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F*ck you, Philadelphia!’: Blondie gets booed off stage opening a show for Rush, 1979
01.13.2020
06:51 am
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On January 21st, 1979, Blondie found themselves in a strange predicament. Canadian megaband Rush (R.I.P. Neil Peart) needed a last-minute opening act for their sold-out show at the Spectrum in Philadelphia—most likely New Jersey’s early-glam metal band Starz, or perhaps the opener from the previous night, Georgia band Stillwater had to cancel. It’s not entirely clear. What is clear is that the unlikely pairing of the New York New Wavers and the Canadian rockers wasn’t what Rush fans were expecting that night, and they let Blondie know this the minute they walked out on stage.

Blondie had played the Spectrum before, opening a show for Alice Cooper in the summer of 1978. This gig also started off on shaky ground for Blondie as they were greeted by boos as well as one Cooper fan shouting “Boo Blondie off stage…they’re PUNK!” The crowd kept jeering Blondie, but, according to people at the show, by the time they ripped into their second song, the audience was hooked, and they finished their set, incident- and heckling-free. For some reason, Rush fans were not as well behaved as Alice’s (which seems weird in its own right, right?). There are several first-hand accounts posted by fans who were there, telling the story of what happened that night at The Spectrum, describing Deborah Harry getting pelted with glow sticks and more. And it wasn’t pretty like Deborah Harry. Not even close.
 

A photo of Deborah Harry backstage at the Spectrum as seen in the book, ‘Daft Punk: A Trip Inside the Pyramid’ By Dina Santorelli.
 
The Spectrum was packed to the gills with around 18,000 rock fans waiting to see their idols perform jams from their sixth album, Hemispheres. Blondie took the stage in front of a standing-room-only floor, and the audience immediately started to boo them. Ignoring the haters, they started their set. By the second song, objects were steadily flying at the stage. At one point, Harry leaned into the crowd during “One Way or Another” and was slapped by dozens of glow sticks.

Continues after the jump…

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Posted by Cherrybomb
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01.13.2020
06:51 am
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Blondie show ends in a riot before it even starts, and cherries were to blame?
12.10.2019
07:24 pm
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Debbie Harry by Andy Warhol.
 
On December 8th, 1977, Blondie were set to make their first appearance in Brisbane, Australia. But the show didn’t go on as scheduled, and it would become known as the only show the band would be forced to cancel. In Australia, Blondie’s first record, Blondie was a huge hit, and fans were rabid as they waited at Her Majesty’s Theater, a former opera house, for the band to take the stage. And, as the title of this post indicates pretty clearly, that never happened. Here’s the story about how Debbie Harry’s alleged overindulgence on a fruit close to my heart, cherries, resulted in a good-old-fashioned punk rock riot.

As the story goes, the turnout for the show was about 1200 strong. After waiting around an hour for the show to start, drummer Clem Burke came out on stage to personally apologize to the crowd, letting them Blondie wouldn’t be able to play because Deborah Harry was “ill.” The cause of Harry’s illness was blamed on the singer eating too many cherries, and was apparently so acute a doctor was dispatched to the theater to treat the ailing singer. Ray Maguire, the band’s road manager, would later make a curious statement supporting the cherry-theory:

“In New York, we don’t see very much fruit, but out here, we’ve been going mad on it. I think that Deborah just had a few too many cherries over the last few days.”

I don’t know about you, but I had no idea there was some sort of fresh fruit crisis going on in New York in the 1970s. Anyway, after apologizing to the crowd, Burke was loudly booed and pelted with an object thrown by someone in the audience. As bottles and cans started to fly at the stage, Burke made a hasty exit while local Brisbane punk band The Survivors (known initially as Rat Salad, just like Van Halen) were begging show promoters to let them play. Some attendees started to leave while a group of five tried to get on stage and ended up throwing their fists at members of Blondie’s road crew. The fisticuffs continued backstage as crew members battled to eject the punchy fans, a few who were arrested by the police.

Meanwhile, other angry ex-Blondie fans somehow managed to remove a huge iron gate and iron bar from the premises and using their makeshift weapons to try to bust open the door. They were eventually able to hurl the iron bar over an opening at the top of the door, where it nearly landed on top of fans trying to leave what was pretty much a riot in progress. A riot attributed to an unnamed, unemployed twenty-year-old youth and three minors charged with willful destruction of property. The youngsters were tried in Children’s Court.
 

An article in the Telegraph describing the riot at Her Majesty’s Theater.
 
