Handout 2 - Turn and Talk Activity Reading Gender in Two 1976 Articles by Harry Doherty

The Runaways: You Sexy Things! Harry Doherty, Melody Maker, 16 October 1976

"AW, C'MON, you guys at the front. Sit down and give the rest of the lads a view of the girls..." And that passionate request, my friends, succinctly crystallises the appeal of the Runaways. It's Eric's Place in Liverpool and California's lusty teenage exports have just finished their set and wait to take the encore.

But not until those goggling guys at the front of this dingy little club sit down and give the rest of us the chance to goggle and become depraved. They don't, but the encore goes on anyway. The Runaways came to England just three weeks ago and, in that time, they've succeeded in collating more publicity than most British bands will accumulate in a lifetime. But then not all British bands are aged around 17 and lip- smackingly female.

The band has barely been in existence a year, brought together in the Los Angeles backwaters by Kim Fowley, and their climb from the LA suburbs club, Wild Man Sam's (drawing about 20 punters a night), to headlining two nights running at London's Roundhouse (and filling it) has been, to say the least, meteoric. "When the Beatles play the Cavern again, we go back to Wild Man Sam's," bassist Jackie Fox (16) romantically notes as we head for downtown Liverpool.

The Runaways play rock and roll, and the only female precedent we have is Fanny, who broke up last year. But the two bands are very different.

Although they play a more respected music, the Runaways can be compared to the Bay City Rollers, for, like the Rollers, their main asset is most definitely their promiscuity. The fact that the Runaways actually can boogie a bit is a welcome surprise to their audiences, and because they do play fairly well – when they're not expected to – their talent and potential is wildly exaggerated.

Their commitment to rock and roll is impressive, and they're all convinced that their future will be bright.

"I don't think it will be a short-term thing," rhythm guitarist Joan Jett emphasised back at the hotel. "It is so different. We're not going to spend years and years working on making it. We're either going to make it next year, or not at all. It's that type of band.”

According to nymphette Jett, they could make a contribution akin to that of Presley, the Beatles and Bowie.

"We have a different point of view on a lot of things. We say things different. We have a different attitude to, say, a guy aged 30 who's singing about going out with a girl," and with a look of shock, she adds, "Did you know that the drummer in Spirit is 50?”

No, siree, being a female shall not hinder their ambitions. Marriage? "I'll never get married," Jett stubbornly announces.

There's also that unisex trait called bitchiness, and the Runaways are prone to a dose or two of it, like at the Liverpool soundcheck when Cherie and Joan clashed.

Joan, y'see, was tossing around the Jethro Tull 'Aqualung' riff with the rest of the band and generally playing the star, and Cherie couldn't hear her vocal through the monitors, so... "JOAN! Could you please stop that 'till we get this soundcheck done.”

The reprimand didn't work and they all start screaming at each other, until, from the back of the club, comes the sombre warning of manager, Scott Anderson.

"Right That's it." You could feel Anderson grit his teeth. "You have 15 minutes to get your asses together.”

The Runaways went home on Monday. They hope to return next Spring, when we'll discover if they're just another Yankee fad.

AC/DC: Marquee, London Harry Doherty, Melody Maker, 21 August 1976

THOSE PUZZLED by the Status Quo phenomenon should beware. AC/DC, from the same rock family, could wreak similar havoc, but they will only realise their full potential if, amid all the raucousness that inevitably surrounds power-chord bands, they better organise their assaults.

But whatever they do lack in presentation at the moment, the band is certainly making great strides towards becoming a major attraction, as was suggested by their Monday night residency at London's Marquee club. When I caught the band there last week, they had just broken another house attendance record, which, I'm told, they'd set themselves the previous week.

AC/DC have been tagged as an Australian band, though three of the members, brother guitarists Angus and Malcolm Young and singer Bon Scott, are Glaswegians, with only the rhythm section of drummer Philip Rudd and bassist Mark Evans being children of Melbourne.

Although I'm sure that the gig I saw at the Marquee, where sweat was shed by the bucketful, was an off- night for the band – sound troubles (twice), brought the gig to a halt – they did enough to show that they're a good boogie band, with apparently no pretentions about being anything else.

But I was left hoping, somewhere around the middle of their set, that they'd shatter the uniformity of riff, vocal and solo (in that order), which all tended to become much of a muchness after a while, and widen the scope a little.

The potential is there to do it if they'd only harness and direct the music, and vocalist Scott and punk guitarist Angus Young have certain charismatic qualities.

Scott, with his moody stare and distinctive Scottish voice, could be a first-class frontman instead of, as he strikes me, a poor cross between Alex Harvey and Stevie Marriott. His enthusiasm did seem a trifle contrived at times.

Seventeen-year-old Young, with his schoolboy uniform (discarded after the fourth number of the set because of sauna bath conditions), has hit on the really good gimmick of looking like a rock and roll Norman Wisdom, only more retarded.

Though not a great guitarist (solos over the one-minute mark became, to say the least, repetitive), he's a great showman.

Where do AC/DC go from the Marquee in murky Wardour Street? Judging from the wild reaction of their audiences, they could just about slip comfortably into Status Quo's shoes once they have pulled their socks up.