Category Archives: Random Joan Jett

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The Twelve Days of Jettmas

JettBlue from over at The Sinners message board posted this over there last year. Enjoy!

The Twelve Days of Jettmas
Written by JettBlue

On the first day of Jettmas
Joan Jett gave to me
A concert in Miami

On the second day of Jettmas
Joan Jett gave to me
Two flicked picks, and a concert in Miami

On the third day of Jettmas
Joan Jett gave to me
Three French Songs, two flicked picks, and a concert in Miami

On the fourth day of Jettmas
Joan Jett gave to me
Four flippin’ birds, three French Songs,
Two flicked picks, and a concert in Miami

On the fifth day of Jettmas
Joan Jett gave to me five gold cds,
Four flippin’ birds, three French Songs,
Two flicked picks, and a concert in Miami

On the sixth day of Jettmas
Joan Jett gave to me
Dougie Needles playin’, five gold cds,
Four flippin’ birds, three French Songs,
Two flicked picks, and a concert in Miami

On the seventh day of Jettmas
Joan Jett gave to me
Seven fans a moshin‘, Dougie Needles playin’,
Five gold cds, flour flippin’ birds,
Three French Songs, two flicked’ picks, and a concert in Miami

On the eighth day of Jettmas
Joan Jett gave to me
Eght blondes a winkin‘, seven fans a moshin‘,
Dougie Needles playin‘, five gold cds,
Four flippin’ birds, three French Songs,
Two flicked picks, and a concert in Miami

On the ninth day of Jettmas
Joan Jett gave to me
Nine Aussies dancin’, eight blondes a winkin’,
Seven fans a moshin’, Dougie Needles playin‘,
Five gold cds, four flippin’ birds,
Three French Songs, two flicked picks, and a concert in Miami

On the tenth day of Jettmas
Joan Jett gave to me
Ten hot guys in leather, nine Aussies dancin’,
Eight blondes a winkin’, seven fans a moshin’,
Dougie Needles playin’, five gold cds,
Four flippin’ birds, three French Songs,
Two flicked picks, and a concert in Miami

On the eleventh day of Jettmas
Joan Jett gave to me
Eleven strings a strummin‘, ten hot guys in leather,
Nnine Aussies dancin‘, eight blondes a winkin’,
Seven fans a moshin’, Dougie Needles playin‘,
Five gold cds, four flippin’ birds,
Three French Songs, two flicked picks, and a concert in Miami

On the twelfth day of Jettmas
Joan Jett gave to me
Thommy Price a drummin’, eleven strings a strummin’, no more Enzo, bummer! ten hot guys in leather, nine Aussies dancin’, eight blondes a winkin’,
Seven fans a moshin’, Dougie Needles playin‘, five gold cds, four flippin’ birds, three French Songs, two flicked picks, and a bass player named “Acey”

~

* yes, as pointed out by Dr Zed, there are more than 12 gifts..originally there were 13. with the reference to Enzo, but i wouldn’t want this to be misunderstood, i liked Enzo, his leaving is not a gift so this has been removed.  now, including Acey, the “gifts” still total 13..but that would be typical JoanJett/Blackheart..always giving more …so i think it all works just fine.

Merry Jettmas Everybody!!!!!!!

Cute! Can you think of new lyrics for this year?

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Adopt Joan Jett (the cat) for Black Friday

Getting trampled for a $200 TV isn’t my thing, but if I lived in Seattle I’d probably enjoy this deal: the Seattle Humane Society is offering free adoption of black cats today, including one named Joan Jett! So cute!

Details and pics here:

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/tailsofseattle/2016845584_black_friday_cat_special_and_other_pet_events.html

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Joan Jett is now a FREE FONT!

PC World reports that there is a new font available for download: “JETT”!

From PCWorld.com: "Jett’s B and V rotate and combine to create a black heart, but that’s not the only trick this font can do."

Here’s a tale of two cities. She’s a Philadelphia-born rocker known for driving beats and in-your-face lyrics. He’s a Parisian design student with a guitar hero alter-ego and a handful of pixel bricks. What bad grrrl guitarist Joan Jett and apprentice typographer Izzy-sparks have in common is a heart made for rock and a homage font as black and distressed as the lead singer’s wardrobe. Jett (free) is a display font with attitude to spare.

Jett was created as part of a class assignment to capture the essence of a favorite artist using Rob Meek’s online application FontStruct. The work began as a clone of another FontStruction. Designers in the FontStruct community encourage cloning (copying a font set) by choosing a Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike license. This was the case with Formal Roman, a FontStruction inspired by, (but not a direct copy of) Minion Pro, an Adobe font designed by Robert Slimbach in 1990.
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It’s hard not to like this outsider with an attitude. Jett is a solid tribute to a musician who continues to play past the critics, even as Izzy-sparks’s characters, blurred and distressed as they are, stand ready to strike the perfect chord for clubwise designers.

