More than music: Arts fair, Kid!JAM Saturday

Sherry Lucas of the Clarion Ledger previews the FREE Arts Fair & Kid!JAM scheduled for this Saturday, June 20th on Capitol Street. Read the full article HERE

Joan Jett interview in the Jackson Free Press

The Jackson Free Press’ Neola Young talks to Joan Jett about her place in the rock ‘n’ roll business and her trip to Jackson this weekend.

So how did rock ‘n’ roll happen?
It just so happened, I asked my parents for a guitar for Christmas. It had to be an electric guitar—it couldn’t be a folk guitar; it had to be electric. And I thought they weren’t going to do it and they did. So they got me a little … guitar, a little Silvertone, I think it was, and a little amp, and I made a lot of noise the first few days, and then I went to take a guitar lesson with a guitar teacher. And as a kid, you think you’re going to learn it all in one day, and I remember going in and (being) very exuberant and saying: “Teach me how to play rock ‘n’ roll.” And the guy looked at me like I was from another planet, you know? I just think the whole thing with the electric guitar and maybe, he didn’t care at all. My take was that he did care, that he didn’t want to teach me rock ‘n’ roll because I was a girl, and so he tried to teach me “On Top of Old Smokey.” Read the full interview HERE

Jubilee!JAM on Examiner.com

There’s a great feature today on examiner.com about Jubilee!JAM. Thanks to John Nielsen for a preview of JAM’s 2009 musical line-up.

Friday’s opening acts include Shamarr Allen of the Rebirth Brass Band. Though known as a trumpeter, Shamarr’s lineup is a horn-driven rock act and figures to be a blistering reconfiguration of the funky New Orleans sound. Then comes a choice: remain at the stage to see Cyril Neville & Tribe 13 with more New Orleans music, or walk away to catch the critically acclaimed Americana sounds of DADDY? Cyril is a veteran of the New Orleans music scene, best recognized as a member of the famous Neville Brothers. DADDY features Will Kimbrough and Tommy Womack, fusing blues, country and hard rock into the two guitarists’ songs while backed by some of the best session players in the world. It’s a rare opportunity for Jacksonians as Kimbrough and Womack are constantly busy with other projects.

JJ Grey & Mofro play at 8:45. Another artist who draws upon many musical frameworks, JJ Grey hails from near Jacksonville, FL. Anyone who releases a CD titled “Country Ghetto” piques interest. With the always interesting Guster closing the night at 10PM, that’s the stage for 90s rock still surging. Those who saw Sammy Hagar downtown in 1997 remember Guster as one of Sammy’s opening acts. Guster is a go-against-the-grain rock band who dug in and soldiered on, rewarded with renewed interest in their music. It feels so good hearing Guster on the radio again. Full article HERE

Actress Kristen Stewart to play Joan Jett in upcoming Hollywood movie “The Runaways”

From MTV NEWS By Brian Warmoth
All that vampire romance in “Twilight” and “New Moon” has evidently pushed Kristen Stewart over the edge. She’s shredded up and dyed her hair to star in the new Joan Jett biopic “The Runaways” and seems to be slipping comfortably into the dark and dangerous look.

Stewart is currently filming “The Runaways” in Los Angeles with co-star Dakota Fanning, who will hopefully also go off the fashionable deep end to come out to the world as an adolescent. The movie, tagged for a 2010 release, features the pair of actresses as Jett and Cherie Currie, who formed their landmark all-girl band in the 1970s and went on to inspire bands from Blondie and Garbage to Bikini Kill and Yeah Yeah Yeahs.

She definitely has the look right, but moving from heartbroken vampire lover to an onstage pre-“Cherry Bomb” Joan Jett should be quite a leap. Stewart and Fanning will reportedly be backed up by Stella Maeve as Sandy West and Alessandra Torresani as Lita Ford. Floria Sigismondi, who has music video credits working for David Bowie and Marilyn Manson, will direct.

5 Questions with Carolina Liar

Check out 5 questions with Carolina Liar on VH1.com now!