Bandsplain - Blondie with Mel Ottenberg

Episode Date: November 30, 2023

First isn’t always best, and Blondie found that out the hard way. One of the first CBGB bands, the rag tag group started out as a “No Ambition Just Vibes” project before fate and a terrible recording contract motivated them to rise to the occasion. Amidst haters, low expectations, and an ever-changing band line-up, Blondie wrote some of the most iconic songs of the era, many of which remain classics to this day. Interview Magazine’s editor in chief Mel Ottenberg, joins us to plot the long and fascinating history of one of America’s most important bands.  Follow Mel Ottenberg on Instagram @Melzy917 Listen to songs we detail in the episode HERE Host: Yasi Salek Guest: Mel Ottenberg Producer: Jesse Miller-Gordon Audio Editor: Adrian Bridges Additional Production Supervision: Justin Sayles Theme Song: Bethany Cosentino Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Learn more about the albums you love with Dissect, a music analysis podcast hosted by me, Cole Kushna, a lifelong musician. Each season of Dysect dives deep into one album, examining the music, lyrics, and meaning of one song per episode. We've covered albums by Kendrick Lamar, Tyler the creator, Frank Ocean, just to name a few, and our brand new season just launched all about Radiohead's 2007 masterpiece in rainbows. Listen to Dysect on Spotify or wherever you get your podcast, because a great art deserves more than a swipe. I don't get it. Can you please explain? Wait, like, Bansplain? Hello and welcome to Bansplain. I am your host, Yossi Salick.

This is a show where I invite an expert guest on to help me explain a cult band or iconic artist. Today's episode is about Blondie. If you've never heard Blondie before, one way or another, we are going to get you. Our guest today is legendary. Mel Ottenberg. Editor-in-chief of Interview Magazine, can you believe? Welcome to the program, Mel. Mel, is Mel short for something?

Is your name Melvin? No, I named after a Melvin. Melvin-Otenberg, R-A-P. I named after him. My mom refused Melvin and said, Mel, she could do it. So, M-E-L on the passport, on the person. Honestly, God blessing your mom for that.

She did you such a solid. She did. Being named Mel as the only Mel on Earth, the only male, Mel was fine, but I think Melvin would have been catastrophic. Can you tell the fine folks at home why Blondie was your choice to be the expert on? I just think that I just love Blondie. I just think Blondie is like something I just want to listen to all the time forever. I just come back to Blondie. I just think that there's like a great mix of grit. and gloss and

and like highbrow and lowbrow and punk and disco and it's never one and it's always all of those things and I just really appreciate that I think and I love the 70s and I just think that this moment their biggest, their moment, they're like their moment I just relate to it a lot. Yeah. Are you from the tri-state area? No, I'm from Washington, D.C.

Oh, interesting. They don't consider that the tri-state area, right? They certainly do not. No, but I found, I was thinking about this when you asked me which band I'd want to do on Bansplaine. And I was remembering that in sixth grade, I somehow got Lion and the Cobra and the best of Blondie at the same times. And then we went on spring break. And I was like, what luck did I have that I would discover Cheney O'Connor and Blondie in the same? same dumb spring break, you know what I mean? So I just like was that kind of moment of finding these

two things and not knowing any of these Blondie music before, like is what I'm, that's the high I'm still searching for, you know? Yeah. You know, it's crazy. I also got the best of Blondie in the sixth grade. And that is, that was what radicalized me to Blondie. And I look back when I was like listening through the, the records, I was like, wow, I can't believe my like little 11 year old ass was like just sitting pining at the window to in the flesh like having no fucking earthly clue what that could have possibly been about but really feeling it in my heart and my bones a hundred percent i think about this too because now as a full adult when you listen to that song you are like oh yeah they're walking one day on the lower east side met him with a boyfriend he

was so divine they just were words that i knew by heart as a virgin um a virgin in dc And now as a man 25 years into my New York story, they just, I don't know, there's just something about it that really reflects a like long life in New York. Yeah. Well, I've talked about this on the program before, like in the television episode, and I'm sure in the Talking Cats episode. But like, I have several Marvel Cinematic universes that are for me important. And this is one of the biggest ones is like 70s birth of punk. CBGBs and like kind of the extended universe of it. Like I can't get over how many absolute icons were just like rubbing elbows in a

shithole like drinking beers and being friends for so many years. Like to me that's like the coolest thing ever. Yes. And what I think I like the most about Blondie of all of those garbage pale people that are like all in the same disgusting place together is how beautiful and glamorous. she was and yet she held her own. I just think that's so cool. Totally. We're going to talk about it. I have like a lot of of the feminism did reenter my body briefly while I was researching this because I had a lot of like galaxy brain level thoughts about Blondie as an avatar for like, well, Debbie in particular as an avatar for like the

divine feminine and how like that was actually like really pushed back on and like she had like almost like whatever the opposite of pretty privileges. You know, she was like discriminated against for being so beautiful and glamorous, like not taken seriously. And I find that very interesting, especially as a foil to Patty Smith, which we're going to get into the goss and the tea on that because there's a lot. Oh, shit. I'm ready. There's a lot. Okay. I'm motherfucking ready. Deborah Ann Harry, born Angela Trimble, July 1st, 1945. She has a cancer, of course, witchy, beautiful, emotional fluid. She was born in Miami, Florida, was adopted at three months old by Catherine and Richard Harry in Hawthorne, New Jersey, renamed Deborah.

Thank God. They told her that she was adopted really early on. They told her like a little bedtime story about a child being chosen. And then they were like, and that's how we got you, which I thought was very sweet. Her parents sounded pretty amazing. She wasn't really exposed to a lot of music growing up, although she did say that her mom would listen to a lot of opera. Her mom was a baseball fanatic, which I found just neither here nor there, but interesting, and liked opera. And she also had one compilation of jazz classics or something.

And there was a Judy Garland song on there. And she said she would cry listening to Judy Garland sing Swanee. That also might have been on a separate album. I've read a lot of books and my mind has frizzled. But I really liked that tidbit because we're going to get to a later point where Judy Garland's daughter comes and sings backup on a blondie song. And I found that to be like such a beautiful full circle moment. Oh. Yeah, right?

Like you're like a child crying to Judy Garland's. darling singing because like you're so moved by it and you want to sing and then later her daughter comes and sings back up for you. Hell yeah. This is an important bit and I know you read the biography too that she used to daydream that she was Marilyn Monroe's daughter. I want to ask you about the Marilyn Monroe thing. Like you know how like the further away you get from when something was like extant as a cultural figure and then the further way you get they become less and less a person and more and more an idea. I don't have a sense of like

what Marilyn Monroe's place was in the world when Debbie Harry was like a child, which would have been in the 50s, right? Yeah. So she's born in 45. Yes. She's exactly one year older than my father. They have the same birthday.

I think Marilyn Monroe, listen, her first song I think that she wrote is platinum blonde, right? Right. I want to be a platinum blonde. just like all the sexy stars. I mean, like, I think Maryland is really fucking cool. And I think that, uh, when you watch a Maryland movie like bus stop, which I've watched, like a few times recently, like, I watched it more than one time because I was so in awe

of how good she is in that movie and what a fucked up crazy, doomed beauty she is. And the acting so good and the, the makeup stuff. so good and the look is so good. It's just like all really cool. I think Marilyn's really, really cool. And I think that Marilyn had this fucked up bad girl doomed glamour that is still really cool. But like, it was even cooler then because she was like, I guess, the jackoff fantasy for like the boys in her elementary school. Now that makes total sense. That makes a lot of sense. Also, I guess, like, in the 50s was, like, the peak of her fame. Like, she was, like, actively, extremely famous. Like, how to marry a millionaire came out in, like, 53, I want to say. Don't quote me on that. 54. I don't know. 52. Whatever. Right around. I also cannot be quoted on thinking that bus stop is from 54. Okay. Yeah. I just think Maryland's really cool.

Yeah. I mean, I think you nailed it. There was, like, a danger. to her that wasn't super existing in the like sweethearts of the cinema before that. And I could see how someone would be really drawn to that if they felt that same sort of like volatileness in themselves, you know, which it sounds like Debbie Harry kind of did. I even tried wearing a wig for a while. It was the right color, but not the right style. She just like her whole thing is like I became myself when I, bleached my hair because they wanted to be like kind of like a fucked up beauty like Marilyn.

Totally. It's so funny. I read a quote that she would say she was obsessed obviously with Marilyn and her aunt had told her when she was young that she looked like a movie star. And so she had this like new fantasy about like being a movie star like Marilyn Monroe. And she would tell her parents, you'll be sorry you talk to me like this when I'm rich and famous, which is what I say to my parents now. I'm like, listen, my star is on the rise.

Okay. You're going to be sorry. when I'm 50 years old and I am the world's most famous podcaster. So I'm on my way. So yeah, she starts adding her hair at 14, to your point, bleaching it.

She wanted to be platinum blonde. She's a baton twirler in high school, although she did admit that she was bad at it and that they only liked it because she kept dropping it and she had to bend over. Early use of sex appeal to get what she wanted.

And she was voted most attractive in her high school, which is not surprising because she's absolutely one of the most stunningly naturally gorgeous people that I've ever laid my eyes on. It's insane that she looks like that. She still looks so good and we can get to it later, but my, like, my meeting her, she's very, she's still got that movie Star glow all over her. So crazy. I mean, some people are just have that, right? And also, like, that, those cheekbones.

Yeah. There's nothing better than those cheekbones because also you'll, you'll always have them your whole life. Like, you're always going to be beautiful. You're always going to be famous, Debbie Harry. But yeah, so she didn't think she was pretty, though, which I thought was really interesting. She talked about how she felt ugly and she thought she looked weirder than the other kids. And then they would tell her she looked European, which I guess was a slur. I know.

I'm sure it was such a dress. You look European. Can you imagine? But, yeah, so she was like, I was an outsider in high school. She sounded like she was super fun and also early sex positive advocate. it. Also, I did write in my notes. She was a ho and proud, but I mean that in the most loving and kind way. It sounded like she was, her quote was, I had a lot of boyfriends, usually one at a time, because that was the way it was done in this kind of small, uptight little town. So she's kind

of being like, I wanted to have more than one at a time. And then she was like, I really loved sex. I think I might have been over sex, but I didn't have a problem with that. I felt it was totally natural. I feel like she, and this is another thing that I love about her, I like her, like her, like referencing like I feel like she like saw Marilyn and was like I want to be like that and she heard the Shangri-Laws and she's like look out, look out, look out, look out, look out. Like that is me. I am them.

She was just like rebel girl with the Shangri-Las in the background breaking hearts in her in her dumb town. Where was that dumb town, Yassie? This is Hackettstown, New Jersey. No, that's where she went to college. This is

Hawthorne, New Jersey. I'm not like intimately familiar with the townships of New Jersey, but... Well, she is giving us the tri-state experience for it. For sure. And she still has the accent, which I think is the cutest. I loved that quote, ho and proud, for a couple of reasons. One being that, like, a big thing about blondie as a band and Debbie in particular that was both extremely successful and derided was that she traded on sex appeal for

for everything, right? for contextualizing the band for like whatever. But I think that like there's a difference between doing that in a craven opportunistic way when it doesn't resonate with who you are. That really is kind of disgusting, right? Like that's trading, that's selling your soul. But reading this from like a young age, it's like she was just very comfortable on her sexuality from the beginning.

So it was a natural, it was a natural form of interacting with the audience and at large. And it's why she gets really mad when things go outside of that. And we'll get to it. I'm getting a little head. But like when the first photos of her from the record company are put out on the poster where you can see through the shirt and they had promised her they wouldn't do that, like there's lines where she's like, that's not what I'm doing. Like what I'm doing is like camp and fun and like it's a performance.

But what you're doing is making smut. And like there's a line between that. I love that page of the book that you. you're talking about where she's like, yeah, I'm, I'm being like, she's like creating a new wave version of these 1950s vixen's, but in a cool punk way and you just are doing sex with no style. I'm doing sex with style. Exactly. And it's artful. Yeah. It's having fun. It's artful. There's like a distance. It's not just so like I'm trading on my nipples to get you to buy something. So anyways, I wanted to point that out because that becomes

a huge thing within Blondie later. So she gets her Associates of Arts degree from Centenary College at Hackettstown, New Jersey. She gets super into jazz, which makes sense because jazz was the punk of before punk existed. Would you agree? Yeah.

Like, it was like the bad boy music, right? Where, like, they were, like, doing drugs and being crazy. Yeah. And then obviously, you said it already, the Shangri-laws. And then she moves to New York in the late 19.

She lives, this sent me to the goddamn moon. She found an apartment on St. Mark's place for $67. Imagine that. Imagine that. I mean, St. Mark's place in the late 1960s was an absolute shithole. So it's not like it was the glamorous part of New York, but still 67 dollars. It sounds so glamorous, right? It sounds great.

It sounds so cool. So she worked at a wholesale houseware's market, and then she got a cool. cooler job as a secretary at BBC Radio. And she was just like, I really related to this as a person who doesn't have a talent per se. She, not, I'm not saying she doesn't have a talent, but she really was just like, I just broadly want to be an artist and live a bohemian life. I haven't really narrowed in on what it is I want to do, but I want to live a bohemian lifestyle and like do art. And I was like, that was sort of my vibe, my whole life. And then I became a podcaster. And you know, what that's God's plan. So she was painting and stuff while she was living there, listening to

jazz, painting. She always loved singing. So she starts her musical career in a jazz trio called the uni trio. Nothing comes of it. She's painting. Nothing comes at that either. She decides she wants to do musical theater. She starts auditioning for Broadway shows. That does not work out either. It's not happening for her. Then she joins her first professional. music group. This sounds insane, but then I remembered it was the 60s. The first national unifrenic church and bank. That is the name of the musical group. It sounds like it had like 15 people in it, some like art school shit. The drummer was an escaped convict named talks. There was finger symbols, tambourine. She played those. She was the backup singer.

Lots going on here, okay? Wow. That also didn't last. Then she, quits the BBC and goes and works at the first head shop that ever existed in New York City. Amazing. Iconic. It was next door to Vesalka. And then she connects with this guy, Paul Klein. He was married to her high school friend, Wendy Simon, and he had a group called the Wind in the Willows. This was also some art school nine-person, you know, Peter Paul and Mary broke folk shit.

She did backup singing. Here's an insane detail that I just thought you might. Enjoy is not the right word, but be interested in because it, I found it insanely interesting. Apparently, they got a little known and also got their first manager because Wendy Simon's sister, Beth Ann, died of starvation while she was on a macrobiotic diet. And that got written up by Robert Criscow. Wow. Is that not the most insane thing you've ever heard? Yeah.

So wait, they got money. They got notoriety from that? Yeah, so maybe they got written up because in conjunction with that story and then Robert Criscount introduced them to, he became friends with Paul Klein because of it because they lived on the same block. And then he introduced them to this publicist. This is important actually. It's not just interesting.

Interesting that's publicist who introduced them to Peter Leeds, who would become their manager, who is the villain of our story. because he will, as we know, later become Blondie's manager. But this is how Peter Leeds gets in the mix. It's all because poor Bethann died from starvation while on a macrobiotic diet. Oh, my God. I know. Goup was not around to guide people back then, babe.

People were just like raw-dogging macrobotic diets. And like, it was dangerous. It was dangerous. So he gets Wind and the Willows a deal with Capitol Records. This band released an album on Capitol Records. I feel like I've seen the album cover. I feel like there's plants in the album cover. Yes, 100%.

One million Mousandos plants in it. Yeah, it's greenery, for sure. It doesn't really hit the music, and Debbie's not super into it. Her quote was, I decided I wanted to do something harder, faster, more exciting. So in the meantime, she starts doing drugs. As we all do. No judgments. As we all do.

No judgments. Are you kidding this girl? Zero judgments. I was like, I want to live a bohemian lifestyle and do art. instead, I'm going to do drugs because that is also an art that is accessible to me and that I am good at. Literally same. Yes. Respect. Respect. Yeah. Listen. What was she doing? Okay, I'll get into it right now. First, she did, she smoked pot, but that was in 1964 gateway drug. And then LSD. Her boyfriend, who was a drummer, gave her heroin for the first time. Here's what she said. Drugs was chic.

I mean, honestly, who can argue with such a thing? Are they horrible and dangerous and we can't do them anymore? Yes. Were they chic? Also, yes. It's just the duality, the duality of drugs. So drugs was chic. Everybody in New York was fooling around with drugs.

That's just what the scene was like. It wasn't like today where everybody knows what the implications are and what the results are. It was just a very small elitist art world. Up in a loft. Look at my pictures. Aren't they neat? Yeah. Okay.

Let's do some drugs to celebrate. I mean, literally nothing's. changed. I also don't do drugs anymore, but this story is very relatable. Tale is old as time. Taylor's all this time. Do you want to come see my, do you want to come see my little art film I made? Drugs, celebrate, Gorge. I mean, I do drugs, but only the beautiful hippie kind like mushrooms. So it's not really the same vibe. Debbie is very into age, which I never, I did once in 1995, literally. And I have a, why it was around a lot of heroin

when I was a sophomore in college and it was so gross. And I was like, you're all disgusting and I never did it, which I think is cool. But I think Debbie gets into it later and it sounds sheke in her book. I have never done heroin. Thank the Lord. It was the one

drug, honestly, I've done everything else. But it was the one drug where I like, to Debbie Harry's point, I grew up in the 90s, which means that like every like third film that came out in the 90s was like train spotting or like requiem for a dream. So it's like I grew up like seeing that shit and being like, why would you ever? And also like Kurt Cobain dying was like my 9-11.

You know what I mean? Like it was like the most like culturally significant moment for my young self. I was like crying for two weeks. So like I had this like real boogeyman idea of heroin and it despite all of the other times that I was like, who cares meth? Let's fucking go. Like that was the one thing where I was like, I'm not doing that. Yes. I also, yes, I probably did heroin like six months after seeing Pulp Fiction in the

movie theater and was like, no. I'm not, I just, I'm not, don't normalize this for me. Allow me to remain uptight about it. And I was right, I think. But anyway, Debbie makes it sound very blasé and chic. I'm into, I'm into it for her.

Well, it's hard to get a real handle on what was going on, but it does sound like she was for a period of years like an actual junkie. And I think she would, I think she would admit to that. And I listened to a couple of interviews where she did talk about that being like kind of a rough go. She at the same time gets a job at Max's Kansas City. Fav, as a waitress. As a waitress. In the back room. In the back room. This sent me to the moon. So Wayne County, who was obviously a huge figure in this scene, said this about her. One of the waitresses at Max's was this really trashy blonde with too much makeup and overdone hair.

She was always stoned and regularly dropped cheeseburgers in people's laps. Her name was Debbie Harry. I think Wayne County trailblazes the idea of a transition in a cool way because it happened in like 73 or something and was literally totally on the scene as Wayne County. and then transitioned into Jane County. Such a cool legend that really needs to be an interview magazine like literally yesterday. I know about that feature. What the fuck?