Read the full article at PCWorld.com HERE. Download the font HERE.

OK PEEPS, who wants to make me a new header graphic for Born to be Jetthead using this rad new font? (I totally BLOW at making graphics, so I could use the help.) My header image is 990 x 180. Email submissions to born2bjetthead@gmail.com or post to your twitpic, flickr, etc., and send me the link in the comments. 🙂 I will feature the best submissions on the blog.

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VIDEO: Gwyneth Paltrow sings ‘Do You Wanna Touch Me’ on Glee

Last night’s episode of Glee (March 8th) featured a performance of Joan Jett’s version of Gary Glitter’s “Do You Wanna Touch Me (Oh Yeah)”, or “Touch”, as Jettheads like to call it. 🙂 (Have you seen our Glossary page? No? Look up. 🙂 )

Here’s the clip:

I gotta confess… This isn’t my cup of tea. I haven’t enjoyed full-on musicals since Grease. And the “Once More with Feeling” episode of Buffy. But it got JOAN JETT to trend WORLDWIDE on Twitter, at least briefly, so I AM DOWN!

TRIVIA TIME:

This isn’t the first time Gwyneth Paltrow channeled Joan in a performance. She hosted Saturday Night Live on February 6, 1999 (Season 24, Episode 12) and performed a skit called “Behind the Music: Joan Jett”. Personally, I found it kind of insulting. Read the transcript HERE and judge for yourself. Here’s a pic (Source: http://snl.jt.org/ep.php?i=199902060)

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Joan Jett/Runaways memorabilia stolen near Chicago

YIKES!!

From the Daily Herald’s Northwest suburban police blotter:

[In Arlington Heights, suburb of Chicago, Illinois]

• Thieves stole memorabilia (magazines, posters and records) of the rock group The Runaways and Joan Jett out of two unlocked chests in the bedroom and living room at an apartment … on an unknown date but reported Feb. 16. Value was estimated at $3,000.

Read more: http://www.dailyherald.com/article/20110218/news/702189951/#ixzz1Eegp8ceX

Fellow Jetthead, if you are reading this, my heart goes out to you. Let us know if we can help. I’m willing to bet that the person who took your stuff is NOT a Jetthead, because I don’t think we could do this to each other!

(((HUGS)))

EDIT: If you live in the Chicago area and have any information about this crime, please contact your local police and report it.

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Random Joan Jett: “Rules to Rock By” book & soundtrack

A new tween book by writer and musician Josh Farrar, Rules to Rock By, tells the story of a middle school student that starts her own rock band. The book has a soundtrack too: A studio band plays the part of the book’s band, The Bungles, and it includes a song called “What Would Joan Jett Do?”, a catchy tune that, ironically, partially “borrows” the melody from “I Want Candy”–the Bow Wow Wow version of which was produced by our own Kenny Laguna. I’ve only heard a snippet of the song on Amazon, but to me it sounds different than both The Launderettes’ and Tricksy’s songs of the same name, so I don’t think it’s a cover of either one. (If I’m wrong, please let me know and I’ll correct this post. How many different songs called “What Would Joan Jett Do?” are out there, anyway? Did I miss any?)

Here’s an excerpt from a review on parentdish.com:

The Book: Annabelle Cabrera, the protagonist of “Rules to Rock By” is not just any random teen looking to play music. By age 11, she was already fronting a kid rock band that had a devoted following and was opening for grown-up acts in New York City. Then her parents decided to move the family to Rhode Island.

Determined not to let her musical saga come to and early end, Annabelle seeks out new bandmates in her new school — and is shocked to find that her suburban community already has its fair share of local teen bands. She’s going to have to prove herself as a rocker all over again.

Annabelle makes a wonderfully likable narrator, a young girl who makes decisions by asking herself, “What would Joan Jett do?” She struggles with missing old friends, making new friends, becoming jealous of new friends, bonding with her former-musician parents and watching out for her troubled little brother. All the markings of a great coming-of-age novel are here, but with a layer of “Almost Famous” rock star angst added in. Don’t worry, though — no sex or drugs here. Just rock ‘n’ roll.

Read the rest of the review HERE. Read more about the project and a short bio of the author HERE.

You can order the book HERE and the soundtrack HERE. Here’s the book’s trailer:

Also check out the official website, where you can hear tracks from the album, and follow the book on Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace.