In a fantastic twist to this story, Australian writer and culture vulture Clinton Walker (author of many books, including the incredible biography on Bon Scott, Highway to Hell: the Life and Death of AC/DC Legend Bon Scott) literally had a front-row seat when the riot began and, according to Walker, his pal Bob Farrell (later of the band Laughing Clowns) was one of the kids who stormed the stage. In Walker’s account of the riot, cherries were perhaps not to blame for Harry’s illness, but instead the ingestion of potent Australian heroin. The acclaimed author admits it was a “scurrilous” thing to say, but confirms it to be very much a part of the mythology behind the cancelation of Blondie’s first gig in Brisbane. Walker was also at the poorly attended make-up show ten days later on December 18th at Her Majesty’s Theater, where the band concluded their set by smashing up their instruments. Nice.
 

Blondie live at CBGB’s in May of 1977.

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
‘Gigerstein’: The extraordinary guitar that H.R. Giger designed for Blondie’s Chris Stein
‘What is it?’: Björk, Blondie & the story of the fish from Faith No More’s infamous video for ‘Epic’
Blondie: Live on German TV from 1977
Debbie does Mick: Blondie performing The Stones’ ‘Obsession’, 1977
Debbie Harry covering The Ramones 27 years ago

Posted by Cherrybomb
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12.10.2019
07:24 pm
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‘Make Me Tonight’: Listen to Debbie Harry’s isolated vocal for Blondie’s ‘Atomic’
09.04.2019
06:51 am
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A song that lasts more than a generation connects with the listener on an emotional level, an infectious tunefulness that anticipates a moment of approaching joy. Blondie have an impressive back catalog of such songs. From “Sunday Girl,” “One Way or Another,” “Picture This,” “Heart of Glass,” “Dreaming,” “Call Me” all the way up to their more recent (and perhaps less well-known) tracks like “Mother,” “Fun,” “China Shoes,” “Long Time,” and “Doom or Destiny.”

Blondie have been blessed with a maverick mix of genuine talent as both musicians and songwriters and one of the all-time best frontpersons in the business.

It was their unique, utterly joyous sound that hooked me first. No doubt, I would have been instantly smitten (and most likely punished by the parish priest with one Our Father and three Hail Marys) if I’d first seen Harry tease and sashay in that promo for “Denis.” But it was the sound of Blondie that thrilled me first. Clem Burke’s drums, Chris Stein’s guitar, and Debbie Harry’s vocals. And let’s not forget Gary Valentine (bass), Jimmy Destri (keyboards), Frank Infante (guitar), Nigel Harrison (bass). Who all together they made music that will last for decades more than their three or four minutes of play.

Take a song like “Atomic” written by Destri and Harry who were originally trying to do something like “Heart of Glass” and then gave “it the spaghetti western treatment” with a little hint of what sounds like Dean Parrish’s Northern Soul classic “I’m On My Way.” Before that, according to Harry, “it was just lying there like a lox.” Add to this Burke’s pulsating drums, Harrison’s driving bass line, and Stein’s razor sharp guitar riff and you’re on target for a hit.

Then there comes the cherry on the top—Harry’s god-like vocals.
 
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Her lyrics are minimalist. The same four or five lines repeated over and over. In Cathay Che’s biography on the singer Platinum Blonde, Harry said she composed the lyrics while the band were playing the song, She was just “scatting along,” riffing, trying to figure out what to sing. The lyrics could have been banal but they suggest a deep sexual yearning, a burning desire, which may or may not relate to Harry’s own early life. Well, at least her lyrics make me think that maybe so as she once explained about her sex hungry teenage years in an interview with Victor Bockris for High Times:

I was really oversexed. Really charged and hot to trot. Later on, when I got my driver’s license, I used to drive up to this sleazy town near Paterson [NJ] and would walk up and down this street called “Cunt Mile.” I would get picked up by and make out with different guys in the back seats of cars to get my rocks off because I was so horny and couldn’t make out with anybody from my own town.

O, to have lived in that little sleazy town back then.

“Atomic” from Blondie’s classic Eat to the Beat album was released in February (UK) and April (US) 1980, where it topped the UK charts and made the Top 40 Billboard Charts in the States. I often feel that Harry has never quite had the respect she deserves as a singer or as a pioneering front woman who “was saying things in songs that female singers didn’t really say back then,” as Harry explains in her forthcoming autobiography Face It:

I wasn’t submissive or begging him to come back, I was kicking his ass, kicking him out, kicking my own ass too. My Blondie character was an inflatable doll but with a dark, provocative, aggressive side. I was playing it up yet I was very serious.

Or as author and journalist Paul Burston once remarked, “Everybody wanted [Debbie]. You either wanted to fuck her or to be her.”

Though obviously tempted by one of those suggestions, I personally wanted to listen to Debbie Harry.
 

Blondie—isolated vocal ‘Atomic.’
 