Jane, I'm going to find your number. I haven't seen you in 20 years, but you're confirmed, babe. Let's get it. I hope you say yes. We'll get into this.

We're about to get into it. But like another thing that's really interesting about the blondeie story is that Blondie is the absolute, in my opinion, intersection of what was really going down in downtown New York at the time, which was the punk scene and the gay scene. Like it was like a, like, kind of in a way forced together on some levels, because like it was like these two sort of like marginalized scenes that sometimes were simpatico and in some parts like, I mean, a lot of punks were really homophobic. You know, there was that famous story of handsome Dick Manitoba from the dictators.

and Wayne County getting to a huge fight because handsome dick was like calling Wayne's slurs and Wayne County beat the shit out of him. But this all, Blondie really kind of bridges the gap between the two both musically and also like in the ways they came up and we'll get into it. But they like, they didn't start at CBGB's exactly. Like they did as Blondie, but they have roots further down in a pretty iconic gay drag bar called Club 82. Right. And another one called on mothers. Yeah. Okay. Anyways, back to Debbie's working at Maxis Kansas City. She's waiting on the famous people, Janus Joplin, Jane Fonda. It's all like, you know, Viva. It's Warhol. There's like, it's a fucking scene, babe. It's happening. She meets Eric Emerson there, who was one of the first glam rock kind of figures alongside

the New York dolls that doesn't get talked about as much as the New York dolls. And she made it with him in a phone booth. Just once. Just once. I made it with him once. Made it with him once. I love made it with him. It's such a cute phrase.

Why don't we say that anymore? I think I'm bringing it back. Please bring it back. Yeah. Fucking. Fuck enough. Yeah. That's so crass.

It's too crass. Like, I just want to make it. I want to make it too. Exactly. Here's what's happening. She's on heroin. She's dropping cheeseburgers and people.

laps. She is being beautiful. She's at Maxis, Kansas City. She's connecting. Everything is, it's going. It's happening. And then she meets a millionaire who is like, come with me to Bel Air. And she's like, you know what? Okay. And he buys her some Gucci clothes and flies her off to Bel Air. And she lives in this Belar mansion. I think for like six or eight months. And then she's so fucking bored. And she's like, no, I need to go back to New York. And she goes back to New York. Who amongst us? When is this like 1971? This is,

it's a great question on the year. It's around 71, because she gets back, she gets back around 71 or 72 in between and she can't get her job back at Maxis because the owner's like, no. And so she gets a job at the Playboy Club as a Playboy Bunny.

Yeah. Seven. I know. She said it was not fun because it was like a real hustle. like those girls were like out for their money and they were like making tons of money and it's like it was not that cool to be stoned at work as it as it was at maxes and she I guess eventually she said in MME in 1977 that she stopped doing junk and I didn't need the money as much in a way I used to

I use drugs to stimulate myself or control my state of mind to help me get through a rough emotional time in my life when I felt a little more secure I was ready to go on as a person without any help. So because she doesn't need money as much, she's not doing heroin anymore, she quits the Playboy Bunny job. She also, like, I guess felt like she had been in New York for five years. Her bohemian lifestyle is not really happening. So she turns in her corset and her bunny years and she moves back in. She moves in with her parents who had now moved to upstate New York because her mom was sick. And then she moves back to New Jersey, gets a job at a health club and starts dating a painting contractor.

She's just living life. She's just being a chick. She's just being Debbie. And maybe, you know, it's hard to, it's hard to make it in New York City. So that's 1972. But she never gave up on her like what she was interested in. So even though she's like dating this like probably meathead, New Jersey, you know, Jim Tan laundry contractor.

I bet he was hot. I'm sure he was hot. I'm sure he was hot. She's going to the city all the time to see the New York doll. and see Velvet Underground. She's still kind of really into the cultural aspect of it. Now let's take a break from Debbie real quick.

We're going to go to your friend Christopher Stein. Yes. Born January 5th, 1950 at Capricorn. That makes sense. Salt of the earth. Glue of the band. Kept it all, held it down, kept it together. So Christine was born to Jewish parents.

Mother Estelle was a painter and his father, Ben, was a salesman and frustrated writer. I don't, I want everyone to know that I don't think that about his father. That's just lifted from Wikipedia. Wikipedia called him a frustrated writer. I don't know if he was frustrated. Maybe he was very happy with his writing career.

But more importantly, they were very politically active. And his dad was a labor organizer. And he wrote for the radical press in the 30s and 40s. So they were like cool, cool parents fighting the good cause. They listened to lead belly and, quote, had black friends, which was a little unusual at the time. They were a head. They were hipsters. He got really into like

Fellini scores at the time because his mom was really into watching Fellini movies. And then he also got really into like Muddy Waters and John Lee Hooker because that's what his parents were listening to. And then later, of course, the Beatles and the Stones. And he grew up in Midwood in Brooklyn and was expelled from high school for having long hair.

That's what it was like, babe. That's what it was like in the 50s. And he was in a bunch of bands. He played guitar and he was in the morticians, Fanang gang, the Millard Fillmore Memorial Lamp Band. And then he was just like a fokey man. He was hanging out in Greenwich Village playing his guitar, trying to catch a glimpse of the love and spoonful. Just vibing. When he was 15, his dad passed away suddenly. And this was sort of a pivotal thing for him emotionally, although according to him it didn't really present until later, but he kind of became withdrawn and sullen when this happened.

I'm going to zoom out for a second. We're going to paint the picture of what the vibe musically was in the mid-60s, specifically for New York, but in general, Beatlemania had transpired, right? Ed Sullivan appearance is 1964. So that's a foregone conclusion. The Beatles are everywhere. Bob Dylan had also become a really big star straight from like their name,

right? Straight from, he showed that you could just from Greenwich Village to superstardom. Right. And then the Velvet Underground had started in 1965-ish. In 76, the Velvet Underground and Nico comes out, the album. Andy Warhol opens a new club called The Gymnasium on East 71st Street. It was actually the gym of Sokol Hall, which was an activity center that served the Czech and Slovak community. Velvet Underground has a residency there. Not many people show up to this, apparently, and Andy Warhol ended up closing down the gymnasium because of this,

but Chris's new band, First Crow to the Moon, opened for the Velvet Underground for one of these shows. Yeah. This band never goes anywhere. Chris quits the band. He moves to San Francisco to participate in the Summer of Love. I meant to ask you to ask him about that, because I don't know what that means,

but I'm dying to know what he did at the Summer of Love in San Francisco. And then he, well, I know what he did. he got really into LSD and apparently delayed, this is a quote, delayed shock from his father's death, paired with the LSD consumption, propelled him towards a mental breakdown. And he was briefly committed at Bellevue. Whoa. His quote was the best, though, because he said, flipping out was the norm. Everyone I knew would do their stint in the nut house at one point or another. Wow.

I'm still waiting for mine. As everyone who listens to this program knows, it's my dream to be committed into a seaside institution. for hysteria, where I just am wheeled to the, you know, with a blanket on my legs and get to, like, stare at the sea. I guess that being institutionalized partially helped him escape the draft, so that was helpful. And then he gets out, goes and enrolls in SVA at a photography course, obviously became a very iconic photographer. Meanwhile, the New York Dolls have formed in 1971.

Do you have a relationship with the New York Dolls, Milanberg? I mean, like, beyond, like, listening to songs like trash sometimes, it's, not that deep. Right. Let me, let me hear about it. Well, I'm just, I'm not going to talk too much about them. What's your, what's your relationship to the dolls? I think the New York dolls are really important in the punk cinematic universe that I'm talking about. Like, they truly are, they're such, they're so early in, like, there would be no sex pistols. Like, very obviously, Malcolm McLaren has said, like, I made the sex pistols because I loved the, I wanted a New York dolls. Like, I wanted to make my own New York dolls, you know?

So it's just they're really interesting and their trajectory isn't that different, right? It's like they're really fucking cool. They look amazing. They hang around. They come in and out. Yeah. You can still see him sometimes. Johnny.

And David. David Johansson. Is that his name? Yeah. I saw him recently. Yeah. He was very hot. I saw him.

I think he still looks great. His wife looks really cool. They look fucking cool. And I saw them at an opening at the Boxi Hotel for this photographer, Dustin Pop, and they were talking to a mutual friend. And I was too starstruck to go talk to them because it just so mean and cool. And I loved it. The starstruck for me is a big compliment because even though if I work with all the biggest stars, when I'm starstruck, I'm like, it's too much. I can't take it.

Yeah, totally. It is very interesting who star strikes, star strikes who. For me, it's like if someone was on one of my like stories, my television programs, it's not about how famous someone is. It's about how much of a parasycial relationship I have with you because you are on three seasons of Grey's Anatomy. Do you know what I mean? Like those are the people that I'm like,

I can't speak to you. Anyone else is fine. I am very sur-certed by Debbie Harry, I will say. I would be too. I have not matter a bit. Okay, anyways, back to the New York Dolls. So, yes, we talked about they're important. They're playing their iconic shows at the Mercer Arts Center in 1972.

Chris goes to one of these shows. because who's opening for the New York dolls? Eric Emerson and the magic tramps aforementioned Debbie made it with him. He was like a big deal. He was like a Warhol factory persona. He was in some of the movies. He was in Chelsea Girls. He was a cultural, important cultural figure.

So Debbie was also really into the New York Dolls, and she had become friends with them and their girlfriends. And also, I think briefly maybe had a situation ship with David Johansson. And so then that's how she became friends with this woman, Elda Gentile. I think that's how you pronounce her name. She was Eric Emerson's partner. Elda Gentile had a girl group at the time called Pure Garbage with Hollywood Lawn and David Johansson's girlfriend, Diane. Super cool. Super cool. Yeah. Pure garbage? Pure garbage. Yeah. What a great name. For a girl group? So good. It's so good. And this was this, her thing was very

theater, right? Like this was like the Warhol crew. Like this was very like campy theater. girl group, like, almost like I feel like the John Watersification of a girl group, you know? That was the vibe. Debbie heard about this, and she was like, I want to sing, I want to be in it, and by the time she went to ask Elda, they were no more.

Pure Garbage had broken up. But Elda was like, you know what, I know another girl with a fabulous voice. Her name is Roseanne. Let's get a little group together. And that's how the stilettos were born. There's a lot of, just such interesting stuff, but that's slettos, so I had to talk about it. Also, this is the DNA of Blondie, so it's important.

to get into it. But so they have, they're at first backed by these two guitarists, Tommy and Jimmy Winbrand. They go on to form the Miami's who are another CBGB's band that's actually never talked about, but they're really good. They're like a power pop band. And then Tony Ingrossia signs up to choreograph the group. Are you familiar with his work, Mel? I'm not.

So he was like also another like Warhol, like adjacent theater and film director. He directed a lot of like Broadway and office. Broadway plays that like Patty Smith would be in like he was like very involved in this in this world and he would make them do method singing which I guess was based on method acting and they would like Debbie would just talk about how like actually really helped her to become a better singer because he would just make them do things over and over again and make them cry they make their debut in October 1973 Rosie had quit and she's replaced by Amanda Jones they did mostly covers, like, kind of like show tunes and like, um, they're doing like do-wop.

They're doing 50s. They're doing 60s. They're discovering drift store. Oh, no, they have no style. They look kind of, I don't think they have any style. I don't think the look is really giving anything. No, they look kind of crazy. They're like trying to look a little bit just like cartoonish.

Debbie, I think at this point is actually a brunette still for some reason, because I saw some pictures. Elda Gentile is like wearing just suspenders and no shirt and the other woman is looking quite normal. The painting contractor by the way is like stalking Debbie. They had broken up but she's like... Yes, right, right, right, right, right.

See that crazy story where he breaks into her apartment with a gun and is like, who are you dating? Where is he? Insane. This has turned into art later, people, but we'll get to that. So she moves away from New Jersey. She gets an apartment to get away from him. Now, Chris Steyer,

is dating Billy Mercia from the New York Dolls' ex-girlfriend, Elvira. Elda and Elvira are friends. Elda invites Elvira to the second ever Stiletto's show and Chris comes along. This is how Chris and Debbie meet. This is the fateful meeting. I loved this because every book I read had a very similar story where Debbie was like, okay, here's her quote. He was sitting in the shadows, and I could feel his piercing gaze upon me throughout the whole show.

I really couldn't see his face clearly because he was sitting in such a way that his head was facing backwards. All I could see was this sort of glow. And I don't know if it was fate or if it was just sort of apparent that we were supposed to connect up. I know that sounds kind of ridiculous, but I delivered the whole show to him. I couldn't look anywhere else. It's amazing. And it's also 100% believable. It's like he's like this mod guy.

Yeah, he was wearing eyeliner at the time. Oh, right. He's wearing eyeliner with long hair. Okay, so he's actually not mod. but like suddenly it sounds very like lula and sailor and wild at heart like when they see each other it's just over yeah i mean i think it's like really classic divine connection love at first sight like these they had like a psychic thing that they like linked them and clearly it did like they had such an artistic and romantic partnership that endured for over a decade wow but they don't start dating

right away here's what elda said i love this because it's just tea she was like when chris saw Debbie had the hots for her. I was even a little surprised that she went for it. Let's just say that he was very, very smart the way he handled her. I knew he wanted her body, soul, and spirit, but he played it very cool to get her. He nurtured all her insecurities. See, everybody loved Debbie because she had this Marilyn Monroe and the gutter quality, but she was very insecure and a little bit paranoid. She was very insecure. This comes up a lot. She was insecure about her singing. She was very nervous. She didn't, she had kind of stage fright. She wasn't really like a powerful performer yet. So Chris joins the band.

He starts playing guitar. They add Fred Smith on bass and this guy, Billy O'Connor on drums. This is when they started playing that place, Club 82. So Club 82 was on 4th Street and 2nd Avenue. And it was in the 40s, like a very glamorous drag venue. But then by the 70s, it had kind of fallen on hard times a little bit. It was run by two Butch lesbians. One was named Tommy.

and according to Sylvain Sylvain, she ran it like a brick shit house. The New York dolls hung out there. He said it was, it looked tropical, the Copa Cabana goes gay, if you will. The center of it was the actual stage, like a square.

Completely around the stage was a bar. We would hang out down there. The prostitutes were on 10th Street, and after their work hours, they would go down to Club 82 and drink down there. Sounds pretty fun. I'd love to go tonight. I would love to go right now.

So Clem, who would be, who Clem Burke, who will join the band later, he said that he thinks this is where the band kind of absorbed the whole disco thing because they would play like a lot of disco at Club 82, like rock the boat, shame, shame, shame, all this like dance music, but they would also have punk shows. So it was like sort of this like intersection of those two things. So they play a show there in 74, June of 74, the stilettos opening for Wayne County. This is an important moment because Bob Gruen, the iconic photographer, brings a melody maker journalist with him.

And this is how Debbie Harry and the Stilettos get their first ever mention in the British music press. And they run photos of her, obviously, because they're like given, I think he talks about 10 bands, like television, the Miami's, Wayne County, all these other bands. But of course, they're looking at the photos and they're like, we want that,

those photos of like this gorgeous blonde woman. So that kind of puts them slightly on the map. Then in 1974, like in that summer, Club 82 kind of slows down on booking bands. Like, it's not really happening anymore. However, in early 74, CBGBs had started booking bands. Can you please, Yassi, what does CBGB stand for? CBGB stands for country, bluegrass, and blues, and other music for uplifting gormandizers. And why?

Hilly Crystal who opened CBGBs like really was into country music and he thought that was like the hip thing to be happening. And so he wanted like country and bluegrass and he was like going to make it happen. And unfortunately for him it did not happen. He could not make country and bluegrass on the Bowery happen. It didn't happen. It wasn't hitting. There's the, the mythology around CBGBs is that television is the first band to play there, but that's not true. Although they like to tell that in their myth.

Wayne County had already played there, and I want to say the magic tramps and maybe even suicide, because people forget that suicide's been around for a super long time. Like, they are also around at this time. But anyways, it's a television starting to play there is important because it kind of starts this era. Now, Richard Hell is dating Elda Gentile. This is a very small community of people. And that's how Debbie and Chris meet him. and they learn that CBGBs is letting unsigned bands play. So they're like, oh, maybe we could go play there. So the Stilettos open for television, May 1974. Wow.

Yeah. Wait, who's in the Stilettos now? It's the three girls? It's Elda, Debbie, Fred Smith, Chris Stein, Billy O'Connor, the drummer, and maybe one other girl. Right, because it just sort of a few people fell out, a few people fell in, and suddenly it's blonde. in like a year or something. Like basically what happens is the stilettos breakup, right? So while they're the stiloghs, here's, I'll tell you what Debbie was wearing so you can get a sense of it.

It's very tacky and gaudy. She's wearing a black mortisha dress, a gold day glow cross, gold lame dresses, wigs, like a goldfish bowl. Like it was very like over the top. But she says she was, this is when she starts developing this blondie character. Because they were really into comic books and stuff too, speaking of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Right. Platinum blonde is already being played here because she had written it

The rest is like All the Sexy Storm The rest is like Lady Marmalade cover Mr. Big Stuff Out in the streets starts happening around here As you pointed out

His heart His heart is out in the tree But then they break up in June Debbie was like I didn't want to do the schick anymore. Like, I wanted to do, like, original real music. I want to be a real band. And Elda was like, I want, like, more theatrical stuff. It's just not working. So they break up. Debbie and Chris start a band called The Angel and the Snake with Fred and Billy from Stilettos with two

backup singers called Julian Jackie. They play at CBGs. The Ramones opened for them because they had made friends with Tommy Ramon who was hanging around, you know, all that he was at the 82 club. He was everywhere. He was like, I have this band called the Ramones. We don't know where to play. Where do you guys play? I thought this is very funny. Chris was Chris was like, I figured he was playing with Puerto Ricans or something because of the Spanish name. He thought the remotes were Puerto Ricans. Anyways, so everyone's hanging out. They're at CBGBs.

The Angel and the Snake. They're kind of in between names. It's not blondey yet. It becomes blondie and the bonsai babies. This is when Tish and Snooky joined. Tish and Snooki Bellamo. Do you want to tell people who Tish and Snooki Bellamo are? Tish and Snooki started the company Manic Panic,

which means that every time you see a pink person with pink hair or green hair or blue hair, when you think of who invented Billy Elish's style, you know who it was? It was Tish and Snicky Blondie's backup singers on in the flesh and equally incredible songs. There's two chicks that ended up starting manic panic, which like, I don't think manic, first of all, manic panic doesn't exist anymore, right? No, are you kidding? Manic panic is like the gold standard of like. young people dying their hair.

Oh, that's amazing. Well, kids, here we are. It's 1975 and we're, and it's just two sisters with probably some fucked up crazy hair. Yeah. And they were backup singers and they ended up changing that hair game for teens for forever. Literally not 10 years ago, I did do like a bleached ends of my hair seepunk style. That's right.

It was misguided. And I used Manor Panic to add a little, a little color to it. it. So it's alive and kicking for sure. I am so glad to know that it's the gold standard. Yeah. 100%. It was like they invented that within a boutique on St. Marks. It was very cool. Yes. They're amazing. So this is what's happening, right?

