Neon Angel: A Memoir of a Runaway
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- ISBN13: 9780061961359
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Product Description
Cherie Currie, with her signature Bowie haircut and fishnet stockings, was the groundbreaking lead singer of ’70s teenage all-girl rock band the Runaways. At the tender age of fifteen, she joined a group of talented girls—Joan Jett and Lita Ford on guitar, Jackie Fox on bass, and Sandy West on drums—who could play rock like no one else.
Arriving on the Los Angeles composition scene in 1975, they catapulted from playing tiny clubs to selling out major stadiums, headlining shows with opening acts like the Ramones, Van Halen, Cheap Trick, and Blondie. Currie lit up the stage with the provocative teen-uprising songs “Cherry Bomb,” “Queens of Noise,” and “Born to Be Terrible,” riding a wave of hit songs and platinum albums, all while touring around the world.
On the face of it, Currie’s is a riveting tale of girl empowerment and fame. But it is also an intensely personal account of her struggles with drugs, sexual abuse, and violence. She and her bandmates, runaways all, were thrown into a decadent, high-pressure composition scene where on the road, unsupervised for months at a time, they had to grow up quick and experience things that no teenage girls should. Neon Angel exposes the side of the composition industry fans never get to see, and chronicles the group’s rise to fame and their essential demise.
Shocking and inspiring, amusing and touching, Neon Angel stunningly re-makes a bygone era of rock and roll, all the while providing an inside look at growing up hard under the relentless glare of the public eye, and chronicling one tough woman’s fight to reclaim her life.
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This is simple. one of the best reads of the year, brutaly honest, with high’s & low’s. A tale of excess & abuse, but also in the end what really matters in life.
Reader’s Rating: 5 / 5
I loved this book. I read this and now I am really wanting to see the movie. It is very real and graphic. I applaud Cherie for such an intense and breath taking memoir. She is truly a survivor and to tell the tale of such an intense time…….. I highly recommend to anyone who remembers The Runaways and the 70’s. The end of an era…………
Reader’s Rating: 5 / 5
SPOILERS AHEAD
Cherie Currie’s memoir is a roller coaster ride that’s far beyond what most people will ever experience. She had more horrible things take place to her as a teenager than ten average people would have in an entire lifetime. A lack of parental supervision, a rebellious scenery, and life on the road as a member of the Runaways led to many experiences that will simply make your jaw drop. I thought that Cherie losing her virginity at fourteen by being raped by her twin sister’s boyfriend must be the low point of the book, but, incredibly enough, it gets much worse. After she joined the Runaways, she had to deal with the grubby Kim Fowley and additional people, and she fell into drug abuse which lasted for many years. Her attempt at apt a rock star wasn’t nearly as successful or lucrative as it should have been, but she somehow managed to survive her many terrible experiences and drug addiction. I’m glad she made it through to the additional side and got her life together, and I’m very glad that she wrote such a powerful memoir. It’s a stunning piece of work. I’m sure the new Runaways movie will show some of the dark side of her life, but I’m also sure it will be a Disney tale compared to this book. Buy this book and prepare to be astounded.