Listen to Debbie Harry’s isolated vocal for ‘One Way or Another and ‘Call Me,’ after the jump…
 

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Posted by Paul Gallagher
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09.04.2019
06:51 am
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Burning Down the House: Talking Heads perform live showcase at Entermedia Theater, 1978
07.30.2018
08:57 am
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Forty-years-ago, like a gazillion other kids, I was smitten by the sounds of New Wave. The needle had worn out on punk and there was a need for a newer sound, a bigger sound to hit the decks. And lo, yea, there came unto the local record store, venue, and radio station, New Wave. 

New Wave was really just a catchall term used/devised by NME writers like legendary scribe Charles Shaar Murray to describe a diverse range of bands who often had little in common other than their unique sound like the glorious Blondie and the pantomime horse of the Boomtown Rats. By this definition, New Wave bands weren’t considered quite punk though they may have been inspired by punk, or indeed, were in fact maybe just a little bit punk, or even garage, but were at the time only just coming to the attention of a bigger, far more appreciative audience circa 1978.

So, there I was, dear reader, a young teen living with his parents in a two-up/two-down in the nether regions of Scotland’s capital. Of course, you have to remember, we Scots were still in our penitent sack cloth and ashes for the ignominy inflicted on the world under the name of tartan by the Bay City Rollers and nauseating bands like Slik who had the appeal of stale cold porridge on a hangover morning. Only the Rezillos had pointed the way to a new Eden—though few Scots were actually paying attention. And then, lest we forget, the UK charts were hideously blistered by pustules of horror like Brian and Michael (“Matchstalk Men and Matchstalk Cats and Dogs”), the Brotherhood of Man (”Figaro”), and John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John, all of whom made the #1 spot with last duo staying there for a staggering nine weeks with “You’re the One that I Want.” This was the music, the audio track against which New Wave competed and why, for many, New Wave offered a hope that everything wasn’t Andy Gibb, Father Abraham and the Smurfs, or even on the march with Andy Cameron and “Ally’s Tartan Army.”

In the UK, there was an anger and an edge to the native New Wave sound from bands like the Jam, Elvis Costello and the Attractions, and 2Tone’s the Specials, most of which stemmed from the political failings of the Left who were then running the country. Mass unemployment, a devalued currency, high taxes, IMF loans, endless strikes, and urban deprivation inspired high musical passions. These youngsters wanted change—-but into what? as the only alternative to the Labour government was the Conservatives Margaret Thatcher, and even then, there were those who knew how that would end. These bands were fine, but one can only keep that level of anger up for so long without recourse to beta blockers or an unenviable sense of ennui.

Therefore, dear reader, like gazillions of other kids, I was very quickly smitten by the sounds of bands lumped together under the heading of American New Wave—bands like Blondie and Talking Heads. Blondie was love at first sight. Talking Heads was love from the second album More Songs About Buildings and Food on. Not that I didn’t like their first album Talking Heads: ‘77, it was just I didn’t hear it until after I’d bought the second.

Unlike UK New Wave, Talking Heads and Blondie wrote songs that were clever, smart, ironic, and coded with a delightful upbeat tempo and a scintillating charm. Let’s be honest, if ever given the choice of being trapped in an elevator for hours on end with Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz or Joe Strummer and Sham 69, I know who I’d rather choose…the former, obviously.

Talking Heads formed in 1975 around the triumvirate of David Byrne, Chris Frantz, and Tina Weymouth. Byrne and Frantz had previously had a band called the Artistics. Weymouth drove the boys to-and-from gigs. Needing a bass player, Byrne and Frantz asked Weymouth to join the band—admirably so, indeed, Weymouth is one of the great unsung heroes of modern music. The Talking Heads played their first gig as support to the Ramones at CBGB’s in June 1975. Two years later, Jerry Harrison, ex-Jonathan Richmond’s band Modern Lovers, added his considerable talents and the Talking Heads were complete.

More after the jump…

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Posted by Paul Gallagher
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07.30.2018
08:57 am
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Rare concert photos of Blondie, Zappa, Iggy, Fugazi and more, from the Smithsonian’s new collection


 
In December 2015, the Smithsonian Institution began an ambitious crowdsourced history of rock ’n’ roll photography, calling on music fans to contribute their amateur and pro photos, launching the web site rockandroll.si.edu as a one-stop for accepting and displaying shooters’ submissions. One of the project’s organizers, Bill Bentley, was quoted in Billboard:

We talked about how it could be completely far-reaching in terms of those allowed to contribute, and hopefully help expose all kinds of musicians and periods. There really are no boundaries in the possibilities. I’d like to help spread all styles of music to those who visit the site, and show just how all-encompassing the history of what all these incredible artists have created over the years. What better way than for people to share their visual experiences, no matter on what level, to the world at large.