They also had a song called Funky Anus. Does neither here nor there. I just needed to tell you. Thank you. You're welcome. They're just having fun. They're not really career-oriented. Let's be honest, they're not really good. This band is not good. Okay? That's just the truth of the matter. then they become blondie right and they're like okay we have these like backup dance backup singers let's go billy o'connor then quits the band he's the drummer he possibly had a pill problem and maybe

once he passed out right before a show and jerry nolan from the new york dolls had to fill in so anyways he's out of the band they put an ad in the village voice freak energy rock drummer wanted so they do that village voice audition 40 people show up and the last one is clemberg from bayon on New Jersey. He's a Sagittarius. He was 20 years old. He was apparently kind of like a known quantity in the New Jersey music scene because he was like, he had like played Radio City Music Hall at like 14 years old in some band. Anyways, here's. He looks like he's got rock and roll tattooed on his like the souls of his feet or something. Like he's just so fucking rock and roll the game. I mean, he like kind of invented the fucking

Oasis haircut. Like he really originally had that. I feel like with Klam and Debbie and Chris, there are all these like people lost in the tri-state area that all have these like references and this like Hollywood

junkie Shangri-Glaz thing and then are like mod thing and they're all like coming together. Finding each other somehow by fate. By fate. A hundred percent. Yeah, Clem is like fits in here perfectly. A bit of Goss here is who showed up to the rehearsals.

Oh. Or to the audition, I mean. Patty Smith. Here's what Debbie said. One strange thing that day was Patty Smith showing up. She saundered in the room with one of her band and proceeded to audition Clem. She was very aggressive. After Clem played, she declared that he was too wild, too loud, and then she left.

What nerve showing up at our auditions like that? I guess she was just too curious to know what we were up. to, you know the competition. Not that we were very much of a threat at the time. Yes. From Debbie's memoir. There's, we're, they're not really warmly embraced by the CBGB's community when the power. At first, CBGBs is like, we all love each other.

We're all best friends. We're all supportive. This is so fun. And then some power shifts towards the television Patty Smith camp. And then it becomes a little icy, cool. cold towards Blondie. We'll get into it, but it's very high school. So, okay, they have Clem.

It's great. The day that they have their first show at CBGBs with Clem is also the day that Fred Smith is like, actually I'm really sorry I'm joining television because Richard Hull had quit and he just sneakily went and quit Blondie to join television. Debbie was really pissed about this. She thinks that Patty convinced him to join television. She also said, I may be paranoid, but I think that whole click wanted to destroy us. And Chris said, Tom Verlaine and Patty were lurking around in the shadows.

Oof. The goss and the tea. I'm obsessed. I'm obsessed with this. Keep them down. And I mean, the pretty girl, like, you know, let's be real. Get that bitch out of here. Exactly.

In fairness, musically, they were, as Debbie pointed out, not a threat because I have to stress, they were really bad. Like, everyone will say it. They were not a good band. They did not have. good songs and they couldn't play. So like it's not giving really anything right now. Roberta Bailey, who is an iconic photographer but also did the door at CBGB's, she was like, oh, Fred Smith made the biggest error of his life when he quit Blondie to join television. But at that point, Blondie was the worst band in the city. They were a joke. Everybody liked them

personally, but they didn't have it together. Now here's something out. This is getting into the juicy part that I love about the like the feminine, just what, what it was. for blondey and for Debbie to present this way. So here's what Debbie said. Patty Smith was down on me because she was very competitive. That was her nature. She had a very masculine and intellectual approach to music and performing. I don't want to do that. I played a chorus girl, Juicy Lucy in Jackie Curtis's vain victory. And I found I liked music better because it's not as intellectual as acting. Rock and roll is a real masculine business. And I think it's time girls did something in it. I don't want to sound like a libber obsessed i don't know sound like a liber a woman's liver but i want to do something

to make people change the way they think and act towards girls janus joplin did that but she had to sacrifice herself and here's another thing she said this is what i want to ask you to be an artistic assertive woman in girl drag not boy drag was then an act of transgression i was playing up the idea of being a very feminine woman while fronting a male rock band in a highly macho game this like gave me the chills I was like, damn, this is so fucking real. Because, like, what Patty was doing was, like, palatable, perhaps in the sense of, like, she is fronting a rock band while presenting very masculinely. But to front a rock band while also presenting a super high femme was really punk.

What do you think? I think it's really punk. And I think that it was a gamble. And at this point in the story, you're just. seeing it as like this hopeless gamble. They're creative people that are just doing what they do and they're playing the comic strip characters that they are. You know what I mean?

Like they're just doing their shit. Everyone thinks they're the ultimate underdog and they suck. The gamble paid off, right? Oh my. A million percent. Her art is creating this character and no one else is doing that and it's not considered cool and that's so fucking cool. And it's also like so major.

Like this is where it's actually not, it's hard to overstate this. But like without Debbie Harry fronting Blondie, like, we wouldn't have like no doubt or like, I mean, like she really was, Patty was doing something a little different, but also equally important. But like there weren't examples of this, right? Like you kind of had the runaways, which were put together girl group. It's a little bit different. Obviously they were trailblazing in their own way. But like to just be a woman who was part of a band and was the front person as opposed to like Susie Quatro or something, you know, like something that was more manufactured or pop or whatever. Like she kind of like flung open the possibilities for everything we have in a parham or garbage.

Like I mean, I can't. I'm not going to list them all. But like this was this was massive. It wasn't it wasn't a thing back then. No, it was not a thing. Yeah. And then just like I think it's so easy. it's the same with the Maryland Monroe thing, right?

Like, we're so far away from it now. We're like, oh, yeah, blondeie, hard of glass. Fucking, that's cool. Like, you don't, it, it really needs to be, like, stressed how incredibly important blondey hitting was for, like, women to front bands going in the future. Feminism right back in my body. Yes. Yes.

And, again, while being hyperfeminine, while not having to, like, cosplay as a man. Yeah. And there's also something, this is also like one of these things where I've got, I'm sure you do too. I have a million images going through my head, like a Pinterest of Debbie Harry in the 70s, a zillion pictures of her because Debbie Harry in the 70s like really cuts glass. It's so fucking cool. And she really, it's not like she was like, she did okay and everyone else did better. Like, nope, this whole thing that she did 50 years ago is still like the,

gold standard of of what we're talking about. 100%. No, it was, and it was her, it was her interpreting glamour through her own sort of like, like that woman put it at the best, Marilyn Monroe in the gutter. Like, it's so good, you know, like, nailed it. So, so good. Okay. So Fred Smith quits Blondie. This nearly kills Blondie, right? Blondie almost broke up. Like, they're just like, whatever. Fuck it. Like, everyone hates us. We suck. We're not going to go on. Fred, our basis doesn't want to be our band. Chris like actually secretly tried to join the heartbreakers which had come out of the ashes of the New York dolls with like Richard Hell and stuff but didn't happen and Clem even did once again audition for Patty's band but that didn't take either and then Clem turns around and fucking saves the day because he's the one that's like you know what guys let's fucking keep going we got this I have a friend Gary Valentine he can play bass let's let's get the fucking shit back together Gary Lockman actually December 24th 1955 also a cap I just want to tell everybody if you're interested in what we're talking about, this like Marvel

Cinematic Universe of CBGBs, and I've read quite a few books about this. Also, if you want to know a little bit about what Blondie was thought about in that scene, read, please kill me, which they fucking literally dedicate all of seven lines in the entire book to Blondie because they're just not even part of the fucking story. They don't care. Wait, legs cut the whole blondeie out? There's barely, I went through the whole book. There's barely any blondeie. I mean, I'll put up, so please, read, please kill me even. they... Please know he's amazing.

It's amazing. Okay, but what I was going to say, definitely Gary Valentine's book, Gary Valentine wrote a book called New York Rocker, which is like kind of all about the history of that scene with through his lens of living through it. And it's so good because he's an incredible writer. Like he's,

I was telling Mel off Mike, but like I was unaware that Gary Valentine has written upwards of 20 books about the occult. I ordered one about Alistair Crowley. Oh. He is a prolific writer about a cult. things. Did not know. Anyways, that's a really good book. And while Gary is not long for the band, he's an important piece to the band.

He's so important, babe. He wrote some of the most iconic Blondie songs. He is so integral, I think. Maybe I'm a little biased because I read his book, but like, I think they would all say it. So he was a poet, actually. He actually didn't know how to play bass. He played piano a little, but he learned bass to be in Blondie. Now we're cooking with gas, babe. Okay. It's fucking going. Even though they're kind of blacklisted from CBGBs for about a month because Terry Ork had taken over the booking, Terry Ork was television's manager. And according to Gary Valentine, Ork's date book often seemed too crowded to allow space for Patty's sole serious competitor. I mean, but also if you were Patty, sorry, Patty was just doing her job.

I'm glad Patty didn't win here, but like anybody that. that was Patty would do the same thing. Oh, controversial opinion where the feminism does leave my body. Sorry, this like, all women to support each other? Absolutely not. It reminds me of that fucking tweet that's like, I'm not going to support all women. Some of you are dumb bitches. That could be, that's the truest statement of all time. It's actually misogynistic to expect women to support each other just because we're all women. We also hate some of each other. That's how it goes. And we were evolutionarily designed to be catty. Don't take that away from us. Let us have this. Okay. They make a demo tape around this time. The Soho

weekly news, the guy who started the Soho Weekly News, Alan Betrock, he loved Blondie, despite the fact that I must once again stress, they are not very good. I think he just saw, he has like a visionary, right? He's like, this band will be good. They have what it takes. He finances making a demo. He did say I would try to bring people to see them play because I wanted them to see the vision and they would be like, no, this is bad. But he was like, okay, if I get them on tape, they'll understand. So at this point, because it's Debbie sucks on stage, and he, but he hears. It's not just Debbie. They all suck. Again, I wasn't there. So I'm simply reporting the news, but they were just not musically tight. They were not great at playing their instruments or

I think later, Gary might have said that Chris would just get kind of stage right. And like, so he would clam up on stage and couldn't play guitar very well. They don't have a tight live show. I do think Debbie was still nervous and performing and wasn't as like charismatic and like a strong of a performer as she is now. But I think this guy was just like, a look at her face, be they're cool. See like I can hear in the songs that there's something there. So he gets, he makes them a demo with his own money. The disco song that was on there is actually an extremely early version of Heart of Glass. That was like what are their oldest songs?

Isn't that interesting? So interesting. There's a lot. There's a piece in NME that comes out in 1975. It's called New York, The Sound of 75, by Charles Schar Murray. He basically talks about the scene, and he says really nice things about the Ramones, the television, the talking heads. And then he says, sadly, Blondie will never be a star simply because she ain't good enough. But for the time, I hope she's having fun.

He will regret this. Yes, you will. To know that he was the wrongest person alive in print. Absolutely. Charles Charm Murray, you're wrong, bitch. You were wrong. But you know what? Again, he was simply taking in what he was presented with.

They read that article and they were like, okay, maybe we should get it together a little bit. And they're like, you know what would help a keyboard player? And so that's how Jimmy Destry gets in the band, James Mollica. Jimmy Destry, let me ask you opinion. To me, the hottest man in the band. Yes, I agree. Really a stunningly gorgeous man. He was in Aries.

He almost joined the talking head. but a mutual friend was like, you won't like them. They're snobby and weird, and you're more of a blondie person. Blondie, more salt of the earth. And he was like, okay, so you joined Blondie. Punk magazine launches in January of 1976,

Legs McNeil aforementioned, you brought this up. That kind of coins the term, right? No one's calling it punk before this. We have been, but we need to point out that that's not a phrase that people are using until Legs McNeil kind of makes it,

mince it as the name of the scene. And Punk Magazine further, like, was like the propaganda of the punk scene. Like, it may, it solidified the culture by, like, selling the dream of punk in the magazine of, like, what the look was, like what the vibe was, having this, like sneering mentality. It was like a mad magazine. So good job on that, Lex McNeil. Oh, yeah. They get Jimmy Destry. They're like, let's figure this out, okay?

Debbie is figuring out her blondie stage persona more and more. She says, I tried to make her a resilient creature who could bounce back and had a never-say-die-what-the-hell attitude. She was sparkling and adventurous. She liked having fun, liked having sex, and was tender and sensitive at the same time. I tried to envisage... Envisage her like a cartoon character because all the members of the band saw Blondie that way. And it was working. Now, here's a huge moment.

They're finally better. They get the attention of Craig Leon. Craig Leon is extremely important. Craig Leon had just produced the first Ramon's album. Which is fucking incredible. He did a lot of albums for Sire, so he was kind of in that scene. He had started a production company called Instant Records with Marty Thao. I don't know if that's how you pronounce it.

I'm sorry, Marty, if you're listening, if you're even alive, I have no idea. Marty was the manager of the New York Dolls. And Richard Gauter. Richard Gauter is extremely important. Richard Gauter started Sire Records. records with Seymour Stein. He also wrote a little song called My Boyfriend's Back. He also produced Motherfucking Hang-on Sloopy.

This man was a legend, okay? So they formed this little company. Marty loved Blondie, and Craig was like, we thought he was out of his mind. We knew that Debbie was good looking, but you've got to remember that at the time, it was almost unheard of for an assertive female to be a front person. It was a very hard sell.

She wasn't like a hippie chick. The band's playing was really slovenly, and they were really ramshackle-looking. Nobody took them seriously. This ramshackle looking is important. They haven't gotten their signature style yet of the skinny ties, the mod thing. Like, they're not wearing that yet. I don't really know what they look like, but according to Craig Lion, ramshackle. I love this about them, though, because they get so good, the look gets so good,

and it's such an important part of their thing. The cool thing about blondie and the look is they're not all look. They just need the look to sell the dream, right? A million percent. The really cool thing about this story to me is like, you hear all these other stories where it's like they were just came out of the fucking womb perfect. Like the Ramones just had their look, had their sound. It was like a done deal.

But Blondie is like a real example of just wanting it so much that you make it happen. And Debbie says that, right? It's like we weren't the best. And we didn't even really have our identity. and sound together. It took us time of just, like, playing and, and figuring it out. And, like, it's years.

That's why, that's why everyone brings that up. But, like, Debbie was, like, 31 when Blondie really hit with, like, heart of glass and stuff. I think she, I think she was 33 when it came out because it probably came out in early 79. Whatever. Point is, she was, she was way past the age of what you think someone in their prime is. Yeah, she wasn't, like, a little ingenue. you know.

Okay, Richard Goddor. So this is really important. Because he has this background of girl group stuff, he was a Brill Building songwriter, right? He's like from that fucking world that they're kind of trying to emulate. He gets it right away. And so he produces their first single, X Offender, June 1976.

It's so cool. It's so fucking cool. Now, this song, fucking goes. It slaps. We all know that. Do we know, though, that the backstory that inspired this is that Gary Valentine was charged with statutory rape. The story is insane. So at 18 years old, Gary Valentine had a 16-year-old girlfriend, which he talks about in his book where like, she was the one that was like, I think he was a virgin and she was like very sexually advanced and also had like several partners. And she ends up getting pregnant. And the mom,

finds out and charges fucking Gary Valentine with statutory rape because he's 18 and she's 16 and he has to like flee New Jersey and come like live with Debbie and Chris. Wow. And he becomes a literal registered sex offender. Wow.

When that happened. By the time he's living with them I think he's like 20. But like that kind of inspires this song. Gary wrote it. Gary wrote the music. Debbie wrote the words. Debbie was like this is partly a commentary on how ludicrous Gary's rape situation was and partly commentary on how preposterous it was to criminalize hookers.

I had the cop and the hooker fall for each other. So this is a love story between a cop and a prostitute, a sex worker, as we call them now. I saw you standing on the corner. You look so big and fine. I really wanted to go out with you. So when you smiled, I laid my heart on the line. It's a perfect song. It's like if the Shangri-laws were like way more transgressive in what they wrote about.

Like it has that exact same vibe, but then the content is like, you handcuffed me. I'm a, I'm a sex offender. Yes. It's so good. I'll be sex offensive to you is so fucking, it's just amazing. Also, just so quickly, they changed the name, obviously, to X offender because they thought it wouldn't sell. Debbie also, briefly, and she was right, was concerned that the name Blondie would be confusing because the band's identity and her own would get mixed up,

which obviously does people literally call she's Blondie and there's no band, whatever. But she was like, what if we change the band's name to Hitler's dog? Wow. Because Hitler's dog was famously named Blondie. I didn't know that. Oh, wow. Wow. Wow.

But she thought that she was like, yeah, she was like, well, nobody was down for it, obviously. Richard Goddor wrote that spoken word intro that starts out that really makes it like, the Shangri-Laws song. I saw you standing on the corner. You look so big and fine. I really wanted to go out with you. Ex-offender is like the, this is the moment Blondie happens, for real,

because the single's a hit. Like, they start getting all sorts of attention. It's on the radio, people want to book them, Cash Box Magazine writes it up. Frankie Motherfucking Valley pulls up to fucking CBGBs in a limo to see them

because frankly, Valley was a majority owner in this company private stock, which they were trying to get signed to. So they wanted to check them out to see if they were good enough to sign to his label. Then they get signed. There's one line I want to read you from a piece of press that is around this time. It's October 1976. I just, I'm sorry if I sound like a broken record, but I need to drive the point home of how fucking me during groundbreaking this was. So this is in trouser press. Ibra Robbins wrote, the idea of a The chick singer being an equal member of the band as opposed to the figurehead is hard to accept. That's really how people looked at things at that time. Like, it was so unheard of for Debbie to be an equal, like, like, this is like the fucking Rolling Stones and she's Mick Jagger, not like she's just like the girl they put out front to sing. I thought it was important. Absolutely. Should talk about the album?

Should talk about Blonday self-titled December 1976, private stuff. We got there finally. I am ready for 76. Let's go. And we should also mention that, like, they were really bummed because everyone else had gotten signed. Like, the Ramones had already gotten signed to put out a record. Patty Smith famously got a $750,000 record deal with, like, full creative control, like, television had gotten signed. The Talking Heads had gotten signed. Like, all the CB's bands had gotten signed.

And Blondie was kind of like the last musical chairs left out. And so they finally get to put out their album. Is this an album that you returned to a lot? Mel Lottnberg. Yes. What do you love about it? It's very pure and it's like mission statement, which is like all the inspiration and vibes of like that we've been talking about

are created in this really cool, easy. It's an easy album. It's like easily fucking cool and the references they feel like I can just feel them and it's all really working. And it really doesn't feel commercial. It feels like it's just like some kids making Blondie. It doesn't feel, it just feels very pure to me. I really, really love it.

