Good Things Come To Those Who Wait...Even If It's 20 Years

When I was in my teens and early 20's I was a huge fan of the Runaways and Joan Jett.

They were the bomb. In my 16-year old eyes, they were chicks my age who apparently had the cojones to tell the establishment to f*** off, and break the boundaries of common conservative housefrau sensibility with pulsing hard rock-n-roll that could drive a kid like me to distraction heh, heh.

Don't get me wrong; I make no apologies for my teenage naivete. After all, it's one of the onion-layers of my current self - without which, I'd be a layer or so less interesting.

You see, I've been waiting for the release of this long-in-the-works film project for a couple of years now: Victory Tischler-Blue, a former Runaways bassist who's now an independent California filmmaker has created a critically-acclaimed-prior-to-its-release biopic of this girl band that changed the rules...or at least broke most of the them. Never mind that artists like Lil' Kim, Missy "Misdemeanor" Elliot or Pink put their wild ways to shame in the two-double-oh-trey; but my, these are different times in which we live in. We're talking about pioneers.

Sacred Dogs Entertainment is slated to release Edgeplay sometime in 2003, as well as Naked Under Leather, a biopic in the works on the groundbreaking rocker who influenced Joan Jett in the early 1970's, Suzi Quatro. Suzi's still alive and well and rocking in the UK...and she's got a BBC radio show you can listen to online.

The Runaways movie, a Suzi Quatro movie, and the new Exorcist prequel? Oh, man...whatta died-and-gone-to-heaven movie year for yours truly!

FilmThreat.com has a four-part interview with Victory Tischler-Blue on the making of Edgeplay. In her 2003 interview with Chris Parcellin, she says,

"The subject of The Runaways, for most of our parents, is a tough one, because just on a very base level, it required our parents to trust blindly people they didn’t know and, in all honesty, didn’t really want to know. It required our parents to let go of their teenaged girls and allow them to travel around the world, virtually unchaperoned, with a bunch of strangers. It required our parents to block out what their minds were screaming and listen only to their hearts – and that was to let us all go and realize our ambitions."

On one of the former Runaways - ironically the one most commercially successful today - who reportedly stonewalled the project repeatedly,

"For any artist, the greatest gifts are the freedom of speech and the ability to create. For another artist, especially one who has benefited so much from those freedoms, to set out to deliberately compromise, interfere with and block someone else’s right of freedom of expression by bullying and threatening nuisance lawsuits because that artist can afford to, makes me sick."

Problem was, back then in the 80's I didn't see or understand the behind-the-scenes manipulation the band members had to undergo at the hands of an unscrupulous manager, and just how little real empowerment came with the sound and fury. Thankfully, things are often different now, almost 30 years later. I heartily recommend this interview; it's an eye-opener.

Frankly, I think all the Machiavellian bullsh*te she's had to wade through to make this movie - from former bandmembers to ex-manager Kim Fowley himself - is a "high-boot" mark, even for the entertainment industry. You have to give this woman a ton of credit for making Edgeplay happen at all. I, for one, can't wait to plunk down my money to see it.

Note to Victory - you go, girl, all the way. Do not let anybody get in the way of letting your voice and vision be heard. When the lights go down and the chairs are on the tables, the only way an artist's soul rests is when its will is done.

(P.S.) I can not wait to see what wild search terms lead surfers to farkleberries after this posting...

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