I’m not a tween, but as a Jetthead, the Joan Jett references and subject matter are irresistible to me. If you’ve read it, let me know how you liked it!

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The Hillywood Show’s “Runaways” parody is here!

I think The Hillywood Show’s parodies are less about poking fun and more about celebration. Their seamless incorporation of music into their features takes the typical film parody and mixes it up with a little Weird Al Yankovic, which I like, very much.

For The Runaways, Hilly and Hannah Hindi, and their network of awesome friends, used the story of the band to tell their own story of how they became internet sensations. I’m sure explaining to people that you want to make intricate YouTube videos–for free–instead of doing something “normal” has gotten them just as many weird looks as Joan Jett got when she said she wanted to  play guitar for a living instead of taking shorthand and having babies. It fits.

As usual, The Hillywood Show’s the attention to detail–with settings, costumes, and acting–are just stunning. This is a must-see.

I don’t know if these people consider themselves to be Joan Jett or Runaways fans, but I’m going to let them be honorary Jettheads even if they don’t. Great job!! 😀

Follow The Hillywood Show on Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, and YouTube. If you support their grass-roots style of art, click the “Donate” link on their site, or buy some of their merchandise: 10% of all proceeds from merchandise sales go to St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital, so you’re supporting two great causes for your money. Good deal.

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The Hillywood Show parody of “The Runaways”

The folks at The Hillywood Show are famous for their hilarious, spot-on parodies of popular movies, including Twilight, New Moon, and The Dark Knight.

They have turned their talents to The Runaways next, and shooting of the parody wrapped on June 8th. The video is due out this month.

I can’t wait!!

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A Joan Jett t-shirt gets banned in a middle school

A t-shirt of Joan Jett wearing a Sex Pistols t-shirt was banned in a middle school. The girl was an 8th grade student, and her mother told the story on her blog:

I am not sure if this was an official censor. Last month my 8th grade daughter came home from school to tell me that her Health Ed teacher told her that she could not wear her Joan Jett T-shirt to school anymore. “Mom, a lot of the teachers told me it was cool” she mused. In the T-shirt Joan Jett is wearing a t-shirt that says “Sex Pistols”. The word sex was offensive to the teacher.
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My daughter has been a big fan of Joan Jett since the movie the Runaways had been released.  We had been collecting Joan Jett T-shirts on all of our trips to New York City. She purchased this particular one with her father and grandmother at Trash & Vaudeville on St. Marks.

Read the rest HERE.

Now, I’m not interested in debating censorship in schools. I went to Catholic school, so uniform restrictions are not weird to me. The world of academia is full of crap like this, and once you leave school it all goes away–to be replaced by crap in “the real world.”

The interesting part of this story is actuallly the response from this woman’s daughter, the offended party in question, in the comments on the blog:

As the daughter with the tee shirt in question, I’m offended you’ve stated that The Runaways movie is what prompted my love of Joan Jett. If anything, my reaction to the movie was, “Ooh, a movie will be released on one of the most influential female rock bands in history, what luck,” not, “Ooh, I just saw this amazing movie, I want to know who this band is!”

With the statement of the movie setting the Joan Jett love off, it has implications that I watched the movie for reasons other than the music. Those reasons, in this entertainment climate, are more likely than not the actress playing Joan Jett- Kristen Stewart. Kristen Stewart has a number of fangirls, who have followed her work since Twilight, the utter travesty it is.

Your statement of how I discovered the Runaways, in effect, implies that I am a Twilight fan, and that right there is far from the truth.

[/End irrelevant rant.]

Yes, I saw the irony, especially as the lesson that day was on sex.
–gianttacosalad

Insults to Twilight aside, I am EXTREMELY impressed with this Jetthead”s intelligence! Not just in her collegiate-level vocabulary (she will KICK ASS on her SAT’s), but in her thorough knowledge, acceptance, and unconditional love of Joan Jett and The Runaways. This is the smartest 13-year-old (or soon-to-be-13-year-old) on the planet. I am perfectly comfortable leaving this world in her hands when I die.

I just have one message for “gianttacosalad”: You’re wrong about Kristen Stewart and her fans. They’ve been around since well before Twilight. Kristen has made many cool movies that her fans, including me, love her for. Think of it this way: Twilight is Kristen Stewart’s I Love Rock -n- Roll. If someone had accused YOU of only loving Joan Jett because of I Love Rock-n-Roll, I bet you’d be pissed. [/End totally relevant rant.]

Welcome to the Jetthead fandom, gianttacosalad! *waves* We’re proud to count you in our numbers! 😀

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Is the “Ghost Whisperer” a Joan Jett fan?