Yeah, it's great. I mean, it is exactly what you were saying. It's like very, the inspirations are obviously so clear. It's, you know, it's these 60s girl groups sort of put through the lens of the 70s. This guy Chris Needs, who actually co-wrote one of the blondie books that I was reading, kind of echoed what you said. He said, their total lack of pretension

and boundless juvenile enthusiasm make them in some ways similar to the Ramones. But whereas the Ramones have been called a cartoon rock group, blondier are more of a caricature of a pop group, a sophisticated version of the kind of band

that played in the party scenes in the swinging 60s. And I think he made a really good comparison there because that's kind of what the Ramones were doing in a way too, right? They were taking like very classic duop R&B and just like speeding it up.

because that's all the Ramones is, right? It's like classic sort of rock songs played super fucking fast. And whereas Blondie was like being more faithful to the source material. But they were very making it their own. Like I don't like what I like about it. And also it's not just her. Like the vibe of the music is really pulled together on this. This album is like a demo of their next five albums almost.

And it feels. really them, you know? And it just, I just think it's so cool. It's so great. I'm going to talk to you about the cover a little bit, and then we'll go song by song. Because by this time, the style has gelled, right? They're in the suits and ties. You sit on the cover.

Craig Leon said something that I thought was so fucking interesting. He was like, there was this shop right down the street from where they lived, a Jewish-used clothing salesman who only had black suits and black leather jackets for salesmen. really cheap for the Bowery bums. That's why everybody was wearing black leather jackets and black suits on the Bowery, because that's where they all blot their clothes, because it was fun and it was the only place we can afford it. Isn't that the fucking coolest piece of information? I was like, wow, that makes so much sense. Like, you can just trace this stuff back to like, oh, it was just the place on the Bowery that was cheap and this guy was selling used black suits and black leather

jackets, so we all bought them and wore them. I also think that if you think about it, she is saying, I remember in her autobiography, she was like, oh, I wasn't dressed like a hippie anymore. Everyone's still thinking that like rock chicks are in like some hippie clothes and like flower child shit is over. And then they're like, oh, we're all about that mod thing. And then we pulled this mod thing together. Mod, the idea of mod in 1976 should be so passe that it's, right? Because it's just a dozen years later, so it's lame. Yeah, it really reminded me how in the 90s we wore so much 70s clothes because it was

Passé, but Thusley was fucking cool, you know? Absolutely. And because we'd get at the fucking thrift store for like, you know, 25 cents, I could get like 70s buttoned down polyester shirts and stuff and like that's what you wore. Yeah, it's, it is right. It's similar to the kids like in 2021 wearing true religion and me being like, I'm going to be sick and I'm happy that the kids are doing fine. You know what I mean? And like these kids are here to disgust us. It's great. There's nothing rougher than having lived through all like every one of these areas and then being like, how many times do I have to do I have to bust out my juicy couture track suit? It's already been three times. How old am I? I had it the first fucking go around bitch. Like I bought it retail price.

Right. In the early 2000s, I'm sorry. so I'm so tired. Okay. Here's, but here's the thing where I told you earlier, the label used that promo photo. I have a little questions about this. So the same photographer who shot the cover, shot the promo photos, it's Debbie in a see-through blouse and they use it. She's furious because she's like, they said they would crop it. I'm not victim blaming. My only curious thought was like, why did you let them shoot you in the seat through blouse? What did you think they were going to do with the photos? Like they were obviously going to be able to use them.

They were saying, oh, this is like a crop. We're doing this as a crop. It's just for the neckline. Like, see, we're just, look at this Polaroid. It's just. Mel's like, I've done this before. I just, this is hypothetical. He's like, I know how.

I know this story. Yeah. And then they're like saying it like that. And then they're getting the whole body. because people didn't have autonomy over their bodies. No, it's true. I'm joking. What's your favorite song on this album?

Oh, my God. I mean, I think it's definitely in the flesh, but I also have like a real soft spot for Ripper to Shredds. In The Flesh is the best song. My favorites are, well, I like, first of all the songs, but I like Man Overboard in the Flesh and X Offender the most. Little Girl Lies, I mean, I'll just be honest. To me, it's one of the weaker songs on the album.

I don't love it. It's okay. It's phoned in. You're right. I mean, I guess if we have to get brutal, I still think it's really cool, but it's, but the next song is like the song.

Like, song three is... Exactly. You know, Debbie and Chris wrote this song, and I thought it was very cool, which is like Chris Stein, absolute fucking secure legend, because this song was inspired by Debbie's crush on David Johansson of the New York Dolls.

And he just wrote the song with her. And he was like, yeah. Darling, darling, darling. Now you're out of town. Those girls that you run with, they bring my head down. I've been a lifelong piner. There's nothing I'm better at than pining wistfully for like, you know, Jonathan Negrooney in the sixth grade, who incidentally was Tia Carrera's cousin.

That was my big crush. God bless. I don't think he's listening, but he does text me every year. To this day, to this day, I'm 41 years old on my birthday to say happy birthday. One text per year, like fucking clockwork in a green bubble because this man absolutely has an android and sends me a happy birthday. I see text. And you know what? I'm very touched by that.

I think it's touching. Yeah. And the flesh is so beautiful. It's incredible. Ooh, I like it. I'm a fan. Look Good and Blue is like a kind of an iconic ho anthem, joyful ho anthem. I love it.

The like the little I could give you some head and shoulders to lie on. Yeah. Love that little move. Jimmy Destry wrote this song, though, including the lyrics. Throw your weight on me, baby. Don't complain on me, baby. Escape with me next to me. It's hot.

I'm tired, always tired, and I've got no place to sleep. You're right. Jimmy Destry is looking to get laid with the song. They're a unique band in the sense that they had multiple songwriters. Like, almost everybody besides, obviously, the drummer, because drummers don't typically write songs, almost everybody has writing credits on the albums, which is very non-traditional. But they're all fucking talented. In The Sun, Chris wrote that song. That's their like Jan and Dean moment.

They're surf. I mean, if we're doing cosplay, right? If we're doing 60s cosplay, we might as well throw in a Jan and Dean moment. I love it. Yeah. It's cute. A shark in Jets clothing. I love it too.

Maybe, by the way, please disagree with me on some of these because I just love it all. Man overboard, I don't love that much. That's a skip sometimes for me. What song's next? Ripper to Shreds, babe. I love this song. Back to my, I don't support all women. Some of you are dumb bitches.

This is that an anthem of it. of that song. You know, it's rumored to be about Nancy Spungeon, but Debbie did not confirm that. Debbie says it's a it's an amalgam of many women, including herself. But I will say there's a couple of lines in it that do make me feel like it could have been very inspired by Nancy Spongen, Miss Groupie Supreme. She famously dated Jerry Nolan of the dolls, and I think Johnny Thunders, who she followed before Sid Vicious, red, eye shadow, greed mascara. This is one of my favorite things of the whole album is how Debbie Harry goes, ugh, it's too much.

Yeah. Like the delivery of the ech is so good. Yeah. Yeah, there's something about the song where she's ripping all these bitches to shreds and she's also, I think,

talking about herself the way the haters are talking about her. And I really relate and love that. Because I say, Viva, hey, when I read a bunch of people yelling at me on the internet saying, you're such a piece of shit.

You made a mistake here. I'm like, Viva Haid, babe. It's fine. Like, hate me. I know. I saw your, I saw your TikTok about Viva Hade. I really liked it.

I was inspired. Viva Hate. It's just like, it's just a message for these times. Do you know what I'm saying? But anyway, the disgust that she's throwing out here, there's some self-hatred that's fab.

It's like, well, it's well presented. It's like, she's like, I know y'all hate me, but I'm sick. And also I hate this junkie. dumb bitch too. It's such a good song. It's very balanced. It's very balanced.

I want to point out dress lay in a Robert Hall sweater. It's maybe hard to understand that that's like an iconic diss of the era. But Robert Hall, I looked it up, was a precursor to Kmart.

So she really dragged this bitch to hell. Do you do what I mean? It was like an early big box store. She was like this fucking target. ass bitch is what she said. This camo ass sweater. And then she's got the nerve to tell me she's not on it.

You just said it. She's a junkie. She's saying she's got the nerve. Nancy Spungeon also, may she rest in peace, famously did introduce heroin to the UK punk scene. So she's got that. She's got the nerve to tell me she's not on it, but her impression is too serene.

Girl, a story is old as time. Yeah. I know. Deby said about it that it was about a bunch of different people, including herself, like you said. The song was very self-deprecating. It was scathing about some other creature, but it was scathing about myself as well. We can all be a bitch every now and again. Amen, sis. Amen. And not the truth. Rifle Range. Okay, I'll tell you, rifle range, I have no thoughts or feelings about. Didn't even make a note about it. I wonder when I got this album, because there's something about this album where I just love the whole thing. You're not wrong. But I'm I'm just a crazed fan for early blondie. I really am. It doesn't have skips. It makes a beautiful, like, mood that you can just put on and, like, vibe to. Like, nothing, like, throws you off where you're like, oh, my God, turn that shit off.

So I'm not saying it's a skip per se. No, no, I get it. It doesn't really register for me. Yeah. Same with Kung Fu Girls. But attack of the giant ants, I fucking love. I'm crazy about this album. I wish I remember when I got it because I just love it so much like a crazy fan.

The next cover of Interview Magazine is very this album. Okay, I love that. This is, you heard it here first, you guys. This is part of Malenberg's creative backdrop always. Yeah, this album is very, the blonde in general is very in the background of, it's part of the fabric of my life. Just like cotton. Isn't that the slogan? Yes.

It is. My headphones fell off. Yes. Yes. My friend. That is that is the slogan for cotton from the 90s, I think. So yeah. This is unfortunately like how my brain works.

It's so much. It'll trigger something and I'll be like, mm, cotton. That's what's informing my creative process. Okay, let's talk about the reviews of this album in real time. So Robert Criscoe for The Village Voice said, Ah, New York. I remember Debbie Blondie when she was singing with nursery rhyme, breathiness for a group called The Wind and the Willows.

Now she sounds flatly cynical against a very funny, oral montage of girl group and original punk usages from the pre-psychedelic era. Less Blythe, certainly, but more, you know, together, which is what new punk posturing is all about. Special award, best use of trash or since Light My Fire B plus. Oh yeah, we didn't mention. Jimmy Destry is playing a Farfisa.

I had to look this up because as you guys know, I don't know anything about music. A Farfisa is like a very random organ. And that's what they, he plays on a bunch of Blondie albums. And that gives it that sort of like special organ sound. That is what Robert Criskeh was referring to that is like a light my fire tonality of organ. I sound like I know what I'm talking about, but I absolutely don't. I'm absolutely cosplaying right.

here about knowing about organs. I mean, I know about organs, but not musical organs. Anyways, let's keep going. Wait, I just had a thought when you were talking about Jimmy and his organs, what I think I also like what I like about what I love about Blondie and it's really coming, it's crystallizing with this album. It's similar to

one of the many things I love about Lana Del Rey. Like, you see, you can, if you're a fan of a lot of different types of music and you might be, let's say, obsessed with a lot of things that don't necessarily make sense together. Yeah. You can hear some of your obsessions in Lana Del Rey's music or, like, songs you loved, or I'm thinking of, like, ultraviolence. It's like he hit me and it felt like a kiss and Game of Thrones, like, heaven.

You know what I'm saying? And like that's so that I like how you can feel her mood board in a really amazing way. and I feel that way about this Blondie album big time. And it's like, similar to ultraviolence. Just kind of easy. Lana is very much in the lineage of Blondie for sure. We actually,

it's funny, we talked about her in the Mazzie Star episode too because she's also in the lineage of Mazzie Star. She's really taking from these like kind of different places. But I thought about Lana a lot when we were talking earlier about just even hearing like in the flesh to me as like I could see that even being a Lana song. You know, like, oh gosh, she should cover. It would be so good.

100% Law. Yeah, exactly. Because it's like it's like she is like the error like Debbie is the heir parent to the girl groups of the 1960s. In that moment, but it's still a fully 70s song and I don't even know if it's

retro or not. It's just fucking sick. But you can tell what the, what they're going for. They bring to it, but like they both do the same thing where they bring something so uniquely themselves to it. And like for me with, with Debbie, what I hear to my ear the most is like she has like a sneering in her voice. Like it's a posturing of her voice that's punk that like gives it that edge that the girl groups

didn't have. They didn't do that. Like that wasn't their thing, right? They weren't trying to be edgier sneering. But like, but Debbie has that. And that's what kind of transforms it from just being a straight one to one copy to like being something different and new. Oh yeah, yeah.

Yeah, I, exactly. I don't, what I say I see the mood board. I just see like what they were into and then having fun with the thing. And like you just said, the thing that's so cool about this album and a song like in the flesh is like, oh, a square isn't going to get this. Or like some, some annoying music critic that doesn't get it isn't going to get it. They're just going to think it's this cheesy song, but it's not. It's like really hot, you know? But you've got to get it. You've got to know. You've got to know what they're going for to feel

like the edge and like the sexuality like burning through it. If you didn't know you wouldn't notice or something. It's it's subtle. It's so good. It's totally subtle. There's also like a thing that happens that Blondie deals with and it comes up a little bit later. Because like, okay, at this time, like punk is just a blanket term. for like a scene. But it doesn't have a genre distinction that you can really make up because like television is like a jam band basically, right? They're like, they sound like the Grateful Dead.

The Ramones sound totally different. The talking heads is doing something completely different. But they're all considered under this blanket of punk. And later what happens when Blondie being sort of the most pop motivated of these bands is riding two worlds, they're ostracized by both, right? where like the punk world is like you guys are fucking sellouts you're not punk like you're writing disco songs you suck and then the the straight world the like pop world is like you guys are like dain like we don't want you're transgressive like you're too punk we don't we can't put you

forth as pop and so they like have to like sort of grapple with that which is really interesting but we're not there yet they're not grappling with anything yet this album is not exactly like it gets a lot of press but it's it's not making waves the guy from sounds hated it he thinks it's dumb and he says it's okay that Debbie isn't a great singer because rock music doesn't need great singing, which I don't agree that she's not a great singer, but he says the whole band doesn't seem to be trying very hard. I mean, that's kind of part of what's cool. A hundred percent. It's part of like he just, he's, it's, it's missed on him that there's kind of this like laziness to it. That's sick. It's like a garage bound and yeah. The next album is my

favorite album. You love plastic letters the most? Well, you're going to have to shrink me through that because it's going to be hard for me to choose between plastic letters and parallel lines. I love that, a little bit of an underdog album. Here's just a reminder of how annoying rock

music writing could be in the 70s. This is from Cream. This blondeie sure ain't no bumstead, more mustard than any Dagwood sandwich. All right, y'all, you local yokels out there and hickland split in your sides at the New York what's happened in Roxy like what is this man talking about please fucking stop this is so annoying I can't read this anymore I don't even know what you're saying yeah yeah yeah yeah totally anyways I just wanted to bring that up to remind people how annoying cream

magazine used to be so they get written up a lot one line in one of the reviews I wanted to ask you about specifically someone this guy Greg Shaw and phonograph record magazine says there's only one problem. She didn't, never had, and never would have a rock and roll voice talking about Debbie. I don't think that's true. Shut the fuck up. Yeah. Who said that? What's his name?

Greg Shaw. Should we find them? You're wrong. We're going to docks you. Fuck you, Greg Shaw. You fucking dumb. Well, also, whatever. Yeah, fuck you Greg Shaw.

That's what I say. It's like, whatever. And also, by the way, that like, again, going back to Viva hate, that's a great review of Debbie's voice because it means that it's not what 19706 is giving. Totally. Totally. It's not Emerson, Emerson Lake and Palmer. Yeah.

One quote from Gary before I move on in an interview where I think he's actually psychic. He said, comic books are going to shape the next generation. They're going to read comic books for law and order and wear masks. Babe. Wow. Comic books did shape the next generation. we literally live in the Marvel, the icy cold grip

of the Marvel movies. Comic-Con is the biggest thing in the entire world. Nerd culture dominated. And I don't know if he meant COVID masks, but maybe he had a psychic channeling because we do wear, we do wear some masks.

You give him COVID masks, but I think he more is seeing like a 300-person line outside of Comic-Con. Right. Which I never read to Comic-Col, but somehow I've been like, in an Uber, like, outside of it and being like, what is going on in this world?

And then finding out it's Comic-Con and being like, what he said, man. Yeah, against your will. Against your will, you have to know about it. I mean, I was a bit of a comic book dork when I was younger, so I can't hate. I love that. And Blondie was, too. They're like, yeah. Here's what happens in between the two albums.

Peter Leads, remember Peter Leeds? Yeah. He gets back in touch because he's like, oh, hey guys. he really wants them to let him manage because, you know, they're, they're hip, they're on the town. X offender had been kind of like a minor downtown hit. It's on the radio. He sees dollar signs. He books them some L.A. shows. He's not their manager, but he's like, let me show you what I can do. They're already getting popular in L.A. Why? Because of motherfucking K-Rock and motherfucking DJ, Rodney Bingenheimer, Rodney on the Rock. absolutely goddamn legend. Rodney has broken them in L.A. because he early on loved them and would play

ex-offender all the time on K-Rock. Sick. This is how Jeffrey Lee Pierce of the gun club, not yet, I don't think he had started the gun club yet, becomes obsessed with Blondie, and he was the fan club and he was the fan club in Los Angeles, and he bleached his hair because of Debbie. Incredible. So cool. Okay, so the first week playing at the whiskey, Tom Petty opens for them. I saw that. Normal. And then the second week, the Ramon, so And Phil Specter famously attends a show. He is wearing a pin that says in the flesh on his jacket. Oh.

He makes them come over to his house. He greets them at the door with a gun and a bottle of Manashevins. Can you just say it again? Creats them at the door with a gun and a bottle of Manashevins. This is the craziest fucking thing I've ever heard. I feel like most people don't know what Manashevitz wine tastes like. It's so psychotic. It's like.

It's so. disgusting to drink that, like, of your own free will and not because it's Passover is truly crazy. It's like sugar, grape juice for like 12 year olds. It's disgusting. It's so nasty. It's also for Phil Spector, who is a terrifying icon. Apparently he wouldn't let them leave. He like kidnapped them. Yeah. And then he wanted to do an album with them. And then it just said it just didn't work out. And I'm glad that they all made it out. I do pine for that. album, Yossi. I'm actually really glad it didn't happen because I think what they really needed to like tap into their most full potential was to a little bit get away from the girl group thing,

like fully gripping them and explore a few other areas of genre, even though they kept the girl group thing. And they were able to do that once they started working with Mike Chapman, which happens in parallel lines. But anyway. You're right. You're right. You're right. Well, okay, so while I would love it just selfishly now for it. know, like it exists. A demo. Yeah, one song would have been. It's so true.

I love a demo. So they get written up by the LA Times for these shows. Debbie tells Richard Cromlin of the LA Times. I liked Brigitte Bardot a lot when she was really cool. She was sort of continental punk, I guess. I also got into a lot of those freaked out jazz musicians. And I learned things from the Beatles about sassiness. And I always felt that sex is a cool thing to sell.

It's a sure thing. She's not wrong. They get invited right after this to open for Iggy Pop for two weeks. He's promoting the idiot around this time. David Bowie is playing in his fucking band. So sick. No big deal. In his band, no big deal.