The project, sadly, is now closed to new submissions, but it’s reached a milestone in the publication of Smithsonian Rock and Roll: Live and Unseen, authored by Bentley. The book is a pretty great cull of the best the collection had to offer, full of photos rarely or never seen by the public, chronologically arranged, and dating back to the dawn of the rock era. Some of them are real jaw-droppers, like the concert shot of Richie Valens taken hours before his death, Otis Redding drenched in sweat at the Whiskey a Go Go, Sly Stone looking like a goddamn superhero at the Aragon Ballroom in 1974. From Bentley’s introduction:

Although the sheer breadth of the offerings was overwhelming, that fact only underlined the importance of an organizational strategy. The publisher sorted through the submissions, categorizing them by performer and date to create a complete historical timeline of rock and roll. Approximately three hundred photographs are included in the following narrative, many of them by amateurs whose enthusiasm and passion for their subjects are here presented to the public for the first time. The balance of the photos were taken by professional “lens whisperers,” whose shots were selected to flesh out this overview of rock and roll. The results, spanning six decades, aim for neither encyclopedic authority nor comprehensive finality, but rather an index of supreme influence.

Smithsonian Rock and Roll: Live and Unseen isn’t due until late in October, but the Smithsonian have been very kind in allowing Dangerous Minds to share some of these images with you today. Clicking an image will spawn an enlargement.
 

Blondie at CBGB, New York City, 1976. Photo Roberta Bayley /Smithsonian Books
 

The Clash at the Orpheum Theatre, Boston, September 19, 1979. Photo Catherine Vanaria /Smithsonian Books
 

Frank Zappa at Maple Pavilion, Stanford University, CA, November 19, 1977. Photo Gary Kieth Morgan /Smithsonian Books
 
Many more after the jump…

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Posted by Ron Kretsch
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09.18.2017
11:00 am
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Mega-post full of rare vinyl picture discs from Russ Meyer, Blondie, Divine, AC/DC & more
08.14.2017
09:44 am
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A limited edition picture disc for Blondie’s 1978 record ‘Parallel Lines.’
 
The first thing I learned while pulling this post together is this—there are entirely TOO many Madonna-related picture discs. The flip side of that dated news flash is the fact that an astonishing number of rare, collectible picture discs exist, many of which I’m sure you will want to get your hands on, if you can. The other thing I learned about picture discs today is that there is a shit-ton of pretty looking vinyl that features nudity. For instance, a few soundtracks from the films of titty-titan Russ Meyer such as Mudhoney, Supervixens and Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! have all gotten special, topless picture disc pressings.

The vast majority of picture discs in this post contain interviews with the artist or band, though in some cases they do actually play music like a record should. Now before you remind me that music doesn’t sound all that great on a picture disc, I’m already well aware of this. I do however love collecting vinyl of this nature not just for their novelty appeal but because I also view them as a form of art that is still a vital part of vinyl culture today. When I called this a “mega-post,” I was not kidding as there are over 25 images below for you to check out, many of which are NSFW thanks to Russ Meyer of course. You have been warned!
 

Side A of a picture disc featuring music from the Russ Meyer films, ‘Good Morning…And Goodbye!,’ ‘Cherry, Harry & Raquel,’ and ‘Mondo Topless.’
 

Side A of a picture disc featuring music from the Russ Meyer films, ‘Up!’ ‘Beneath The Valley Of The Ultra Vixens,’ and ‘Supervixens.’
 

Side B of the Russ Meyer album above.
 
More after the jump…

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Posted by Cherrybomb
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08.14.2017
09:44 am
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‘English Boys’: Debbie Harry and Chris Stein visit the BBC children’s show ‘Swap Shop,’ 1979
08.10.2017
09:12 am
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Photo by Lynn Goldsmith (via Morrison Hotel)
 
Blondie is, per Kirsty Young, “the most successful American band ever in the UK.” In December of ‘79, having just topped the chart yet again with Eat to the Beat, Debbie Harry and Chris Stein paid a visit to the BBC’s Saturday morning kids’ show Swap Shop—apparently a rival of Tiswas whose full legal name was Multi-Coloured Swap Shop—where guests offered swag to lucky contestants who wrote in with the correct answer to a trivia question. Some of the dry goods on this episode come from the recently completed “rock and roll comedy” Roadie, in which Blondie’s co-stars were Meat Loaf, Alice Cooper, Roy Orbison and Art Carney.

During the best parts of the episode, Chris and Debbie press phones to their ears as the tiny, halting voices of English schoolchildren blurt out questions and wishes for a happy Christmas:

Ian Rutledge: I wanted to ask Debbie, did she participate in any sports?

Beverly Chinnick: Um, Debbie, who designs your clothes, and um, do you choose them?

Samantha Jarrett: Um, um, Debbie, did you name your group after your hair?

Paulette Baker: Can I ask Debbie a question? Was her hair always that fair color, or was it brown like the other members of her group?

