Epstein thought John being married would be a detriment to fannish hopes. (To say nothing of Brian's hopes, biographer Bob Spitz adds a bit cattily.) It didn't last long, not with the amount of public attention the Beatles were getting, and later girlfriends/wives didn't have to put up with it. This didn't make their lives that much easier. Maureen got her face scratched when Ringo became the second Beatle to tie the knot. Pattie had to disguise herself as a chamber maid to get out of the hotel where she was staying at with George. The absolut maximum of fannish hostility, though, was reserved for Linda and Yoko, who at the time of the break-up were often singled out as culprits not just by fangirls and -boys but even in the so called "serious" media. (My parents, for example, were absolutely convinced that animosity between Linda and Yoko broke up the Beatles. Why? Because they remembered reading it in the papers at the time. Pointing out that by the time Linda encountered Yoko, the Beatles were already in free fall and that they hardly interacted enough to form any kind of relationship, hostile or otherwise, was greeted with much surprise.)

Since Yoko is the better known woman (and hostility towards her became proverbial and made it to more recent stupid flowcharts as well as several spirited defense posts), I'll write about Linda. Now, the Linda hatred started to ebb away from the mid-80s onwards - probably due to a combination of sheer endurance (i.e. the stabiliity of the McCartney marriage and -family which was and is rare in the rock business), animal rights' campaigning and vegeterianism, and by the time she died of cancer in 1998, she was downright popular. Though occasionally you come across the old hostility revived. Germaine Greer for example, quoting witticisms like "what do you call a cow with wings? Linda McCartney!" and wondering "if Stella McCartney knew her mother was once known as Linda Starfucker". Then there is the latest McCartney biography by Howard Sounes, which I won't buy because the excerpts I read in newspapers contained such gems like "By marrying Paul, Linda instantly became a public figure — but opinion about her was always divided. Almost everybody I interviewed who knew her personally spoke very warmly of her, yet people in the media — myself included — found her a gauche, abrasive woman lacking in charm". And the usual hypocrisy of the press writing of the 60s who on the one hand reports male rock stars' promiscuity with an undertone of admiration but immediately cries "groupie!" in disdain when a woman in the same era also practised free love. Mr. Sounes would have us know that the woman's postumous image as as vegetarian saint is false because, shock horror, she slept with "probably 20 men" in the 60s before her marriage to Paul. And this sexist crap gets printed in 2010, not 1970. No money for this book from me, H.S., so thanks for getting these excerpts printed as a warning.

When the former Linda Eastman died, most headlines and obituaries picked of the various professions she had "photographer"; several collections of her photography are available both in print and online. Below the cut are some favourites of mine, demonstrating why she was indeed an excellent photographer.

( The Rolling Stones, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, Yoko Ono and some people from Liverpool await )