No big deal. Here's a fun tidbit from that tour, which I think you read in the memoir, but we can tell the people. Debbie said, one time David and Iggy were looking for some blow. Their connection in New York had suddenly died and they went out. A friend had given me a gram, but I had barely touched it. I didn't care for Coke too much. It made me jittery and wired, and it affected my throat. So I went upstairs with my vast quantity of cocaine, and they just sucked it right up in one swoop. After they did the blow, David pulled out his cock, as if I were the official cock checker or something.

Since I was in an all-male band, maybe they figured I really was the cock-check lady. David's size was notorious, of course, and he loved to pull it out with both men and women. It was so funny, adorable, and sexy. A moment later, Chris walked into the room, but the show was already over. nothing to see, which was kind of a relief. As Chris and I left the room, I had to wonder why Iggy didn't let me have a closer look at his dick. She dragged Iggy to pop to hell right there. Because I think I think Iggy loves to throw that thing around.

I unfortunately have never worked with Iggy Pop so I've never seen his cock either, but I love him very much. Not yet. Not yet. I just, I loved, again, and I'm not pitting women against each other. I'm just a compare and contrast, as per our earlier conversation about the different things that were brought to the table by Patty and Debbie. Debbie Harry's memoir, which was not written that long ago, right? Like, it's a fairly recent book. Yes. She's still the same sort of, like, joyful, who the fuck cares, punk, not afraid to be like, yeah, I had a bunch of blow.

I looked at his cock. It was cool. I fucked that guy. Like, she's just like, it's very free and honest. the way you self-mythologize is both honest and dishonest because you can't see yourself clearly and you're presenting yourself. But I always think about like, which I love just kids too. I mean, Patty Smith's memoir is one of the best memoirs of all time. But it's so tonally different, right? Like, I'm sure Patty Smith saw her fair fucking share of Cox too, babe, one after than fucking other. I'm sure there was cocaine and drugs.

But she doesn't talk about it that way because her self-mythologizing is a little bit different. It's a little more serious. And I just like it was interesting. Like it really is. the like brunette serious girl and the like bubbly fun-living blonde it's just archetypally to me like was really striking absolutely anyways i didn't know that david bowie had a famously huge penis and now i know that i feel like eggy pop is famously huge too and i think that it's you know i i also wonder why he didn't show it to zebby but you know what it's because chris walked in the door so right or maybe he was like let's let me let me let david have his moment right right right right right Right.

Also, in any other situation, you could see this being portrayed as a Me Too moment, but no, it was not. It was just fun, cute, and adorable. Then they go to a very different tour. They go to Open for Television in the UK. It's not a good vibe, babe. You know why? They hate Blondie, number one? I don't know if they hate Blondie.

Tom Verlaine was kind of a dick, I think. I mean, not to speak ill of the dead, but like from everything I read about him when we did the television episode, it's not, he wasn't really a fond of. hang per se. I'm sure he was a very good person. And also, they were very serious and Blondie was like all about being fun. And more, it was that the crowds were completely different. Like, people that liked television in the UK, they don't, they didn't have a frame of reference of these are both CBG bass bands. These are our scene. They were like, okay, television is the Grateful Dead and Blondie is disco pop fun times. So like, they had just two very separate crowds who like

didn't want to see the other band. So while one of them would play like half the crowd would just like look at them and be like, what is this? So I think that made it kind of rough. And also the UK press was like, television is the fucking best. And they were like really mean about Blondie. They said they were bad. I think they're still not very good live according to what I'm reading.

They're better than they were in the beginning, but they haven't gotten super tight yet. Peter Leeds has at this point forced them into signing a management contract. with them. So he is now officially their manager. He does this thing, which is, I think, now looking back, imperative in Blondie's long-term success, but did fuck them in the short term, which is he bought out their contract with private stock so that you could sign them to Chrysillus Records, which was a big label in England. And to do this, he had to, I guess Peter Leeds said, like, the owner of private stock was like, okay, like, I want a million dollars. And Peter Leads was like, Larry, we're not talking about fucking Led Zeppelin for Christ's sake. They sold no records and no concert tickets.

So what are you holding on to? So then he says, okay, $400,000. And apparently it ended up being $500,000 because they had to give $100,000 to Richard God or her. I also read somewhere else that was a million. Whatever happens, they're instantly an extremely huge amount of money in debt. And this is 1977, $500,000 or a million. So that's a lot of fucking money. So they start their career. This is why they never have any money, which I'm sure Chris Stein talked to you about. Like, for the first like decade of Blondie, even more, even though they're like international successes, they don't have, they don't make any money. Right. Because they're constantly having to pay back this debt. anyways after this tour with television after they leave the contract gary valentine is not happy in the band

and he quit slashes kicked out he goes to l a to start his own band the no and he was replaced by frank infante a scorpio from jersey city who was also a bit of a local legend musically he played an mc5-esque band called the world war three they go play shows with frank on the west coasts they decided Frank is not really good on bass. It's like not working. Debbie's really upset. From the very beginning, Debbie's like, they're regretting this manager because he's like works them to death.

And she's like, we should not have gone to L.A. For those gigs, we should have stayed in New York, found someone that fit with us. Like, blah, blah, blah. That's not what happens. So they move Frank over to second guitar and they get another bass player,

this guy, Nigel Harrison, British guy from a glam sleaze band called Silverhead. Nigel Harrison also really important. Also writes a lot of great songs. We'll get all going into which ones he wrote, but it's a very fortuitous adding to the thing. It's 1978. Now we're putting out plastic letters.

It's on Chrysillus. Let's talk about it. They had written and recorded this album before the deal had changed, so Chryslus had no input on it. The vibes were bad when they were making this album. album. Why? I don't know. Jimmy said it was a very dark album. Plaza Sound was a dark studio. I think partially because Gary had left and Clem and Gary were like best friends and I think Clem was really bummed and he also kind of tried to quit the band but then came back. Was like just kidding.

Richard Goddor who produced it was like on the record it was really hard for me to grasp the point they were trying to make. There were conflicts in general about what songs to do. There was a bit of talk about and Gary said this also in his memoir about the first. album. I think while Chris Stein welcomed having a second guitar player, he didn't want the second guitar player to have too much shine or to, you know what I mean? Or to like write too many songs. Because like, he's like, oh, I'm the guitar player of Blondie. Like, this is my band or whatever. So I think there was just like a little bit of tension, but the cover is really sick. Debbie's dress is designed by Anya Phillips. And I wish I had time to go into exactly how amazing

and iconic Anya Phillips was. But let's just know that she was like, one. of the coolest women who ever lived. And actually, sadly, died young of cancer, but she was in the motherfucking scene. And the album cover is so sick. And she's wearing this pink dress, which I'm sure has inspired me in 80 million gazillion ways.

But it's like a punk dress. Yeah, because Anya Phillips didn't know how to sew. So she's made dresses by tying fabric together. Yes. It's hands. It's tied together. It's bubble gum pink.

It is like a Barbie. from hell dress. Yeah, it's awesome. That's fucking sick. So let's talk about the actual songs. Fanmail. I fucking love fan mail. What are that amazing

No notes. Starting a song. No notes. No notes. Starting an album like this, more of that, please. Future bands plain bands. Come on, guys.

Future fans. If you're listening at home and you have a band. No, first song is so much. important. People sleep on this. Jimmy Dressery wrote fan mail. The only note I wrote on this is like Debbie really

found her snarl on this one. Like the snarl is palatable. It's so sick. It's such a good song. Okay, so I guess I would say that right out the gate you hit it. This album is still like moody and punky and it's got a lot of notes and mood boards, but it's a lot

It's a lot more punk. It's a lot more. I mean, I felt like it was confident before, but it's got like more edge. Like they want it now. They're like really into being blondie as opposed to like, hey man, we're just these five kids in the garage, man.

It's cool. And now they're like, well, fucking blondey bitch, fuck you. Fuck you. This is our fucking New York shit loser. Listen up. I think you fucking nailed it.

It's also like they, they got some confidence because they like, had good feedback and they started playing live. They did these cool tours. They're opening for fucking Iggy Pop. They're opening for television. They get a little mojo. They're like, yeah, we got that.

We're fucking Waudi, like you said. What about the cover of Randy and the Rainbow's 1963 song, Denise, which they made French by saying Deni? It's genius. Deni, Deni, Deni. Oh, with your eyes so blue. Deni, Deni, I got a crush on you. That song is also like, hate me.

Hate me. please hate me this is punk because I said so it's so cool because I made it French punk denny denny I asked Chris if Debbie spoke French because like the B-side rarity has the French version which I always had and he was like oh no she just got a little help to do that but it's it's sick yeah it I mean they did something cool with that I think with the making like putting a little twist on it and they love doing covers, and they do a really good job at covers. This song was, I think, the first single off the album, and they do play this on their, because now they're on a major label in England. So they,

they get big in Europe. It takes, this is an interesting thing about Blondie. It takes a lot longer for them to hit in America than in Europe. Yeah. I mean, that's true with a lot of bands. I also want to go back to that loser that said that Debbie Harry doesn't have a rock voice. Listen, loser, if you can't, you can't do covers this well if you don't have a great singular voice. and rock it just doesn't work, you know what I mean? And like, their covers are really sick. Also, like, nobody, sorry, nobody said that about Joey Ramon, but you think Joe Ramon has a gorgeous and beautiful song?

What are you even talking about? Yeah, he has a perfect, he has a perfect rock and roll voice, but, you know, it's not gorgeous. So they played Denny on their first appearance on top of the pops, pretty iconic appearance. The next song is Bermuda Triangle Blues, Flight 45, written by Chris. Once again, I have no, no notes on this.

Literally, no notes. You know how they say that something lives rent free in your head? Bermuda Triangle Blues lives rent free in my head. Wow. You just love the idea of Flight 45 being last seen alive on the runway. I just love it so much.

I love it. This is my shit, man. It's so good. Someone said this in one of the 6,000 things I read, so I can't remember which one it was. But they were like, it's really, one really cool thing about Blondie is that they just, they kind of write about nothing, but in like a really fun way. Like these songs are not serious. They're like slice of life, kind of like lighthearted songs.

And that makes them like confectiony and fun. Okay. Yes, exactly. And also, and as they say now, this is deeply unserious. I'm like, yes, in the best way. Like, why they write a song about this? I don't know. Why not?

They had some songs to write. They got to get this album done. It's so good. I love it. Yeah, I will say, Blondie is not a band that had something to get off their chest. Like, this wasn't like, this isn't like, I need to excavate the demons in my soul and express them to you through song. This was just like, what if we make some cool music? What should it be about?

I don't know. One day I thought about a flight getting lost in the Bermuda Triangle. And our friends are at the airport. Cousin Bill says, enjoy the water sports. And this is what lives spread free on my head. Like, I've been, my brain has been poisoned by this album. It's so good. Youth nabbed as a sniper.

Just ripping from the headlines, I think, because of what's happening here. I like the next one more. Contacted Red Square. Is that the next song? That's amazing that you have that memorized. Yeah, it's the next song. Jimmy wrote that one. To me, this song is like, what if Ramones but blondie?

Yes. What if Ramones but Blondie? Yeah. I don't know if you've ever been to Moscow, but it is extremely. glamorous to be in Moscow when it's freezing outside and you're like, am I going to be sniped? I'm so excited to be here. It's amazing. It's so cold. I wish it was a little colder because like that's part of the grandeur of the whole thing. You know who had never who had definitely never been to Moscow as Christyne or Debbie Harry? Yes. Not been to Moscow. I promise you.

Like they probably had to get passports just to go to the UK with television. That was like their first time. Like these are these are locals. These are tric-state locals who have never. been to Red Square, you're right. They've never made contact in Red Square. But it is kind of fun because there's two things that pop up a lot that makes you realize like what the time was, which is Russia and Iran. Like, I don't know if you noticed, like, it's not in the songs a lot, but it's in a lot of the interviews. And I also happen to watch one particularly deranged episode of TV party where like everyone is in costume as like an Arab. And I also happen to watch one particularly deranged episode of TV party where like everyone is in costume as like an Arab.

Have you seen this? I have seen this? And they're talking about, like, Iranian Studio 54. And I'm like, as an Iranian person, I'm like, ooh, I was just get like excited when anyone talks about Iran, even though it's always in a negative context. Anyways, Russia, Cold War is coming, the whole thing. Let's talk about my favorite fucking song on this album. I'm always touched by your presence, dear. This is about Gary, right?

This is about Gary and his fucking coolest woman alive. girlfriend who like I need to actually have 10 more hours to spend more time myself digging into her. Her name was Lisa Persky. Let me tell you just a few tids about her. She was a CBGB's regular, right? A writer and a photographer for New York rocker. She was also in the meatloaf made for TV movie. We'll get into that later. Her mom was a beat and her dad worked for Playboy and she grew up in a building in New York where Yoko Ono was the superintendent. She's just fucking so cool. She's like one of the coolest people I've ever read about like just like, just like, sick. Anyways, Lisa Jane Persky. So while Gary was on tour, they realized that they had these, like, they would have the same dreams or like think about each other at the exact same time. And so they had this like sort of psychic connection. So like that's what this song is about. Like I'm always touched by your presence dear. So good. So good. And this was also a hit in the UK, right? Yeah. This was the second single. So it was a hit in the UK. The line of this one that lives rent free in my mind is the when we play at cards.

you use an extra sense. It's really not cheating. That's so good. It's so good. The delivery. This song is really getting into it. It's like that new wave fantasy and like it's so cool. And they're really all playing to their talents here.

Yeah. And Gary's not even the band anymore, but his song is, his song about him and his girlfriend is living. on. This is one of the more enduring Blondie songs for me. I like her accent here. I like her accent. When you send your messages whisper loud and clear.

I know. Debbie Harry has an extremely iconic and cute New Jersey accent that you forget about and sometimes it comes out when she's singing. So cute. I'm on E, not ecstasy. Empty.

Yeah, she's, Is this giving, is this the first song about cars? It can't be. It can't be because Debbie, although we haven't really noticed one, Debbie Harry famously always drove a car and she loved driving a car. She would drive the fucking New York dolls around. She had an Oldsmobile. She always had like a sick ass car that she would like park outside of CBGVs, which to me is like so, this is like, I'm from New Jersey, babe. I'm from the suburbs. I'm going to have a motherfucking car and I'm going to drive your asses around. And the girl that drove everyone around is, just what a cool archetype right like sunglasses yeah she just love to drive i love to so i really i'm it really relates except i don't look like debby harry but that's fine we all no it's cool but i think this might be the first song about cars which will come up probably on every album going forward yeah this car fun fact is also in the key of e it's not just i'm on e empty, but it's also in the key of me. I didn't have the nerve to say no.

This song, I think, might be about drugs. What do you think? Jimmy Destry wrote this song. And Debbie, I think Debbie wrote the words and Jimmy wrote the music. In the grand scheme of this podcast, I guess this song, I've aged out of this song. Oh, it doesn't hit for you anymore. No. Love at the pier.

Meanwhile. you love it meanwhile this shit oh come on I live in New York like New York sucks but give me this song man and the pier is still there

you know I know Debbie wrote this The pier has been taken over by fucking heterosexual losers though not cool straights I'm a friend of the straits these straights fucking losers

man ugly ass straights going to falling in love with the pier isn't that like a Lulu Lemon men store there now. Like, isn't it like a big mall?

No, you still, okay, so what I mean is like the pier has been, you know, the peer used, the pier that Debbie is talking about when she's like, we found love down at the pier. You was some babe and I walked around soon was sharing a beer. We found love with the pier. That pier has been like revamped majorly a long time ago, but it was still

a place for gays. But like somehow in like 20, it got taken over by the fancy people of the neighborhood, but in a way that is unacceptable. But anyway, I love the song. She said that too. She said she wrote it early on. Everyone was hanging around the peers.

The peers were sort of a no man's land for a lot of people, especially for the downtown gay scene. The peers were used for pickups and a sort of clandestine agreements. Maybe she wrote this song for the gays. I think she might have. Well, maybe it's the hot pants. maybe the heat or was it the sneakers? Yeah.

You kicked off your feet. Yeah. I love it. It's so good. It's really like a slice of life. Again, all of their, I mean, their songs are these like slice of lives. No imagination is the next song. Jimmy Dustry wrote it.

He said it was directly inspired by Lou Reed's Lady Day. You know, nightclub decadence. Yeah, this song's hot. I like this song a lot. I feel like on this song, and a lot of the songs, but like, you can really hear what Clem was talking about, about them sort of like, byasmosis absorbing the disco music that was surrounding them at the Club 82 and beyond, you know, and they all, they all, the stilettos covering Lady Marmalade.

It's not like they like, where Johnny Come Lately is to the disco vibes, but it's starting to really show up a little bit more, I think, than it did in the first album. Yes. Kidnapper is the next song. Jimmy Destry wrote a lot of songs on here. He wrote like half this album. The song's so cool. Jimmy can fuck, man.

And also, Jimmy was so hot. He was so hot. It's crazy how hot he was. Yeah, I bet he smells so bad in those Bowery bum, black clothes. They must have smelled horrible. I think they all probably did, baby. I don't be like personal hygiene was,

I mean, Blondie famously, like Debbie and Chris lived in a loft that had no hot water. Anyway, it's a great song. Detroit 442. That song is about, or not about, per se. The 442 is about the Oldsmobile 442, to your point, another song about a car, which is produced in Detroit, Michigan.

It's kind of like a sideways homage to Iggy Pop. I love it. Through Detroit. Yeah, it's a good song. It's a fucking cool song. Detroit by Mour 2. Maybe, baby I can drive with you. Detroit by Mom 2.

Cautious Lip. Cautious Lip was a phrase used by their friend Ronnie Toast, who gets a couple of songwriting credits on Blondie songs, just because he had like, you know that one friend where, like, for me it's Nikki Takesh, where like, you're always, was like, how did you think of that phrase? Like, how do you, like, how does your mind work that you say these things that are so fucking iconic and amazing?

And then I want to talk like you. Like, their, their, Nikki Takesh was Ronnie Toast. And so they would give him songwriting credits because they would lift lyrics from like the way he would talk. I would love to know more about Ronnie Toast, honestly. But again, we only have so much time. So pretty good reviews. Chris Gow gave it a B plus.

Chris Gow will get into it. but over the course of the band's career is their biggest champion and absolutely like gives even albums where I was like, really? He's like, yes, B minus. And I'm like, that's not a B minus album. But you know what? He's a real one. He's been there since fucking that woman starved to death on the macrobiotic diet and he's

going to ride or die for Bondi and we respect that. Plus. Pretty good reviews. And I'm not going to read them because it's boring. But we'll get into what happens next. Peter Leeds is working this band to fucking death, babe. He is grinding the fuck out of them. He's like, you will tour all over the fucking world.

You will have no breaks. You are in debt, so there's no money for you. Right. You're like $8. You're a million dollars in debt. It's 1978. So we're going to do this tour. Yeah, exactly.

Christmas, Thanksgiving? No. No, they had to spend Christmas in Australia. Imagine the horror. That's a godless place. Jesus Christ is not present in Australia. I'm sorry, that's not true. That's just a joke, but everyone knows that I hate Australian people.