Because the proceedings are so sweet, the mention of the disgraced TV host Jimmy Savile, who was revealed to have been a serial rapist of children shortly after his death, is startling. Brace yourself. (Savile does not appear on the show, though the gross likeness of his gross hair does.)

If Wikipedia is right, BBC wiped its archival tape of this episode in the late eighties. Three cheers for home recording.
 
Watch after the jump…

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Posted by Oliver Hall
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08.10.2017
09:12 am
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Debbie Harry covering The Ramones 27 years ago
10.24.2016
09:16 am
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What we have here is some ultra-rare footage of Debbie Harry performing the Ramones classic “Pet Semetary,” a song which was written for the Stephen King movie adaptation of the same name. This performance from October 23, 1989 was part of Debbie’s Def, Dumb, and Blonde solo tour. The Ramones original had been released five months earlier on their Brain Drain album and had become one of their biggest radio hits. The song has since become a staple of Blondie’s live set.

Though there’s nothing particularly unusual about Debbie Harry covering the Ramones—they were pals and CBGB compatriots, this clip is remarkable for the quality of the performance and the fact that, for a Ramones song, it sounds an awful lot like it should have been a Blondie song.
 

 
Debbie’s cover here was recorded at The Roxy in Los Angeles. Though the framing and video quality makes it difficult to verify who exactly is in Debbie’s band here, information online suggests that she had been touring around the same time with a lineup of Chris Stein (guitar), Leigh Foxx (bass), Carla Olla (guitar), Suzi Davis (keyboard), and Jimmy Clark (drums). The image and sound quality here is less than stellar in this rare footage, but the band rocking hard.
 

 

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
Blondie bombshell Debbie Harry’s awkwardly awesome late-night disco-diatribe against nuclear power

Posted by Christopher Bickel
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10.24.2016
09:16 am
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In the Flesh: Blondie’s perfect pop performance on German TV, 1978

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Most teenage males “of a certain vintage” were hipped to Blondie by the video for the single “Denis” with a slinky Debbie Harry in a red-striped swimsuit and cascades of backlit blonde hair. Understandable. My introduction was via the radio—which meant my focus has always been on the music. I bought the 45rpm record of “Denis.” Wore it out and had to buy another copy.

Of all the bands that came out of punk or new wave, for me there has never been one as brilliant as Blondie. New wave in the UK was generally angry and political. American new wave—as epitomized by Blondie—was musical, ingenious, subversive and unforgettable.

What makes a song last more than a generation is its infectious tunefulness. Songs that connect on an emotional level, at a liminal moment of approaching joy. Blondie have a major back catalog of these kind of songs—all of which will last decades longer than their three minutes of play. Perhaps centuries, who knows?
 

 
I missed out on their eponymous debut album, but got up to speed with the second album Plastic Letters and then Parallel Lines. With Parallel Lines one would have to go back to The Beatles to find a band that produced an album filled with only quality songs of utter pop perfection. All killer no filler, it played like a greatest hits from the very first spin.

That’s not to say Blondie were sweet—their songs were often double-edged and charged with complex meanings. A cursory listen to “One Way Or Another” might make you think it’s just some old romantic song rather one about a stalker. Or, how cold is the dreamy “Sunday Girl”? And who else could write such a bittersweet disco song such as “Heart of Glass”?

More after the jump…

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Posted by Paul Gallagher
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04.01.2016
09:28 am
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New Wave: Debbie Harry wanted to remake Jean-Luc Godard’s ‘Alphaville’ with Robert Fripp


Robert Fripp as Lemmy Caution and Debbie Harry as Natacha von Braun

I recently came across the following entry from an issue of Radio Times dating from April 1979, describing an upcoming edition of a BBC 1 radio show called “Roundtable”:
 

Debbie Harry joins Kid Jensen to review the week’s new records.

Ultra blonde, ultra bombshell Debbie Harry is turning her thoughts to the big screen. She is thinking of starring with Robert Fripp (who used to be in King Crimson) in a remake of Alphaville, a 1966 film by Jean-Luc Godard. Blondie are recording their fourth album, tentatively called Eat the Beat.

 
Wait, what? Debbie Harry and Robert Fripp, to appear in a remake of Godard’s Alphaville??

It’s all true.

If you want the TL;DR version of this post, it goes like this: Around 1979 Debbie Harry and Chris Stein were interested in remaking Jean-Luc Godard’s futuristic 1966 movie Alphaville. Amos Poe was going to direct it, and there are images from a screen test that featured Harry and Fripp in character, images that were leaked to the press at the time.

The rest of this post is basically just regurgitating the little scraps of evidence I was able to cull together from scouring Google for information, all of which is still pretty interesting and corroborates that last paragraph.
 