I spotted Jennifer Love Hewitt’s character, Melinda Gordon, wearing black hearts in two recent episodes of CBS’s The Ghost Whisperer.

So, is Melinda a Joan Jett fan? You be the judge.

Exhibit A: “Dead Eye,” Season 5, Episode 18, original air date: April 9, 2010

Jennifer Love Hewitt's Melinda Gordon wearing a white skirt covered in black hearts. Property of CBS.

Source — YouTube

Exhibit B: “Lethal Combination,” Season 5, Episode 19, original air date: April 30, 2010

Jennifer Love Hewitt's Melinda Gordon, wearing a top covered in black hearts. Property of CBS.

Source: My TV.

The Ghost Whisperer airs Friday nights at 8:00PM Eastern time on CBS.

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Joan Jett in 2009: Movies, TV Shows, and Books

The Runaways movie was by far the biggest Joan Jett project of 2009, but it wasn’t the only one. Here is a summary of all of the books, movies, and TV shows from 2009 that contained either appearances by Joan, contributions by Joan, or references to Joan. Continue reading →

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“Remembering the Riverboat President”; Joan Jett mention

My third Joan Jett concert was at the end of June 1997, at a place called Graffiti in the Oakland section of Pittsburgh. I was in the first or second row, just to the left of Joan’s microphone. The venue stands out as one of my favorites because the stage only hit me at my knee or thigh, and I’m only 5-foot-3-inches tall. This brought Joan close enough that I didn’t have to strain to reach her hand when she offered it, and I could rub the top of her then-buzzed blond sweaty head when she leaned into us during “I Wanna Be Your Dog.” I haven’t been that close to Joan since, and I would love to see her perform at Graffiti again, but I can’t. Graffiti doesn’t exist anymore.

Graffiti is just one of probably hundreds of venues that Joan has performed in that no longer exist, but the memories created in them last a lifetime.

Doug MacCash was a bartender on the Riverboat President in New Orleans, a ship that stopped cruising there almost 25 years ago. Joan Jett is one of the dozens of performers that Doug remembers in his article on http://www.nola.com. After reading his memories, I miss this boat–and I’ve never even seen it.

The President was a 1924-vintage cruise boat. Wide. White. Three decks. A cross between a manatee and a wedding cake. Ask anybody: It was the coolest nightclub in town.

Roy Orbison. Joan Jett. Tina Turner was, of course, born to go rollin’, rollin’, rollin’ on a river.

SS President.jpg

Times-Picayune archive The SS President

I always had the best seat in the house. I was one of the bartenders, stationed right in front of the stage, in the blare of the speakers. I was twenty-something. It’s amazing that I can still hear. When Gary Numan played, the booze bottles rattled like castanets.

Read the rest of the article HERE. Joan Jett’s name is the only thing mentioned about her in this article, but it is still a great example of how music connects people to each other, and how the places we visit can become like friends and family. It’s definitely worth a read.

And, thanks to someone saving a list of performers from back then, I know that Joan Jett and the Blackhearts performed on “The Prez,” as they called it, on October 11, 1983. It’s on the top of page 4. I’ve added this date to the concert archive.

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Random Joan Jett: ThinkGeek.com ad

As a female, I now have a whole new reason to be scared for my boobs: The folks at ThinkGeek.com are selling a t-shirt that you can play the guitar on. It comes with a mini battery-powered amp that you clip onto your belt, and magnetic picks for strumming. And it came across my radar because they used one to butcher play “I Love Rock ‘N’ Roll” in a commercial:

Source

Here’s what I don’t get: They’re playing one of the world’s most recognized guitar riffs ever played by a female musician, yet I cannot imagine how a female could ever use this shirt! Nipple bruising does not sound like fun to me. I winced through the entire video. Think about it this way guys: Would you buy a pair of drum kit boxer shorts so you could smack your balls all day to Welcome to the Jungle? I’m going to bet “no.”

Seriously, if you are female with $29.99 plus tax, shipping, handling, and no fear for your boobs WHATSOEVER, please buy one of these shirts and tell me how bad it hurts. And send me the video of you butchering playing a Joan Jett or Runaways song.

Maybe we can get ThinkGeek to donate a portion of their profits for this shirt to breast cancer research.

(And I hope it’s understood–and explicitly explained in the owner’s manual–that you should never wear this contraption in the rain. I love rock ‘n’ roll too, but I wouldn’t die for it. Well, at least not in such a geektastic way.)

Thanks to http://www.kelowna.com for the original tip.

(And yes, I’m being sarcastic on purpose.)