Anyways, so Peter Leeds goes ahead in the middle of this fucking tour and tells all the boys in the band that they're replaceable just to, like, keep morale high. And so they get pissed. Yeah, when you're telling someone in Rock that they're replaceable, it's because you're like, you know who's not replaceable? me. Yeah, exactly. It's the ego. And like, here's the thing. Like, that's like throwing a match into like, what is it, a powder keg or whatever. Like, already they're having to like yell at the top of their lungs blondie as a band. It's not just Debbie Harry. And then you go ahead and tell the men who, by the way,

are writing these songs with Debbie Harry that like you could come and go, babe, we don't care. So that really kind of dims the vibes. He does other weird stuff where he like keeps trying to separate her from the band. So they finished this like super long grueling tour and then he's like, not you, Debbie, you have to go on a month long promotional tour, just you. And she's like, okay. And then she finally puts her foot down. She's like, no, I'm not going with you. Chris has to come with me. No one else is coming. I'll do it. That's the only way. Then they get sent to L.A. This is where they meet Mike Chapman. He had seen them play at the whiskey. Mike Chapman, coincidentally Australian, neither really here nor there. What did Mike Chapman, legendary producer, what had he done prior to their meeting?

This is such a great question. Things I had not heard of, or like had heard of, but have no understanding of, like, the suite, another band that I had not heard of that was big in the UK. Did the suite sing bar room blitz? Yes, you're so right. Mel Ottenberg, your beautiful mind plucked that right out. The ballroom blitz is my British glam rock band, the suite. And you know who wrote it? Mother fucking Mike Chapman. Fuck yeah, Mike. With his partner, Nikki Chin, I think also another Australian. It is giving Australian the Barroom Blitz.

Now that I think about it, like, it makes total sense. It's a certain kind of swagger and bravado that a guest comes from down under. Like a drunkenness, like a descended from convex feeling that you like really only get from Australia. Okay, so Mike Chapman's a big fan. He had seen Blondie at the whiskey the last time they were in L.A. He was obsessed with them, thought they were super funny, tries to, like, kind of go talk to them. Peter Leeds gets wind of this and he's like, that guy makes fucking hits, dude. We need to get him producing the next Blondie album. So he flies out to meet Chris and Debbie in New York, and it's very awkward. They're not having it. Here's what Mike said. They lived in a world I knew nothing about. They were in New York. I was L.A. So he goes to the hotel room. Debbie. Debbie won't say a word to him. It's three in the morning. She just stares at him. And he's like, yeah, I've come up here to talk to the possibility of producing you, mates. And Debbie's like, um, okay. Like, they're just like really, the vibes are bad. They're not, they're not fucking with him. And Debbie's like, yeah, we didn't know him, man. So they start playing him some demos. And then he's like, they were so beautiful, these songs, the embryo of a musical masterpiece. And he offers to help arrange some of the songs to earn their trust. And this is how it all clicks because he saves what becomes heart of glass, which was the disco song. I think they played him Sunday Girl as well. So let's get into

parallel lines. He's hired. We talked about this and I don't want to belabor the point. But while they had toured the world and played painting of shows together, according to Mike Chapman, they still really sucked at playing their instruments. It was not good enough for him. And the experience they had making this album, not, it wasn't. like not positive, but I think it was like really difficult. Boot camp. Boot camp, exactly. According to Mike Chapman's own words, he went in there like Hitler is what he said.

Which is a weird way to put it, but it's like, yeah, Australian. Also it was the kind of thing where like now they're really on Chrysalis and Chrysalis was like, the other shit you did was cute, but like you need to go make some hits. Go make them some hits. Yeah, it's 1159 people. Let's make this album happen. Mike Chapman had no. problem in the future spilling the motherfucking tea on what was going down in the studio. He said the following. Nobody liked each other, except for Chris and Debbie. There was so much animosity.

The only great musician among them was Frankie Infante. He's an amazing guitarist. The rest of them were all over the bloody place. Jimmy Destry was a pretty good songwriter, but he wasn't a great keyboard player. Chris Stein was always so stoned. And although Clem Burke had all the right ideas, He had no sense of timing. He just really, he went for it. He told everyone's problems. I think the keyboarding is perfect in Blandi, no? The far-feasing.

I mean... The furfee sing. I don't want to speak for you, Mel Ottenberg, and you're a man of many talents, but I don't understand music enough to know if anyone's good or bad at their instrument. Like, I just don't. First of all, absolutely.

I mean, we know that Slash is a great guitar player. That's about... And I'm going to say Tommy Lee is a great drummer, I guess. Yes. Is it true? Is it true? Also, I think it's true. Yeah, those are known facts.

If the keyboarding is bad or good, I still think it's perfect. But sorry to interrupt you. Okay. So he's whipping them the fuck into shape because, as he's saying, they have some issues. This is important, and I'm not just saying it because it's gossip, but it's important because it's how early on that they didn't get along. like basically Chris was like Nigel got along great with Debbie and okay with Chris but Chris never wanted Frankie in the band

because Frankie made Chris look like a terrible guitar player then again I loved Chris and I worked very very hard with him for years and years because I felt he deserved my time he to me was a wonderful wonderful songwriter a great songwriter and he was always so concerned about his playing ability I'd say to him why would you even worry about that when you're such a great songwriter you can't be everything let Frankie play those solos but he didn't like that idea. So I would sit with him in the studio for hours and just record him and try to get his parts right. I kind of love that. Like, that's what I wrote in my notes is like, I thought, I thought that was

so cool of Chris Stein to be like, not just like want to rest on the laurels of writing the good songs. Like he also wanted to be the one to play the guitar parts. He's like, this is my song. I want to shred on it. I don't know. I really respected that approach to it. Respect. Yeah. He said Debbie is very moody, as any good diva should be. Totally. What? You're supposed to make it easy, babe? No, she's worth your time and attention,

and she should keep you on your toes. But yeah, he basically said musically, they were hopelessly horrible when they first started rehearsing. And again, the vibes are bad, babe. Everyone's yelling at each other. Jimmy threw a $50,000 synth at Mike Chapman one day. Oh.

Yeah, it was, I mean, I think they were stressed. They're not young, per se, at this point. They're burned out. They're burned out. They're fucking tired. They don't have any money. They have no money, babe. Also, like, honestly, it was like a no ambition, just vibe situation where they were like,

we're having fun, who cares? And then all of a sudden, it's like, you are a $1 million in debt. The major label needs a fucking hit. You better get your fucking act together. And they're like, okay. And they did. Because why they made a classic album that's endured the fucking test of time. That's so good.

Let's start from the top. Hang it on the telephone. You can really hear Debbie. his accent on this one. Just another reason. I'm in the phone booth. It's the one across the hall. If you don't answer, I'll just ring it off the wall.

Wall. Yeah, it's all the words that really, like, bring the jersey out. I mean, as you obviously know, this is a cover of a nerve song. And it came about because Jeffrey Lee Pierce, president of the Blondie fan club, had sent, like, a mixtape over to the band. And they were in Tokyo, and they put it in the tape player of a taxi they were in. And the driver was, like, this middle-aged Japanese guy. and he was like, like, shaking his head, tap in his hand.

And they were like, oh, shit. Like, this song is, this song's got a vibe. You know, like, we should cover it. And they realized when they got back to the United States of the nerves had already broken up anyway. So they were like, okay, we'll do it. And it's now one of the most legendary Blondea songs. I like to talk and that can show you my affection.

It's so good. It's so fucking good. It wasn't a hit in America. No, Americans really drop. Fuck America. Literally fuck America. Yeah. bad taste having motherfuckers really dropped the ball on this shit.

They weren't early. They weren't early. They came around, but they just weren't early. It takes time. So basically, I feel like everyone needs to remember that 1978, which I was not born, but the best-selling albums of 1978 were like Steve Miller band's greatest hits. Rod Stewart, Van Halen, Billy Joel's 52nd Street, Boston and Foreigner. Like, this was the prevailing music of American the heartland, you know? They weren't really checking for new wave or whatever was coming until

this album though. And this album, because like tons of really good albums came out in 78, the jams, all mod cons came out, which is actually really cool because you see Clem always wearing a jam t-shirt. Wire, you know, the clash give them enough rope, which actually is not a great clash album, but still, the clash is, you know, doing

their thing. But it hasn't caught on, you know, like 78 is prior to like when new wave kind of tips the scales and like for example the talking heads get really big they haven't gotten really big yet it's coming but it hasn't happened we're in disco's peak which is different very different from new wave exactly exactly i'll just say one thing about parallel lines parallel lines did become huge but it was kind of a nirvana never mind situation where it took like until the next year for it to happen and it was because hard of glass and heart of glass was not a single it was like the fifth single they put out because The fucking stupid label looked at this album and was like there's no hits on here. Blind! Deaf! Blind and deaf.

And dumb, honestly. But anyways, let's keep going. So, we all know hanging on a telephone, a smash classic hit. It did go to the top five in the UK. Again, they have better taste. I'm an anglophile. As much as I feel negatively towards Australians, I feel positively towards the Brits. And for good reason, they have excellent taste.

The next song is one way or another. brough. Jesus, so hot. I'm gonna get you, getcha, get you. It was a big time for songs about stalkers. Okay, what are some other stalker songs from the time? The very famous police song. Yeah, this song fucking bangs.

Nigel and Debbie wrote it. It was inspired by her own situation with the painting contractor, ex-boyfriend, who stalked her. But yeah, I'll drive past your house. And if the lights are all down. I will drive past her delivery. Her, like, just her sassiness. Wait, who wrote it again?

Debbie and who? Nigel. Nigel wrote the music. So good. The music's so good. So good. So good. Fucking motherfucking perfect.

It's a fucking perfect. And you know, he did. Her ex-boyfriend literally did go through her phone records. And that's how he found out where she was in New York City to find her. Meanwhile, I just want to point out, two fucking bangers. Neither one was a single. What did they pick for the single?

Picture this. Which is a, by the way, I love the song. It's a great song. One of my favorite songs of all time. Not a single. That's not a single. This is an album track. But by the way, I just want to say Yassi's listeners, it's a great, great song.

It's a great song. And I think that perhaps the label was just like going back with the formula. Because this is more of like that, a little bit more of the same. of like brill-building songwriter in the flesh girl group and I think they were like if it ain't broke don't fix it you know but like this wasn't the right choice it's a great song it's a great song yeah yeah yeah it's just a dumb single loki what the for me not the best song because again I don't believe in bests or superlatives I think it's totally subjective but the song that really fucking blows me away on this album is fade away and radiate it is so fucking weird

and cool. It's so good. Chris Stein fucking snapped on this shit, bitch. Like, this song is crazy. No one talks about it. That is a deep album cut. But it's like, they really like, Blondie's a really interesting band.

And I say this with like absolute love and tenderness and respect. But they're pretty inconsistent. Like, they'll pull out a fucking song like Fade Away and Radiate. That's like genius level profound songwriting that you're like, where did you even come up with this? shit. And then they'll, then they'll have like eight mid songs on the next album or whatever. And that's fine because, you know, we get what we get. But like, man, this song blows me away. And Robert Fripp is on it from King Crimson. And I think that probably added to like, I mean, he's such a

fucking legend. He's like, the guitar center bros are jerking off to Robert Fripp. Do you know what I mean? And like, so like to get him on your track. This song is also so great because it's so profoundly blondie. Like no one else is doing this song. No. No one else. You, you know, you, I just don't believe anyone else doing the song. I mean, I guess there's bands that are coming. There's a lot of new wave bands that maybe are giving this. But whatever. The song kills.

This was a very cool time in music because there were other bands, not making this kind of song, but experimenting in ways that yielded such cool results. Like, Talking Heads is a perfect example. Like, they also mind different. styles of world music, if you will, apologies, that I said world music. But you know what I mean. Like even this song has a little reggae breakdown in it. Like the clash obviously a little bit. Yeah. Not even before at the same time are like the coolest thing I think about the punk bands is that they were really in

touch with other genres that were like happening at the same time like reggae, like dance hall, like disco. And we're not there yet, but hip hop, right? Like that's a, that's a, that's a, that. That's an iconic Blondie story moment. It's not just Blondie who was, like, checking for what was happening in the burgeoning hip-hop scene. But anyways, I digress. But Fade Away and Radio is also, it's Chris Stein's ode to Debbie Harry falling asleep with the TV on. I know. It's so, it's so hard, but a neon heart, a cold neon heart.

It's so beautiful. It's beautiful. Pretty Baby is about Brook Shields. Yeah. Have you seen Pretty Baby? The movie. Okay. A little thing about me, and I'm ashamed to admit it, but we're friends.

I've seen, like, no movies. Well, Pretty Baby is not probably a very seen movie, and it's certainly the kind of movie that could not be made today, and is quite problematic for the modern audience. Right. I recently watched it, again, for the first time in, like, 20 years. It is good. She's really good. She's 12 in this movie.

It's not, it's just good filmmaking. It's interesting. interesting and fuck you if you have a problem with me saying this movie's good. But anyway, I'm not surprised that Debbie Harry wrote a song about Brooks Shields in 1978. That's all I'm trying to say. Yeah, the controversy was that Brooke Shields is 12 and playing the role of a child prostitute. And they met her, I guess, like at the movie. At studio. At studio. At studio. At studio. Yeah. I'm sure it's, I mean, let's, let's assume they met her at studio. Can you just get me that fantasy?

Yes, I'll let you have it. I'll let you have it. Thank you. That's a good song. Debbie and Chris wrote it. I like it. The next song is, I know, but I don't know. Do you like it?

I've been thinking about that song today because I knew we're going to talk about this album. And you know what? I'm your dog, but not your pet. I like it. Frankie and Fonte, who wrote it and does the singing on it, the man singing. I think I just have an eternal crush on the boys in Blondie in 1970. in 1978, because this album's really boys, you know? It's like, Debbie's hanging out

with the boys. Yeah. Totally. And they're really like, and this song's very that. He said that it was inspired by like a Zen Co-on, and he wanted it to be like a Ramon song, something that was punk without knowing it was punk. And I feel like he really achieved that goal. It kind of is that, right? Who's singing the boys part in this song? Frank. Oh, cool. Yeah. then there's 1159 as you said it's 1159 let's make a hit yeah jimmy destry wrote that one i don't have any

bad things to say about the song i just didn't write any notes about it listen i love this whole album but that's not like it's not a standout track no yeah it's not a standout track because what's the next one will anything happen i actually really love that song and it was also written by jack lee of the nerves who wrote hanging on the telephone it's a sick song it's another album track it's not a single It's just a cool album track. Yeah. The nerves, man. They were a really good band.

It's really sad. It didn't hit. But I have to assume that guy is pretty happy with his royalties from hanging on the telephone to this day. A Sunday Girl. Another song that I was to a psychotic level obsessed with as like a preteen. It's so good. It also just still sounds so good. So fresh.

So like it's just, it's such a. classic, like timeless. I'm surprised that like Brittany never, like, did a remake of this song or something. Or like, even like, no doubt, right? I could totally see Gwen singing this song. She did It's My Life instead. This song was originally written for their cat Sunday man that had run away. I know.

I made a whole playlist called Sunday Girl that was spiritually inspired by this song in which I am the Sunday Girl, and this is the music that is soundtracking my main character story. Yes, see, was this a hit in America? No. I didn't think so. Later, maybe. Maybe later. It's too cool for America, sorry.

It's also, like, again, like, Sunday Girl wasn't breaking through the, the Greece lightning and Boston and more than a feeling vibes that were happening. Yeah. Then it's fucking mucho mistrust, babe. Mucho mistrust. Now loves behind. Heart of Glass. Best use of Mucho

in a song lyric, maybe ever, except in a Spanish song probably, but in a non-Spanish-speaking song. So I guess originally the song was a little bit more vibey and reggae, and then it was like, let's get rid of the reggae, let's try to do it rock. And then Mike Chapman was like,

I asked Debbie, what kind of music that's happening right now really turns you on? And she said, Donna Summer. So I said, okay, how about us treating this song like it was meant for Donna Summer. And then that's how I kind of tooled it into a disco song. But what's more important is that this is 1978, right? They don't have, the studios aren't what they are now.

They didn't have the technology. They had to like painstakingly punch in. Again, I don't totally understand music, but you kind of get what I'm saying. Like the bass drum alone took three hours. Like everything has to be done manually, like four hours just doing that. guitar part, dig it, dig it, dig it, because it was with a machine, you know, it's, you didn't have fucking pro tools. Yeah, there's no pro tools. That man figured out this really iconic song that's synonymous with disco in the 70s and New Wave and punk in the studio. His name was

Mike Chapman. You know, I just want to say a gripe about this similar gripe is that in, did you see the Donna Summer documentary since you just brought up Donna? What I obviously loved Donna Summer. because I fuck with Georgia Marrador so hard. And in this documentary, she kind of, there's old footage of her, like, sort of kind of taking credit for figuring out, I feel love the way that Mike Chapman talks about making the music for Heart of Glass. And you're like, nah, you didn't figure that out, Donna. You were the inspiration, I guess.

But, like, I wouldn't say you could, like, fully take credit. No, no, no, no, no. She tried it, babe. No, she tried it, but no. But yeah, this is the height of Donna. So that's really interesting. Cool. And there was a huge anti-disco sentiment that was rooted in racism.

We should bring up. And that, so making a disco song on your punk album was extremely punk. Yeah. It was like going against the fucking grain. It's not cool to do that. And that's what makes it punk. Heart of Glass is a fucking just. absolute. Also, I can't believe that they were going to call it once I had a love

when Heart of Glass was right there. Oh, you're right. It's a reggae, the reggae song. I don't know if you have listened to it, but they're against all odds like rarities and B-sides double album came out last year. It's so good. And then once I had a love, aka the disco song, is on that and it's so good. But it's super reggae. I think it would have been good that way too, but it would never have broken them wide the fuck open into the world like heart of glass does like heart of glass is like it's a song that like everybody knows i feel like at this point it's one of those songs i have like pervaded all of culture and it's it's so good i mean the lyrics i don't know babe what are you talking about much

mistrust now loves behind i don't know once i had a love then it was a gas soon turned out to be a heart of glass no it's like i love him he was so great but he was just like this nothing piece of shit. Yeah. Once I had a love, then it was divine soon found out I was losing my mind. And she's she's very right. Love was divine because when you fall in love, and I've said it before and I'll say it again until everyone gets it through their thick skulls. When you fall in love, you're projecting the divine onto another person. That's what falling in love is. So beautiful. It's just true. It's just psychology. It was divine. Heart of glass, not a single. The video, however, oh my God, finally we can bring up fash.

Debbie's wearing a dress designed by Stephen Spruce, who was her neighbor. I mean, the looks, such an amazing collaboration between fashion and music that has never, ever, for one minute, looked old. No. Well. I mean, it's, sorry, it might be retro, but it's, sorry, it still just looks so cool. It looks really cool. And the collaboration just always looks fucking cool. Yeah.