Anna Karina and Eddie Constantine in Godard’s Alphaville
 
Amos Poe was going to direct the movie. He was part of the NYC underground filmmaking scene in the 1970s, having directed, with Ivan Kral, The Blank Generation as well as a 1978 feature starring Debbie Harry called The Foreigner. Poe was also involved with Chris Stein’s legendary public-access show TV Party.

On the obsessive King Crimson fan site DGM Live there appears a puzzling entry in “Robert Fripp’s Diary” for the date January 8, 2000. It’s puzzling in that it’s ostensibly something that Fripp wrote but he lapses into a kind of Variety promotional-speak that includes a sarcastic, unflattering reference about Fripp himself. Wait, here, just read it:
 

Several Blockbuster videos are waiting for return. One of them is “Dead Weekend”, chosen as an accompaniment to brain-death & psyche-dribbling earlier this week. Several surprises accompanied its opening credits. Co-producer Amos Poe. Story by Amos Poe. Directed by Amos Poe. Co-starring (with Stephen Baldwin) David Rasche.

In 1978 Amos Poe was to direct the remake of Godard’s “Alphaville” starring Debbie Harry as Natasha von Braun, Anna Karina (?) in the original film. The detective Lemmy Caution was originally played by Eddie Constantine. For the remake, Debbie’s co-star was to be—yo! wait for this one—an English guitarist almost universally disliked by his former band-buddies. The film was never made, but the stills from his screen-test were fabbo to the max. One of them even appeared on the front page of Melody Maker in December 1978.

If that isn’t enough of Fripp’s NY history to bore you senseless, wait about.

David Rasche is a superb actor whose break came in a Broadway play “Shadowbox” around 1977/8. He played “Sledgehammer” in the cod tv-policier series, and showed up in various films such as “Cobra” (he dies quickly & unpleasantly) & “An Innocent Man” (with Tom Selleck) as the bent cop who frames Tom & sent down F. Murray Abram (?). David & I were both in a Transactional Analysis group in NYC during 1977. A very good man, and one who holds my respect.

With this card, six degrees can now carry me anywhere in the world at all.

 
If it really was written in 2000 by Fripp, then at a minimum we can say that he’s got a wicked sense of humor, no? Apparently he takes his reputation as being “almost universally disliked by his former band-buddies” at least somewhat in stride…..

[Update: A commenter on Facebook points out that DGM is the label Fripp and others founded in 1992, which certainly suggests that the diary entry is kosher.]

Fripp points out that a still from a screen test involving the two co-stars appeared on the cover of Melody Maker in 1978, and that’s perfectly true. The date was December 23, 1978, and the cover looked like this:
 

 
Victor Bockris’ book With William Burroughs: A Report from the Bunker contains the following story:
 

Debbie recalled that when she and Chris met Goddard [sic] to discuss remaking Alphaville he had pretended that he could not speak English and said through an interpreter, “Why do you want to do this movie? You’re crazy!”

 
So apparently Godard tried to persuade them not to make the movie. I’m guessing it wasn’t his influence that caused the movie not to be made.

In Lester Bangs’ 1980 book Blondie (yes, Bangs wrote a book all about Blondie) we fnd this tidbit: “When Debbie and Chris were on WPIX’s ‘Radio, Radio’ show in Manhattan (in Feb. 1980), a fan phoned in to ask, ‘Is Alphaville complete?’” Thus proving that more or less regular people were following the Alphaville story and wanted updates.

More after the jump…

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Posted by Martin Schneider
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02.19.2016
01:59 pm
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Baby-faced Robert Smith and the Cure’s first time in America, 1980
01.26.2016
04:53 pm
Topics:
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In Spring of 1980, just as Robert Smith was about to turn 21 years old, the Cure, supporting their sophomore release Seventeen Seconds (and new single “A Forest”) made their first trip to America. They played six dates, including three in NYC at the Hurrah’s nightclub, where Chris Stein and Debbie Harry turned up to meet them.

From the now quite pricey and rare 1988 Cure bio Ten Imaginary Years:

On 10 April, The Cure went to America for the first time.

Robert: “We’d obtained cult status out there but we only played New York, Philly, Washington and Boston. We played three nights - 15, 16 and 17th - at Hurrah in New York and it was packed.”

Simon: “It was done on a shoestring budget but it was lots of fun. Instead of having cans of beer backstage, we’d have shots of Southern Comfort!”

Robert: “It was like a holiday. Even at this point, everything we did, we didn’t think we’d be doing again so we used to go to bed at about five in the morning and get up again at eight just to go out and see New York.”

