Candy-Sweet Punk Pioneers
Somewhere in the early '80s, a young, punk, scantily clad Burmese-British girl named Annabella Lwin sang about liking "candy wrapped in a sweater" on a beach. Around the same time, HBO aired Foxes, featuring a sexy siren who looked like she could kick your ass. I later learned Cherie Currie had also fronted the Runaways, a bad-girl band that would later be the template for future hard-rocking girl groups.
Although their styles were definitely distinct, Lwin and Currie had a few things in common. Not only were they both teenagers when they fronted their respective bands, but they dressed in such a risqué manner that today they'd probably rile the religious right. Their lyrics were certainly more adult and virulent than those of teen pop stars since. Currie told daddies and moms everywhere she was a "Cherry Bomb" and a "Neon Angel on the Road to Ruin." Lwin became flustered over the Eiffel Tower and, with a mild, political tone reminded parents "Tom and Jerry's no solution." Neither of them blathered about "Sk8er Boys" or being a "Genie in a Bottle."
"It was a different time and place," asserts Currie. "Things like bisexuality were still taboo-no one talked about things like that. We just rebelled by smoking, using drugs and drinking. We were like, 'Screw you if you're not going to treat me like an adult.' The kind of lyrics we used would never fly today. These days, everything's been done. It seems like anyone who rebels now is just rebelling against themselves."
As a parent herself, Currie is also fostering her son Jake Hays' (by actor Robert Hays) music career, who's playing guitar and drums with her and Lwin at their upcoming Don Hill's show.
"We're doing a song we wrote together. I want Jake to see New York and all the great people there-playing New York is the greatest."
And maybe that's the answer to rebellion-cultivating your own youth's yearnings.