Legend. I mean, what a good luck to just have Steven Spouse live upstairs from you in your warehouse loft and become friends with him while he's this like child prodigy, Halston, you know, ingenue. Assistant. Yeah. That feels bad for you for wearing stupid outfits. And it's just probably like, oh, my God, you look so stupid. Like, let me help. And then little did he know that the host of Bansplain so many years later would pay an eBay seller.

in Japan $3,000 to finally procure the Louis Vuitton carry all with the graffiti on it because I wanted it my whole life. That's a really good thing to buy these days. I think it sounds great. I was so happy. It was like the peak of my shopping life. I was like, I found it. It's in perfect condition. It has the green graffiti, which is I always wanted because the pink and orange are not really my style. It's a dream. I'm very happy for you. That's really great. Thank you so much. Unfortunately, the only people that see are the people at the airport because it's so large that where do I take it, but still, I know it. It sits in my house and I love it. Next song, I'm going to love you too. It's a buddy Holly cover. This felt random to me. No, it's like, yeah, it's just random. It's good. Okay, I'll tell you why it was on here, though. First of all, this was the first single in the United States, just so you know. When they looked at all those songs, they were like, I know the buddy Holly cover will be. And it was because the movie, the buddy Holly story, which weirdly I have seen, starring Gary Busey had just come out in America, and Chrysalis was like,

there's going to be a massive Buddy Holly revival. We need to get on that train. That didn't actually happen. Six months after the album comes out, suddenly we've got a hit. Yeah. And then there's just one more song on there, the lullaby song, which is really sweet. That ends the song. I like that song.

Yeah, me too. They liked a lullaby moment. Paul Morley, honestly, you should go to prison for this. in NME, he wrote this. Debbie Harry is 33. A sequin over five foot and a trifle podgy. I had to look that up because I was like, surely, surely this doesn't mean fat. Couldn't be possible.

Not possible. No, it does. This man called her fat. He called Debbie Harry fat. Wow. She was so tiny. Yeah. The 70s were crazy.

I mean, the 70s were crazy because also like she was like the most beautiful woman in the world singing Heart of Glass. And this man was like, she's a little fat. Fuck yourself. Go fuck you, Paul. Fuck you Paul Morley. No, I'm just kidding. All love and respect to Paul Morley.

You're an amazing music writer, but this was a different time. I'm sure he's not listening to this program. I just want to talk about the parallel lines album cover. It's fucking amazing. I know. It is styled by Maripole. And Debbie Harry is wearing. a white dress by Norma Kamali, who is so cool and is such a great designer.

Yeah, it's a clear Marilyn Monroe homage, obviously. But also amazingly, it's an homage to Nancy Sinatra's second album, Nancy, where she's wearing basically the same white dress with a white like band on her, I think, right arm. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. That's why she has the band on the left arm. Yes. And I'm very gagged for that detail, which I realized when I fell in love with Nancy Sinatra years later. I just like how she's, they're just like riffing, man.

It's like Nazi Sinatra. It's, it's Maryland. It's Maryland and then the gutter. That album cover fucking kills. The guys are all wearing the like skinny tie mod suits. Clem also going back to when we were talking before about being starstruck, one time I was on the Excel Express and Clem was on there talking to this girl

and I was like you know he'd really appreciate it if you went up to him and said I fucking die for you Clem Burke like sign my t-shirt but I was too star-struck and the hair looked great the hair still looked great I will also say that I have met Debbie Harry and I always like avoided it sort of because I was like it's truly too much for me to handle and then this day I went to the Mark Jacobs show

and like probably February of this year, I guess, maybe. Okay. I was like, oh, shit, look, there's Debbie Harry. And then I'm like, oh, my seat's right here. And then I'm like, oh, my God, my seat is next to Debbie Harry. Oh. You know, like, get it together. And of course, I was like, dude, you have no idea. I'm so gagged for you.

And I was like, this conversation's not going to go well because I am truly two stars star struck. I can't be normal. That I can't be normal, but like, you know, this is a rare thing. So just like go with it. And she was like, it's cool, baby. I get it. She was very like, this is not the first time that a grown man has been incapable of dealing with her. But I was like, but let's hang out sometime soon because now that we have, now that I'm flopping now, like, next time it'll be chill.

And she's like, let's do it. And then we took a picture and the show was over and that's it. You haven't hung out. What happened to hanging out? I got to make it happen. Yeah. When I'm in New York, we'll go to Cheesecake Factory. Do you guys have a Cheesecake Factory? I feel like she would like that. I don't know, but let's take Debbie Harriet to dinner when you come back to town. Do you like how I involved myself into this? Okay. Jimmy Destry and this enemy said something so funny that I just wanted to read to you.

Because they're talking about like how everyone thinks blondie is her or whatever. And Jimmy Destry was like, like if the Rolling Stones were called the Big Lips after Mick Jagger, it'd still be the same kind of energy. That's so funny imagining the Rolling Stones being called the Big Lips after Mick Jagger. That's so funny imagining the Rolling Stones being called the big lips. The big lips. Anyways, Robert Criscoe gave it an A. He said, as unlikely as it seemed three years ago, they've actually achieved their synthesis of the Dixie Cups and the electric prunes. Their third is as close to God as pop rock albums ever get or got.

Nailed it. Couldn't have said it by myself. Yeah, I agree. Great reviews, except for an enemy review where Nick Kent said, Miss Harry has never sung as well as she's looked again. It's that anti-Pretty privilege that I was talking about earlier. Yeah, he sees the song Pretty Baby and he didn't listen to the album because he's like, this is stupid.

No, and also, like, no offense, but, like, no one ever said that about Richard Hell. Richard Hell also hotter than his singing voice was good. But, like, it was sick. It worked, you know? Yeah. Feminism back in my body. This man, Nick Kent, completely missed the whole goddamn point because he also said no single song here leaps out at the listener the same way as ex-offender.

Brov. This has four of the most iconic blondie songs of all time. You didn't hear them. You didn't hear them. Hater. Hater. Okay. After this album by October of 1970, they're finally sick of Peter Leeds as shit, right?

They're like, we're tired. You suck. You got to go. So they try to renegotiate their contract with him, but he's like, no. Yeah, he's like, you never even read this contract. And I know that, sweetie. And so basically, ha ha. Pretty much.

Blondie not reading contracts is a very sad through line of what happens with Blondie. But it's not tail as old as time, you know? Yeah. So it goes to legal negotiations. Meanwhile, they're still touring and playing shows. Finally in January of 1979, Heart of Glass is released as a single. Go straight to number one in the UK. Straight to number one.

Good taste. In the U.S., it starts out as number one. 84. Okay, but by April 28th. So it took four months, about three, four months. It hit number one. It just kind of kept climbing and kept climbing. And that's it. It's number one. It's over. Blondie is broken. They're playing on the Merv Griffin show. They're on fucking TV. 35 weeks after it comes out, parallel lines enters the top 10 of albums. Meanwhile, Debbie films her first feature film, Union City. Have you seen this? You're a cinephile, it seems. No, I haven't seen it. I was, when I was rereading the bulk I was ashamed.

I believe it's pretty hard to find. I think it didn't do very well and it had very poor distribution. It's probably a bad movie, but I'd like to see it. Yeah, it's a drama set in the 30s. She's a brunette in it, a housewife. I didn't see it. I want you to have everything. I don't want everything.

All I want is a man who loves me, treats me nice. Oh, God, Lily. But Debbie is on magazine covers. Okay. She's on, she's on the cover of People magazine. So Glenn O'Brien and Chris have started TV party in the meantime, which if you guys haven't watched TV party, you need to remedy that. Hi, and welcome to the TV party. The TV show, that's a cocktail party, but which could be a political party.

We used to be a proper society. You could just have a fucking cable access show where you like chain smoked giant joints and had like your weird musician friends come and play. And like, you could just do that. and people would watch it. Yeah, well, it was a proper society because the amount of likes and likers and viewers was not the point. It's not supposed to be the point. But the bad guys figured out that our serotonin levels are connected, have connected with that.

And that's become the point. I know. They broke my dopamine receptor. They broke my fucking dopamine receptors. I know, as me and Patrick Sandberg like to say gatekeeping was good. actually gatekeeping was great and we should bring it back. This was just amazing.

It ran for four years every week on cable TV. Apparently also I loved this detail. That cable was only available north of 23rd Street. Yeah. So if you were downtown, you couldn't watch it, but if you were downtown, that's how you were going to be on the show.

Fab Five Freddy was the cameraman on TV party. Right. Again, just some guy who was the cameraman. And Basquiat. He did set, deck and live graffiti. In April of 79, they go back to the studio to work on it to the beat. Now the vibes of making the album are also bad, but in a different way. Because according to Mike Chapman, people were pouring into the studio. Stylist, journalists, interviewers, lawyers,

accountants, new managers who wanted to like talk to them about being their manager because they're getting rid of Peter Leeds. And Mike was like, bro, we need to make the album. Also, they were going to studio 54 a lot. They were part. partying a lot. There was a lot of drugs back in the mix. They're fucking rock stars in 1979. What do you think is going on? Y'all, cocaine is a hell of a drug, is all I'm saying. This is a cocaine album. We are doing cocaine. Dear Christyne, did you do cocaine the night before this album cover was shot? Quick, quick, quick text to Chris Stein. Quick Q, quick little Q. And he's like,

the night before everything I did. Yeah, it was. interesting. Also, Chris was doing like side hustling by producing casino music, which was like a French disco duo. Oh. So he was like also a little busy with that. So between the partying, all the people, the fame, Debbie's like besties with Andy Warhol at this point. Here's what Andy Warhol said about Debbie. Blondie, Debbie was sweet. Her hair was fixed up and you never believe she's in her 30s. No wrinkles and so pretty. She spends all her money on makeup. She must not have been pretty all these years, though, or I would have noticed her. She must have tried to look bad or something.

But I guess people look better, actually, when they get a little older. I didn't know what to call her. I guess I call her Debbie, but when I introduce her, I call her a blondeie. Whatever. Point is, is that Andy loved her then. He was like, I don't know where she was. He was like, she must have been ugly, bitch, because if she wasn't being ugly, I would have seen her. But she was, okay, so I guess she just, she must have been very alert and just

paying attention to what's going on, right? Because she's like, she's in the outer outskirts of Warhol for almost 10 years at this point. Yeah, totally. Because like Eric Emerson, the magic tramps, Holly Woodlawn, she was like with Alda Gentile. There was like all this crossover. Yeah. And she was, she was a waitress at Maxes. But also when you look at her, she really is the greatest beauty. So I think she was just trying to be low key or something. Also, though, I think Andy just wasn't aware that there was all this glamour going on on the Bowery. Like totally. You know,

that was not glamour for him. Because in the early 70s, he was so not about that downtown thing. But you guess what? You have a number one single. Andy is going to notice you, yeah, yeah, yeah. When you look like that,

shit. Yeah. Okay, let's get into the album. It's actually good. It's actually a good album. Actually good? It's great.

Each of the beat is great. This album, I will say, fun to do drugs too. Clearly because it was a method album where they did drugs while they made it so that it would be, they were doing the testing, lab

testing at the time. It's very method. It's very I mean, just look at Chris Dine on this album cover. It is giving cocaine. Cocaine as yes he said, is a hell of a drug. I don't really recommend it. I don't do it anymore. I can't. But

definitely used to listen to this record and those the most psychotic thing I ever music, why is I ever did about doing cocaine is I just definitely remember one night where me and two friends listened to your former client

and close personal friend, Rihanna, just one song, just we found love for legitimately five hours in a row. Like, we just put it on repeat and kept dancing to it

for five full hours and just doing more cocaine. It was unhinged. Dreaming. Oh. Just fucking stop it this shit. This is one of the most beautiful songs ever written. Are you kidding?

It's so good. And you know what I just remembered? This is my entry into Blondie. Because there was like a TV show on something about rock and roll. It was like a I don't know. It's in the, we're in the 80s

and it was on TV or something. And it had the video from this and she's wearing this blue strapless. Do you know what I'm talking about? Yes, I've seen the video here. So fucking good. Few bitches have ever looked as good as Debbie Harry looks in the music video. This is pre-MTV, but the music video for this.

Her Stephen Spouse is unbeatable. Her hair is unbeatable. She is not a human anymore. She is a deity called Debbie Harry, but then the song. But then let's get back to the music. It's so fucking good. also I never understood not to not to harp on the cocaine moment but like I look like Robert Smith the entire time I was doing drugs like I was not cute it was not good I did not look nice like I looked haggard and then this woman out here partying like her life depends on it in her early 30s much like I was it's not like we were I was she's 20 and looking like a luminescent angel luminescent it's funny it's funny that you use the word luminescent because a household name once was doing all this Coke,

and then that household name was going on Larry King the next day. And I was like, how can you? It's like 1.30 in the morning and you're doing all this Coke. And then the household name was like, oh, honey, don't worry about it. It just makes more luminescent. And then I was like, wow. And then I was like lying in bed the next day, like eating a cheeseburger. And I was like, let's watch Larry King.

And we watched it. And that household name looked luminescent. And so I feel like, listen, Everyone has different genes. Everyone has DNA is different. Yeah. My DNA made me look like Robert Smith the next day. Like current day,

Robert Smith. Not young Robert Smith. Yeah. Sister Friend, you're not alone on this podcast as someone that looked bad on drugs. Puffed face, running makeup, hair. Anyways, we don't need to get into it. Dreaming was also the first track of the greatest hits, Blondie greatest hits that we both had, which I didn't see the TV show that you're talking about,

but K Rock, my beloved radio station, alternative rock radio station, always played Blondie. Even when I was, because I probably started listening, what, 90, 91, they still were playing one way or another. They were playing the Blondie song. So that's how I knew what Blondie was, because it was still on alternative rock radio 20 years later. Yeah. Oh, it's so good, this song. Dude, you know what's so cool about this song?

This is one of the rare examples where the drumming is the star. Like, if this drumming wasn't the way it was, it would actually be kind of a mid, just normal, average song, but the drumming is so creative and interesting. And it's like the star. Like, the guitar is not the star. The bass is not the star. It's the drumming, which is, that's pretty rare. Like, you don't hear that very often.

Clemberg really fucking snapped. It's crazy. Snaps. Yeah. He said they let him do whatever he wanted and he did. And it's, it makes, when I'm, okay, here's the thing I couldn't confirm, but I want, I want you guys to know that I did try. But I read that the opening verse, when I met you in the restaurant, you could tell I was no debutante. You asked me, what's my pleasure, a movie or a measure, a hover cup of tea, is a reference to a film called Brief Encounter from 1945 in which a woman meets a man she's never met before in like a train station. and he asks if she wants to see a movie

or listen to the small band in the station. If anyone knows if that's true or not, bang my line. But that is apparently what inspired the first verse of dreaming. Dreaming is free was a Christyne phrase. That was like he came up with a phrase and he was like, when I wrote this song,

I kept thinking Dreaming is free. And then Debbie took it and ran with it and wrote all the rest of the lyrics. Again, they really nailed pining. They really captured the oral translation of what it feels like to pine for something. And this is

in that canon. Like, fucking in the flesh is in that canon. And they have so many good songs where you just feel it like in your bones. We're like, yeah, I never met him, but I'll never forget him. It's fantasy, right? Yes, you're right. Picture this. Yeah. And dreaming. We're back in our Lana Coded ship. Exactly. Pining, right?

Pining, yeah. Laying in your bed, rotting and pining for a man who may or may not know that you literally exist or not. I love this next song. The hardest part. It's so good. Also written by Chris and Debbie. Yeah, we turned up the party.

25 tons of hard and steel rolls on no ordinary wheel. It's so good. Yeah. Bulletproof vest. Shatterproof glass. Overdrive. We're going fast. It's so good.

I love it. She looks great in this video, too. Yeah, this is like a funk song. They were like, what if we try some funk? And it works. And it works. So cool. Union City Blue.

This song was obviously written because of the film that we talked about earlier that neither one of us have seen Union City. Debbie's acting debut. Nigel wrote it, but Debbie wrote the lyrics. I love this song. Yeah. Union City, New Jersey also. It's a great.

This is one of my favorite blondeie songs. It's really good. It is kind of slapped on. I think a little bit. It's an album track. It's just for the lovers, not for everybody else. If you know,

you know, you know. But it's also one of the pining songs. It's in the pining canon. It's in the pining canon, as is this next song, Shayla. Whoa.

Okay, wanted to ask you, are you as sex in the city, girly? I mean, I've watched sex in the city before, but I'm not an official girlie because, like,

I don't know what you're about to ask me. Okay. There's an iconic episode of sex in the city where they go, they go and they rent a convertible. The girls, I think maybe Miranda was not there, but the rest of the three are there to go to a baby shower on like Long Island or something of an old friend. And then the woman having the baby announces her baby name. And it's Shayla.

And then Charlotte loses her mind. I was like, that was my baby name. You knew that. I've told you from the beginning that's what I was going to name my baby. You stole my baby name. And she goes like, psycho at the fucking baby shower. and they have to like take her away. And I was like, is this were the writers of sex in the city who were gay men who clearly

love Blondie got the fucking name Shela? Because I'm willing to bet money it is. Shela? Did you say Shela? It's so unique, isn't it? It's so my name. I thought your name was Charlotte. No, it's not my name. It's my name.

My secret baby name that I made up when I was 11 years old. I am willing to bet 50 bucks that you're 100% right. how else would Shayla be the name? They also had the best ideas of names like they named Aiden. Aidan Shaw is a very important gay porn star. Darren Star was up to his tricks

with Shayla and Aiden John. So, you know, I've been thinking about baby names recently and I thought my son's name would be John Atenberg. And then I thought my daughter's name would be Diana Donna Ottenberg. Legally John. John. So not John, but nickname. They call him John. John. John. John Ottenberg. Diana, Donna Ottenberg. But now I think maybe Shayla Ottenberg instead. Because she's just like a reform school girl.

She doesn't have a chance to not go to reform school, which she just sounds so bad. Bad to the bone. Shaila's going to be an exotic dancer, babe. There's no way she's not going to end up as an exotic dancer. She wasn't history. She's just the number. I love, anyway, point is, I love this song Shayla so much that I want to name my daughter, Shayla Ottenberg. I feel like Shayla is one of their really best album tracks. I agree.

I love it so much. I think it may be besides dreaming, obviously, because you can't fucking compete with dreaming. I think it might be my favorite song on here, besides the singles. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I agree. Eat to the beat also slaps. It's fun.

It's punchy. It's like a good time. Again, we're doing cocaine. We're partying people. Partying. It's just cool. I don't know what their trip is, but I missed it, and it's too bad for me. Accidents Never Happened.