On his return, Robert told Record Mirror how America meant “being bombarded by people who all ask the same questions and all want to shake your hand . . . you just find yourself getting sucked into the whole rock ‘n’ roll trip which we’re trying so hard to get away from” while Sounds’ Phil Sutcliffe, who’d accompanied the band to New York. told, in an article “Somebody Get Me A Doctor,” how Robert had done his utmost to avoid having his picture taken with Debbie Harry.

Although these two videos from one of the nights at Hurrah’s were posted by the creators, Charles Libin & Paul Cameron, ASC, a few years back, they’ve had precious few plays. If only all shot from the audience videos of the punk/post-punk and new wave era were done this well.

“A Forest” was the set closer, while “Secrets” was the first encore, played next.
 

 
Continues after the jump…

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Posted by Richard Metzger
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01.26.2016
04:53 pm
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Post-punk funk: Debbie Harry and James White & The Blacks cover Chic and James Brown, 1980
01.25.2016
01:49 pm
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Okay, so it’s Monday… That’s bad enough already, but it’s also a Monday in January and much of the eastern part of the US of A is totally blanketed in snow and freezing cold, so maybe you had to brave the elements to get to work, or maybe it’s a winter wonderland “snow day” for you and you’re sitting at home. Either way, I can’t help but to think, no matter your circumstances right now, this very moment as you are reading this, that your life will be improved by these recently posted video clips of Blondie’s Debbie Harry guesting onstage with James White and the Blacks at the Hurrah’s nightclub in New York City in 1980.

First up, Debbie and James duet on a cover version of Chic’s “Good Times.” For the first few minutes of this, I wasn’t really feeling it, although admittedly I got so lost just looking at Debbie Harry’s face that I could have been listening to a jackhammer. Eventually the groove kicks in and then… I felt good. James White squeezes off an outrageously skronky sax solo here.
 

 
The James Brown cover after the jump…

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Posted by Richard Metzger
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01.25.2016
01:49 pm
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There’s awesome, and then there’s MUPPET BLONDIE awesome
01.19.2016
09:17 am
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Now that most of the cryassing about how “IT’S NOT WHAT I’M UUUUUUSED TOOOOOO FROM WHEN I WAS A KIIIIIIIIIIIID” has abated, it’s nice to see that the rebooted Muppets is being generally well received. Updating The Muppet Show from the variety show format to a hodgepodge of tropes from Larry Sanders, The Office and 30 Rock was a smart contemporizing move that gave the show ample satirical fodder, and shifting the setting from Vaudeville theatre—charming as all hell though that was!—to late-nite talk allowed the preservation of the rotating guest star format that mirrors the original show and keeps it lively. It’s not as holy-shit great as its ‘70s predecessor, it’s true, but it’s sharp, it’s funny, it’s exploring different themes, and it’s got time and room to grow.

And I hope to hell that sooner than later it has moments as holy-shit great as its predecessor’s Episode 509, from February of 1981, guest starring Blondie singer Debbie Harry. It was an amazing episode for numerous reasons—Debbie Harry’s intrinsic awesomeness being one of them, naturally. But I find it interesting that The Muppet Show’s representation of punk took the form’s aesthetic merit as a given, keeping clichéd rainbow hair and safety-pin jokes to a minimum. It might be hard to explain how completely radical that was at the time. Punk representation in media was typically dumb and cartoonish, depicting musicians as simplistically violent oafs before 1980 (think WKRP’s insane 4th episode “Hoodlum Rock” in 1978), and after 1980, well, the preachy and unintentionally hilarious Quincy, M.E. punk episode’s depiction of hardcore kids so impossibly nihilistic they’re utterly indifferent to the death (by slam pit ice pick!) of one of their own friends pretty well sums it up. That kind of crap was FAR more typical than forthrightly showing punks as artists pursuing a music.
 

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Of course, by 1981, Blondie had become one of punk’s most mainstream expressions—it’s not like the family-hour Muppet Show was going to have Killing Joke on or anything—but that does nothing to diminish the wonderful segment showing Harry helping the young members of a scout troop get their punk merit badges by teaching them to pogo. The entire episode is on the Best Of The Muppet Show Vol. 9 (there’s no season 5 complete collection yet, for some reason), or you can watch it at this link.

And surprise surprise, where the episode really shines in is the musical numbers. Harry’s duet with Kermit the Frog on “Rainbow Connection” has been enduringly popular, but the episode’s two Blondie songs are pretty wonderful, too. “One Way or Another,” by then almost a three-year-old tune, had Harry backed up by a Muppet band that, rather than exemplifying the kind of goofy tropes that normals would recognize as “punk,” look credibly like an actual downtown NYC band of the era. I’m guessing they were modeled after Tuff Darts, but I could be wrong.
 

