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Author
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Topic: Main Sandy West Thoughts Thread
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RockNSoul
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posted October 28, 2006 05:59 PM
I do a monthly Internet radio show with Black Sabbath drummer Bill Ward, who today on the show had a few words to say about Sandy.You can hear what Bill had to say here: http://mikestark.net/WardonWest.mp3 Mike Stark My Hometown - http://mikestark.net "What's so funny 'bout peace, love and understanding" - NL
"We learned more from a three minute record, than we ever learned in school." - BS
"Patriotism requires debate" - TS
Posts: 3 | From: Lakewood, California | Registered: Oct 2006 | IP: Logged | Problem w/ Post?
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gus danger
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posted November 04, 2006 12:56 AM
Previous experience tells me this link will only be good for a few days so I will post this article in it's entirety.L.A.Weekly November1, 2006
http://www.laweekly.com/music/music/goodnight-drummer-girl/14916/ quote:
Sandy West, the formidable drummer whose taut, brawny traps work propelled mid-’70s all-grrl phenom the Runaways to dizzying heights, died on Saturday, October 21, from lung cancer. West was only 47 years old, and it’s a **** shame, in part because West’s work was so grossly underrated by the many who reserved the Runaways little more than scorn. Plagued by the perpetual, misogynistic chicks-can’t-really-rock syndrome, the Runaways were an exceptional torpedo to that tired hulk, and West herself represented perhaps its most convincing refutation, because she didn’t do anything but just-f***ing-straight-ahead rock it. A Southern California beach girl with a legitimate rock & roll fetish, she had begun playing Zeppelin and Sabbath covers at age 13 with an otherwise all-male garage band on the numbingly active teenage kegger circuit. A chance 1975 meeting with Strip Svengali Kim Fowley at the Rainbow changed all that; bear in mind that West was just 15, one of an army of local hip chicks who thought nothing of hitchhiking dozens of miles to dig in at Rodney’s English Disco or the Starwood (spots full of the quasi-Humbertish likes of Bingenheimer and Fowley, trolling for teen thrillers who might be able to jump-start a new scene). After Fowley led her to Joan Jett, the earliest incarnation of the Runaways was born. While Fowley was bent on exploiting a weird national obsession with redefining the teenage girl (a Zeitgeist that also involved Suzi Quatro, Tanya Tucker, Jodie Foster in Taxi Driver and Brooke Shields in Pretty Baby), Jett and West were downright serious bad-*** rockers. Once Lita Ford and Cherie Currie got into it, there was no stopping them. Even as punk rock set out to murder rock & roll, the Runaways jolted it back into life, treading the mainstream’s shadowy borderline with gorgeous abandon and a set list bristling with undeniable killers: Cherry Bomb, I Love Playing With Fire, Getting Hot, You Drive Me Wild and dozens more. The band faced stacks of dismissive **** that tagged them an annoying novelty or, as Trouser Press’ Ira Robbins sniffed, a fake rebel band; but, as West told a Metal Maidens interviewer in 2000, The musicianship was so good and so powerful, I never worried about that. The Runaways refused to break stride, and began burning down houses around the world, gaining a rabid international following even as Fowley’s under-my-thumb methodology grew heavier and more debilitating. Through all the insults, postshow adolescent high-jinks and foul drama, West sat back on the riser and drove the **** thing with a muscular, metronomic brilliance worthy of the best male rocker. An exuberant and powerful drummer, Joan Jett said, so underrated, she was the caliber of John Bonham. While West did lead her own mid-’80s band for a time, her brief, almost incalculably influential work with the Runaways guarantees her well-deserved immortality.
[ November 04, 2006 12:57 AM: Message edited by: gus danger ]
Posts: 8130 | From: West of the Pecos | Registered: May 2001 | IP: Logged | Problem w/ Post?
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Jett Ford
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posted November 08, 2006 05:29 PM
I was seven years old in 1977. My folks worked on Saturdays, and they would drop me off at my cousin's house. Tina, my cousin, was 18 at the time, played a gibson guitar, and listened to rock and roll. She plopped me down on the floor, put the album jacket to "Queens of Noise" in my lap, and put on the record.
I was hooked. At seven years old.
I specifically remember pointing to the girl on the far right of the cover, hanging back off the pole, and said "i like THAT one!!!"
This went on, Saturday after Saturday, I'd listen in Tina's room to the first two albums, comb through CREEM and Circus magazines (not the mention the Crawdaddy issue I wanted her to give to me so badly) and dream about what the band must be like. My cousin and I would trade off opinions about songs, albums, members. We'd list our favorites in order, they'd always change, but for me as a kid, Sandy West was always number one.
Then "Waitin' for the Night" came out, and I'd stare at the cover for hours, wondering what happened to Jackie and Cherie, studying the "new girl" with the little star tattoo on her wrist, and loving that record so much.
From that year, 1977 to now, I've never lost momentum in my fierce love and passion for The Runaways. They were always my special secret, my special friends. Anyone close to me always knew of my obsession with them, and to this day I'll bump into an old friend, and they'll say something like "do you still love The Runaways"?With all of that said, I still cannot get over the loss of whom I felt was a dear friend, even though I'd never gotten to meet her. My original inspiration, and one I'd always rooted for and dreamed along with over almost 30 years.
It is my hope that she is at blissful peace, an even bigger part of all of our spirits. May she rest in peace.
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