Video Diary: Kopecky Family Band on NPR

Song of the week: The Runaways -- Cherry Bomb

This group and song are sooooo different than last week's SoTW. Where the last song was a nice cheese and olive plate with some prosciutto and a chardonnay, this one is more corn dog and a Coke. The song is the enduring, highly entertaining, and lyrically perfect, Cherry Bomb. The band is The Runways, perhaps best known for spawning Joan Jett, Lita Ford and Cherie Curry. Cherry Bomb, an ominous song to mommy and daddy about how your teenage girls are about to run amok and throw your values out the window, was written by Joan Jett and producer, self-promoter extraordinaire, Kim Fowley.

In the song Cherie Curry expounds about her girls gone wild attitude:

Hey street boy, what's your style?

Your dead end dreams don't make you smile

I'll give you something to live for

Have you and grab you until you're sore

Hell daddy, hello mom

I'm your ch-ch-ch-ch-cherry bomb

Hello world, I'm your wild girld

I'm your ch-ch-ch-ch-cherry bomb!

Perfect, perfect, perfect! These gals were definitely out to scare some people and titillate others. And this song must have been dead on target when it was released in early 1976.

Just this past year, a movie about The Runaways, aptly titled, The Runaways, was released. It stars Dakota Fanning as Curry and Kristen Stewart as Joan Jett. (trailer below). It's an okay movie with very solid performances. Kim Fowley is portrayed by Michael Shannon, who tries to get to that creepy space that seems to be Kim Fowley. I had the opportunity to meet Fowley twice. Once at a party in San Francisco and then a few years later at a show for the Tell-Tale-Hearts in Los Angeles. The first meeting was very unsettling. The second one...I stayed away from him as much as I could. After the show, a friend of mine told me stories about Fowley and The Runaways that sounded all too familiar to my first meeting with the foul mouthed producer who made lots of promises at high costs.

Play it loud.

Until next time, we'll see you On The Flip-Side!

Song of the week: "Don't Think Twice, It's Alright", Bob Dylan

Listen - Bob Dylan performs Don't Think Twice, It's Alright (demo version)

Happy 70th birthday to Bob Dylan. Here he performs a demo version of Don't Think Twice, It's Alright, recorded in October of 1962.

Song of the Week: "Kid's Allright", Bettie Serveert

Listen - Bettie Serveert performs Kid's Allright

The amount of information I know about this early 90's band whom hailed from the Netherlands, could fill a thimble. I know the band name, Bettie Serveert, translates, roughly, as "Service to Bettie" and was taken from the auto biography of Dutch tennis player, Bettie Stove.

I love the rag tag production and the perfectly quirky arrangement of their song (our SoTW), Kid's Allright. Carol Van Dijk's vocals are buried and fuzzed, and the guitars come out of nowhere. These cats and their DIY production remind me of Television Personalities, whom we wrote about back in October of 2009.

Enjoy Bettie Serveert.

Video Diary: Booker T. Jones on NPR