Reader’s Rating: 5 / 5
I was a fan of Joan jett from the time I was seven years ancient, ever since I first heard “I Like Rock N Roll”. I didn’t know anything about her early band, “The Runaways” till years later. I remembered Lita Ford from from her “Kiss Me Deadly” Video and her duet with Ozzy Ozborne on the song “Close My Eyes Forever” when I was just 13 years, ancient back in 1988. I didn’t know that Joan Jett and Lita Ford were in a band together. I saw a documentary a few years ago about Joan and “The Runaways” about five years ago and chose to hear what they were about, so I chose to download some of their songs to hear for myself what they were all like. After listening to “Cherry Bomb”, “Dead End Justice”, and “Queens of Noise” I was blown away at how excellent these girls were, being that they were only just under seventeen years ancient! About two years ago I was watchimg [...] and chose to look at some vidoes for “The Runaways”, cuz I was curious to see if there was any footage, of any of the their performances. I was really amazed when I saw the video for “Cherry Bomb”. I was like wow!!1 I cant judge that that blond chick with the white corset and thigh high fishnets, was only sixteen and strutting arond the stage like that. This was ten years before Madonna was wearing that. I was captivated by her voice cuz it sounded so mature for such a young girl. I was watching a video of Cherie Currie from 1987 I judge, and she was on the “Sally Jessie Rafael Show” sharing her testimony about her early youth in the Runaways and then she talked about the drugs and about her she kicked drugs ans all that and how she was effective at that time as a drug counslor for teens. I was really impressed with her honesty. I chose a couple weeks ago to buy her book called “Neon Angel: A memoir of a Run off. after getting it through Amazon last week I could wait to read it. I just finished reading it yesterday and I was so overtaken with with her personal tale of youth gone wild, her rape at 14 years ancient, her relationship with her family tree, her being learned at the Sugar Shack Club by Kim Fowely and Joan Jett and then being recruited into “The Runaways”. Her struggle to get along with the girls (especially Lita Ford who permanently antagonizing and was permanently bullying her), her temptations and personal demons with drugs which would ruin the fabric of the band and her relationship with her family tree. She went through so much in so small time at just before the age of 18 years ancient that it’s hard to comprehend how she even today, is even alive to tell the tale. You will delight in this incredible and captivating tale of innocence lost, Family tree bond, personal struggle to be sober and to regain back her life, and coming out of it all. This is a remarkable tale with an even incredible remarkable journey through hell and finally, redemption. I really recommend this book. I can’t wait to see the movie.
Reader’s Rating: 5 / 5
This wild ride of a memoir takes us from Currie’s suburban upbringing as a young rebel, dyeing her hair red, white and blue and dressing up as her idol, David Bowie, to, in a turn that is dramatically sudden, being questioned to audition for The Runaways by Kim Fowley and Joan Jett while at her local hangout. All of a sudden, she’s thrust into the huge-time world of rock composition, and the pace is confused, with fame, and drugs, chasing the band.
The heart of the tale is Currie’s quest to find a family tree who’ll appreciate her for herself; her dad does, and, to a large degree, her twin sister, Marie, and older sister, Sandie, but she contrasts them with the sisterhood, of sorts, she finds with her bandmates. The growing infighting amongst the band, in large part of what was perceived as Currie’s starring role in the press, along with her own increasing reliance on drugs and exhaustion from touring, help drive them apart. Her life post-Runaways finds her acting (in the film Foxes, alongside Jodie Foster), recording solo albums and, mainly, figuring out who she is…all while still in her twenties. So much happens to Currie while still a teenager that it’s sometimes hard to remember that she is so young.
This is regularly a dark tale, including rape and attacks that read like something out of a right crime book. Her evocation of shows overseas, in Europe especially, are some of the most plain, including garbage and knives being thrown onstage as punk hit; you can practically feel the rage hurtling toward the stage, and Currie documents these times as vividly as she does the wildness of setting out on the road for the first time.
Kim Fowley emerges as the villain who turned a group of young, talented teens into a world-legendary band, and while his actions speak for themselves, Currie also details the mixed feelings she had about him, at once abhorring him and appreciating the opportunities he gave her. Sadly, her teen devolution into a range of drugs nonstop for a while as she tried to break free of their grip, even after watching her alcoholic father die. This Currie, the one struggling for her place and her pride, is as much a player here as the one brandishing glitter and attitude onstage.
She is circumspect about some moments, such as her relationship with Joan Jett, writing, “She was my attach. How do I clarify about a person that was my best friend, a name I would tell in like a sister, a name who to me became a strong, sexual attraction? Well, it’s simple. Just like how simple it was to be that way with her. I can place it by adage that I had moments with a friend that quake me to this day. And they were some of the most satisfying moments of my young life.”
These tender moments are few and far between in Neon Angel; much more drawn out are some of the horror tales that illustrate the dark side of fame, or rather, fame under the iron fist of Fowley. Currie’s transformation from Bowie-wannabe to Cherry Bomb through recovery to mom, actress and chain saw cutter is fascinating and riveting.
Reader’s Rating: 5 / 5