Band Management: Blog 27: Joan Jett and Joe Strummer
How did I get into this? Into managing “Band A” for a year? Into the Holy Crap Records Podcast thing? Here’s the answer: a photo Joan Jett’s and Joe Strummer’s guitar, from an exhibit in NYC. I ask people how they got into music, when they got the hook? Well, I have an older brother who knows everything. He lives in Berlin and has one of those massive collections of vinyl. When I was a teenager he’d read the English music magazines and on my birthday he’d buy me albums which he really wanted to own. I got “London Calling” by The Clash. I got “Floodland” by Sisters of Mercy. I got “Unknown Pleasures” by Joy Division. He told me you could either like New Order or the Pet Shop Boys and you had to choose sides, and I went out and bought “Low-Life” and then “Substance” by New Order. My freshman year in college by roommate owned The Waterboys “Fisherman’s Blues” and The Pixies “Doolittle.” Doolittle was a massive album for me – because it wasn’t something my brother handed to me – it was all mine. I would say that was the moment music really got a hook in me. After college I moved to New York City and went to the final days of CBGBs. CBGBs was cheap entertainment. You could get in for $5 and drink cheap beer and watch 3-4-5 bands a night. Once I saw a young guy with all these older leathery musicians backing him. He had a wrist cast and still played guitar and jumped up on the bass drum – and everything he sang was the absolute truth. I’ve been a writer and I work in video – but, look, I only read music biographies and I only watch music documentaries. I listen to music all the time and talk about it and share new favorite songs. I can’t get enough of it. So this Saturday I went to NYC and to the MET, and there was an exhibit of rock-n-roll instruments. I walked around these darkened rooms, with all these guitars and drums and keyboards. I wasn’t so impressed with Chuck Berry’s guitar or The Beatles instruments – but then I stood in front of Joan Jett and Joes Strummer’s guitars. I was at a holy shrine. Everything seemed to disappear. The guitars glowed. These holy relics…