 
The episode ended with a Muppetization of Blondie’s year-old single “Call Me,” the theme song from a movie about a male prostitute framed for murdering a client whose husband hired him to “entertain” her. That may seem odd for family-hour until you consider that Blondie’s current single at the time was “Rapture,” a six-plus minute, half-cooed, half-rapped song that might contain a barely concealed reference to finger fucking (available printed lyrics read “finger popping” but we weren’t idiots) and definitely contains the line “he shoots you dead and he eats your head.” Which would have TOTALLY RULED performed by Muppets, but he upbeat “Call Me” was clearly the safer choice.

Continues after the jump…

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Posted by Ron Kretsch
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01.19.2016
09:17 am
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Christmas is saved by this Blondie ‘X-mas Offender’ sweatshirt
12.21.2015
03:57 pm
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Debbie Harry/Blondie
Blondie “X-mas Offender” Christmas sweatshirt
 
How this amazing piece of Christmas adornment slipped past my radar until now is beyond me but, here it is—an officially licensed Blondie “X-mas Offender” sweatshirt. Squeee! Christmas is saved!

The sweatshirt takes its name from the first single that Blondie ever released in 1976, “X-Offender.” Originally the song was dubbed “Sex Offender” by Blondie bassist, Gary Valentine who co-wrote the song with Debbie Harry. The band’s label at the time, Private Stock put Blondie on blast and made them change the name to “X-Offender.” Usually when suit-types tell the cool kids what to do, it really gets under my skin. But in this case I’m completely okay with it as we now has this super cool sweatshirt to wear that won’t cause people to call the cops on you while you’re out picking up extra Eggnog at midnight at 7-11.

The sweatshirt retails for $25.99 and while it appears that even expedited shipping methods won’t get it to you (if you’re in the U.S.) in time for Christmas, I’m sure quite a few of you will still be picking one up anyway. I know I will.  Get it here.
 

The ageless Debbie Harry performing John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s ““Happy Xmas (War Is Over)” with the Middlechurch East Village Gospel Choir, 2008.

Previously on Dangerous Minds:
Cover versions: Debbie Harry stars in pulp romance novels based on Blondie songs

Posted by Cherrybomb
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12.21.2015
03:57 pm
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I’m with the Band(s): Intimate photographs of punk legends at CBGBs

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Whether it’s the Left Bank, or Bloomsbury, or Sun Records in Memphis, the Cavern Club in Liverpool, or London’s King’s Road, there is always one location that becomes the focus for a new generation of artists, writers and musicians. In New York during the 1970s, this creative hub could be found in a venue called CBGBs where different bands came to play every night spearheading the punk and new wave movement and bringing about a small revolution which changed everything in its wake.

Amongst the musicians, writers and artists who played and hung out at Hilly Kristal’s club at 315 Bowery were conceptual artists Bettie Ringma and Marc H. Miller. Bettie had come from from Holland to the US, where she met Miller—a writer and photographer whose passion was for telling “stories with pictures, with ephemera and with a few carefully chosen words.” Together they started collaborating on various multi-media and conceptual artworks.

In late 1976, Marc and Bettie were drawn to the irresistible pull of creative energy buzzing out of CBGB’s. Most nights they went down to the venue and started documenting the bands and artists who appeared there:

Our first photograph of Bettie with the movers and shakers at CBGB was taken during our very first visit to the club in late 1976. Standing alone by the bar was one of Bettie’s favorite performers, the poet-rocker Patti Smith. At home at CBGB and a wee bit tipsy, Patti was more than happy to oblige our request for a picture with Bettie. Soon we were CBGB regulars, checking out the different bands and slowly adding to our collection of pictures.

Marc and Bettie’s original idea of creating “Paparazzi Self-Portraits” at this Bowery bar developed into the portfolio Bettie Visits CBGB—a documentary record of all the bands, musicians, artists and writers who hung out at the venue, with photographs becoming:

...a reflection of the new aesthetic emerging at CBGB, a contradictory mix of high and low culture energized by fun and humor, the lure of fame and fortune, and a cynical appreciation of the power of a good hype.

More of Marc and Bettie’s work from this punk era can be seen here.
 
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Patti Smith was hanging around at the bar, but no one was taking pictures of her because she was super-shy. She posed with me and then just went away: some musicians are like that, they’re not into socialising. They’re just artists.

 
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Debbie Harry is a really great singer. She had a very different style from what was emerging there at that time. She was not shy, but she was very aloof: you can see that in the picture, hiding half her face behind her hair. It wasn’t something she needed, because she was very pretty, she was the frontwoman. But it gave her safety.

 
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I just love the Ramones. When their music starts I can’t sit still, I just have to start hopping and dancing, and I’m 71 now. We saw them live about 10 times: we would go out of our way to see them perform.

 
More of Marc and Bettie’s work after the jump…

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Posted by Paul Gallagher
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11.16.2015
09:05 am
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