That was written by Jimmy Dust Street. That's the one I brought up for you earlier that Lorna Luffed, who's Judy Garland's daughter, sings back up on. I like the song as a kid, and I like the song as an adult, and it has different meanings, different. eras of my life, but I always come back to it. I fucking love it. I mean, that's a sign of hallmark of a good song that it stays with you. I mean, for me, as one of those, like, extremely annoying everything happens for a reason, girls, that's me. This song really hits, and it is based on Gary Young's mysticism practices that he foisted upon the band. Actually, I did read, which you could have asked Chris Stein, I should have told you. Chris Stein was also really into the occult early on and like

Red Tarot and had weird shit in his house and was like into that shit. And him and Gary like used to bond over it except now Gary again, like I've said, has written 20 books about it. And I bought the Alster Crowley one and I can't wait to read it. But yeah, accidents ever happen is so fucking good. To me, it's like the final, not final, but like a very amazing conclusion of their love of girl groups married to like modernity and new wave. And like what if girl groups but cocaine?

Yes. And, like, Lorna Lufth is being fully 70s blondey backup singer, not Shangri-Law's girl. It's, it's evolved. She was like, I was trying to get out of my mom's shadow. And so I was like, I'm going to be punk, dye my hair, and sing backup for blondeie. That was her quote. I mean, sounds good to me. Yeah, it worked, Lorna Lufth.

Also, this is for like 1% of the listening audience. but I'm curious if the lyric, like the magi on the hill, I can divinate your presence from afar, is a reference to the book, The Magus, by John Fowles, which I ended up reading a little bit against my will because there was a boy that I liked who was like, I'm going to read it on tour. And I was like, okay, I'll read it with you too on tour. And of course, him being a boy in a band read like one chapter and never finished it. Me slogged through, like finish the challenge. And now I know about the book.

Anyways, if anyone listening out there, thinks, agrees with me. Woman of knowledge. I'm literate, you know, sometimes. The next song is Die Young, Stay Pretty. This was an older song that they brought back for this album. It kind of sounds like early blondey. I don't want to keep harping on the young me and the activities that I used to be a part of, but that's all I can think of when I think of this song,

because it's sort of grating. I'm weird in a nightmare, but I also... have history with it and I like it. Yeah, it's die young and stay pretty. Leave only the best behind. Slow motion is the next song. Jimmy Destry wrote that one. Love it. I like it more now

than I used to. I don't know. I just, I love it. You're like fully blonde-y-pilled, that's why. But this next song. How much just visual presentation have play into your loving of music? This is a very, very powerful moment in the visuals of music, but it's the music that really has me. I don't think there's any music from this time that has grabbed me so much just because of the image.

But it's just one of these crazy times where the music is as good as the look. But what it excites me about this moment in time is. how things are changing. Like, you're getting, you're going from 70s rock and disco into new wave. And it's just this sweet spot that I just love so much. But there's, there's something about the graphic design and the image of everyone,

but the music pops for me. So it's not just the visual. What it meaning like Donna Summer, Diana Ross, Blondie, B-52s, like the looks are so sick, but it's the music. It's not. But it's also a moment where there's not as many visuals.

It's just the album cover is like... Right. It's an art that is hard to just even talk about because it's all in one image, you know what I mean? And they were big. It's different, right? It's like it was bigger. So, like, you really had this experience.

I mean, I didn't by the time I was of age. I mean, I had LPs as a preteen because I was like a precocious, one of those, like, you know, fucking Brooklyn, the national type. bros as an 11 year old who was like, oh, I have it on vinyl. Who's that annoying at 11 myself? But it was mostly CDs by the time I was really buying albums. And that's sad. We lost something when it got very small.

There was a lot more time and there was a lot more focus on stuff than there is now. But anyway, the amazing thing about all this time period is that the visuals and the music are both fucking fire. Are both fantastic. Atomic. Let's fucking go. Let's make it magnificent. Tonight. I know.

Your hair is beautiful. I know. Tonight. Make it magnificent. I mean, the lyrics to this song are so, I mean, what? But it's a very, like, amazing song because it still, I'm sorry, controversial, it is still part of the pining canon. But it's also a song that fucking. and bangs.

She fucks, she bangs, and she wants it, you know. Your hair is beautiful tonight. That's like, that's the pining and then it goes, atomic. And then we're like, it's banging. Automic. Debbie and Jimmy wrote this song together. Also, the look of this, the, this is, I think the, the, the seven inch is like her and this yellow Stephen Spouse dress with a, yes.

spotlight on her. Debbie Harry, bitch, your outfit's a 1979 girl. Like, you shat on 77 and 78, Mama, like, look at this shit. Because she got the, she has the, like, the brown plastic, the, like, topy brown plastic outfit with the little hat

and the yellow outfit and the dreaming shit, like, Stephen Spouse Hucked her the fuck up. Yeah. Anyway, Atomic is so good. Was Atomic? hit or is it just like has it just become a hit through history and time? Really good question.

Atomic was the third single. I do think it was popular in the UK. Again, I'm not totally sure if it made it in America per se. It was based on like a spaghetti Western vibe, which I love the bon, bono, bono, bono. Oh, my God, it's so, it's so good. Yeah. It hit the top 40, but it didn't, like, really go very high. Also, I'm sorry, Gia being in the video.

Gia Caranty's in the music video? Yes. What a music video? There's a music video. It's honestly not very good. Gia's only in it, like, two brief times. She's wearing, like, these iconic sunglasses, like, that are honestly very now. They're very, like, there's a pair of acne that I want.

They're, like, Kim Kay, like, you know, frameless. Debbie Harry, into the beat sunglasses. is unbeatable. So I'm sure Gia is wearing great sunglasses. It's just frameless fucking the sick. Like you could see them today

on Kim Kardashian or me if I pony up the money to buy the acne ones that I want. Kids, this is before MTV. So like me not having seen this video. No, yeah, I hadn't seen it. I like, I looked it up because I saw a little notation that Gia Karanji was in the video and I was like, I gotta go see this.

The seven inch single is also her with an atomic bomb exploding behind her. and she's wearing like a one-shoulder disco outfit. I mean, the whole, the fucking, ugh. It's really so good. Then it's Sound asleep, written by Chris and Debbie. I think Chris wrote it to literally as a lullaby for Debbie. So sweet.

What is Victor? Victor rules, dude. You don't know where Victor. Victor's is like super, like, weird, dramatic song where Debbie's, like, screaming and screeching on it. Yeah. I want you to go, leave me alone. Yeah.

Exactly. Exactly. Oh yeah. This is going into my, this is my like, my boys against girls shit that I love with them. Like the boys are going like full Flintstone. It's Frankie and Jimmy.

And then Debbie's like screeching. And the whole thing is like another Cold War romance. Like it's like, and I guess the victor in question is Victor Bocrys, who was a rock star biographer. who was, like, friends with Andy Warhol. He wrote Eadie. Oh, my God, Eadie, which I just finally read.

It was so fucking good. I know. I was so late to the motherfucking game. One of the best things I've ever read in my life. It made me want to bleach my hair. Victor Barker's rules. Yeah, that's, I think he kind of, that was like the first oral history, right?

Like that, I think Eady is the first oral history, but he was involved with Blondie, too. And I have this book like, Blondie making the band or something that he did. That's a cool book. But if you guys haven't read Edy, you need to read it. It's so sick. Like, it absolutely made me want to, like, cut my hair, bleach it, start doing drugs again, like, become an it woman.

I guess I can't say it girl, I'm 41 years old, but an it woman and just like make it happen for myself. Redue life and just be out in these streets. But I'm not because I go to bed at 9 p.m. And I have to go lift my weights in the morning. It is a great American book. It's so good. Anyways, that song fucking rules. And then the last song is Living in the Real World.

by Jimmy Dustry. Good song. I like it. E to the B is low-key on par with parallel lines, I would say. Yep, I agree. It gets decent reviews. I really liked what this Rolling Stone writer said. They said, Blondie's obsession here is with dreams and distance.

The band's usual themes now suddenly personalized by its own success. Like a comedian who outlasts and outclasses the subjects of his impressions. the group itself has become a pop image as powerful as any it can evoke. Oh, that was so good. I was like, okay, go off. Fucking Deborah Racon. He's saying you have become transcendent.

You've transcended the... Yeah, she basically was like, you started out writing... I mean, it's so spot on, right? They started out writing these songs about the silver screen, about celebrity, about pop image. And now they are that, you know? And they're writing it now from like, the call is now coming from inside the house, if you will. They literally went from, like, being sort of locally known Bowery darlings, friends with the punks, to having a number one hit song, being in tabloid magazines, and being doing cocaine at Studio 54 with Andy Warhol.

Again, allegedly, I don't know if anyone did cocaine. I just want the lawyers listening to know. We're talking about doing spiritual cocaine. I don't know if they were doing real cocaine. These lyrics are like, see a sucker. I've made it. You will never, ever walk to the moon, leave your body and float through the room.

You could never conquer me because I'm not here and you're not there. And she's not living in the real world no more. It's not really a positive song, though, if you really read through the lines, right? Like, every day you've got to wake up and disappear behind your makeup, take away your calendar.

Yeah. Hey, I'm living in a magazine page to page in my teenage dream. Hey, now, Mary, You can't follow me without a satellite. I'm on a power flight because I'm not living. It's great. It's really good. Robert Criscow gave this in A-minus.

They go on tour. They finally finalize their break with Peter Leeds and they get a new manager. Shep Gordon. Iconic. Also, Alice Cooper's manager. Kind of sick. They go on fucking Saturday Night Live. They play Dreaming in Union City Blue.

You're going to want to be interested in this. I know you're interested in this because this is where it really gets Mel Ottenberg Call Me comes out My dick is hard So Call Me was a standalone What was my dick hard for?

Giorgio Moroder Listen I'm not going for any straight men ever But Georgia Marruder 83 Get in this bed with me, Georgia I love you so much He can get it, babe I love Georgia Marauder

So Call Me is originates because they were going to make a song for American Gigolo. And before you ask, no, I have not seen it. So wait, hold on. Georgio Marauder calls them? I don't know who calls them. Georgia Maroder has written the song, though. It's a song for American and Jigolo. I think it's probably the producers. And they're like, we want Blondie to make this song with you, Georgia Maroder. And the idea was that they would just perform it. Because Georgia Maroder delivered a completely completed song. which was called man-machine. And he had written all the lyrics. And according to Chris, his thing was very direct, like saying, I'm a man, and I go out, and I fuck all the girls. Debbie's lyrics are a lot more subtle. Georgia members like, it's about an American jiggleot, man-machine.

He's a man-machine. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a man-machine. But then Debbie, Debbie also, I mean, the accent here. It's like, she's trolling us. Color me your color, baby. Color me your car. Color me your color, darling.

I know who you are. You know why she wrote those lyrics? Because she was fascinated. So they saw an advance cut of the film. And she was fascinated by the tones. Like the tones of the film, the color tones. So that inspired her to write that verse. It's literally about the tones of the film.

Is that interesting? Again, I've never seen it. So I don't know what she's talking about. You don't need to watch the album because you can watch. the intro to the movie on YouTube very easily. And then it's the opening credits are the entirety of the song. Of the song. Well, I did watch when she performed it with the Muppets.

So also with Muppets. Fantastic. I love this Blondie song so much it is. I mean, I think everybody does. I believe it. I believe it's the number one biggest Blondie song. It has 420 million. streams. Sounds like a lot.

I mean, it's not a billion, which some people have billion stream songs. Brianna being one. The Arctic Monkey have several. Okay, anyways, call me is a massive hit. Okay. Even fucking America gets the goddamn memo, and it goes to number one right away in America, in Canada. It didn't come out in the UK until April, February 1980s when it came out in America to come out to coincide with American Jigolo. It's been. Massive. It was also number one on Billboard magazine's 1980 year end chart. Smash hit success. Smash hit success. What do they follow up this smash hit success with? A weird move in my opinion.

They appear in the film Rodee starring Meatloaf. This is a movie where the plot follows a young Texan electrician named Travis W. Redfish, played by Meatloaf, who gains notoriety as the world's best roadie after fixing the generator before a blondie concert. Redfish can fix it Get me two beers And a hubcap Redfish can fix anything I need a for

Why he's the best Rody in the whole world The bands make it rock But the Rodeys make it roll This is I think in the book They say Blah Blah our new manager Alas Cooper's manager's First big move

Was getting us to be in the movie It's so good And you know the tagline for the movie was Bands may make it rock But Rodees make it roll Yeah America It's honestly so sick. Chef Gordon was like, you think you're famous? We're putting in the Meat Love movie.

They cover Ring of Fire in it. It actually sounds sick. I would watch that. I would watch Roady starring Meat Love. I'm going to put it on my letterboxed. Sure. After the season's over, you should watch Roady. Everyone's like, oh, did you ever watch American Gigolo or like any of those classic film you talked about? I'd be like, no, but I did watch Roady and it was a good time. then I sent you this on text, but they recorded that cover of Ronnie and the Daytona's 1964 hit Little GTO, which is so sick as a favor for Rodney on the Rock because they wanted to make him some money. But Chrysalis got involved and was like, absolutely the fuck not. You're not. And they blocked the release of it. So they don't want to give that man any money.

They don't want to, I mean, they're not going to let their prized possession make money for anyone else besides themselves, you know. Wow. Well, it's a cool track. Thank you for sending it to me. It's super cool, and it's very cool because I read in the book that some of the Beach Boys are on it doing backing vocals, which is so cool. Then in 1980, Deborah Harry becomes the face of Gloria Vanderbilt jeans. Oh, she's got a song in that ad. She's got a song. See, I'm rubbing off. She was kind of like, I don't really wear like designer jeans or care about this, but they also gave her more money than her and Chris had made

in the entire time they've been in Blondie. So they finally had a little bit of money from this Gloria Vanderbilt ad. I love the Gloria Vanderbilt ad. I forget what the song is, but she wrote a song. When you know where you're going. Know what to wear. It's gorge.

It's good. I think she got 200. They got 200 or she got $200,000 for that. Well, I mean, in modern day money, that's a lot of money. Yeah. I mean, it's a lot of money. now but yeah that's great then in June like I said she goes on the Muppet show amazing pretty sick

and then the Lester Bings Blondie book comes out here's the thing about the Lester Bings Blondie book it's out of print and it was like over $100 and I don't think the good people at my job who pay for this podcast would appreciate me expensing a $100 Lester Bings book so I did not buy it so I'm not sure what's in it it was kind of controversial because again I haven't read it so I can't I'm just reporting what I read, but other people saying about it, which they said that it was kind of him being like, the blondie just used sex to sell records. Oh. So kind of like not pause. And Debbie said, I was surprised by that book.

We had known Lester for a long time. I was shocked that he was so hostile. What I do is in a sense nothing new, yet I combine two more or less opposites. On one hand, I entertain in a very traditional way with the image of a beautiful female singer, though that could be very bland. But then I put a lot of feeling and information into lyrics. Maybe that's scary. And then Chris was like, Chris fucking dragged his ass to hell. Chris was like, Lester's point was to make money.

But he didn't because the book didn't sell. Gorge. And then Lester Bings later said he thinks Debbie was actually mad because she wasn't, he said that she's not his type in the book. Lester Bings was, again, respect to him as a rock critic. He was disgusting looking. So I'm not really sure that it was any skisket. off her nose that she wasn't his type. Yeah.

Okay. Now we're getting into a new blondey territory. Dare I say we've left the golden age. Yeah. We're in this weird moment where, okay. Okay. For your Motley crew episode, which you should really do, you should really read the book, The Dirt, which is one.

Which I've never read. Which I'm sure the first night that we met here in my apartment, late at night, I was probably a fucking talk about the dirt because I love it so much. And anyway, the point about the dirt that I want to bring up here is that the dirt talks about almost like the cycle of fame. You're up here. It's like a water bog and then you're like up here and everything's so sick. And you really don't notice when you're just a little bit over the edge careening down because you've still got the biggest hit of the year. Totally.

Right. And also you've got another big hit on this album, which is massive. Beyond, which is kind of like one of your other, like, top three hits of all time. Totally. Yet, as Yes, he said, use on the way down, baby. I mean, it's the fucking, it's Hakuna Matata, babe. It's the circle of life. Like, this is just what happens.

It's fine. It's not just anything negative about them. Most musical artists in bands do not consistently produce excellent work their entire career. It's just not how it works. They're not living in the real world no more. They're not living in the real world no more. Album cover, though? Album cover goes.

Yo. It's the best one, I think, in my opinion. Because it's a painting, right? It's the commission to painting. It's the best one. And also, it speaks to, like you were saying, it speaks to pining. It speaks to the fantasy of New York and America. Totally.

And, like, American-made products. They wanted to call that album Coca-Cola. That's how much they wanted it to be, like, an homage. to American and it made products, but the Coca-Cola Corporation was like no heart. So they weren't able to make it. Yeah. So they went with auto-American. I wonder who painted this.

I don't know. But it's just incredible. Also produced by Mike Chapman. Also produced by Mac Chapman. This album is really Chris's baby. Like this was like Chris being like, this is where I'm taking the reins. I want to do these interesting and experimental things. I'm like, he maybe edged Frank out a little bit.

But please remember earlier. said that Mike Chapman noticed that Chris did not like Frank, maybe taking the guitar glory. So on this album, Chris was like, no bitch. Auto American does have two huge hits that are like two of the three, two of their maybe biggest songs besides, call me. That's wild though, right? But it's like they don't like each other. There's a lot of drugs.

We're in a new decade. We're in LA also. I think that had a lot to do with the bad vibes. of making this album. They don't, they didn't move to LA, but Mike Chapman lives in L.A. and had kids. And he was just like, can you guys please for just one album come make it here? Like, I'm so tired of going to New York. Right. Okay. Also, isn't Chris really sick and they're hiding that and doing dope? Not yet. I don't, well, he gets sick on the tour of this album, so he might have already been sick during the making. I didn't read that, but like, it's probably possible. It's not

like you. He had an autoimmune disorder that they didn't know about, so it probably was already presenting. So yeah. Mike Chapman basically was like, when with Auto American, there was no rehearsal done at all. We just walked into the studio blind with a sketch of a few songs. And how that album came out, I don't really know. He's like, it was a miracle that this album fucking formed. It starts out with, again, Chris Stein was in his artist bag. He was like, now, bitch, we're making art.

Oh, I love how it starts. Yeah, it's a beautiful cinematic instrumental. And because they're in L.A., Mike Chapman's like in his home turf. He can call up a bunch of musicians. So they're able to have a full orchestra to like execute Chris's vision. Yeah. Europa's a really cool opening song.

Very, very fan male like two years later with a full orchestra and a real producer or something. Yeah. Also very like 1980, right? Like we're getting into like Blade Runner territory. Yes. We're coming for it. Yeah. The spoken word piece says,

based on the desire for total mobility and the serious physical pursuit of religious freedom, the auto drove mankind further than the wheel, and in remote areas, even today is forbidden as a device too suspect for human conveyance. This articulate conception has only brought us all more of the same, thoughtlessly locked into phrase two gridlock, keyed up on its rims and abandoned on the expressway. It's pretty cool. Based on the desire for total mobility and the serious physical pursuit of religious freedom. The next song is Live It Up. I don't have any notes written about this. I've always liked the song.

I always thought it was really cool, and I was surprised it wasn't a single. I asked Chris about it because on the Against All Odds double album that just came out, there is a Georgia Marauder demo of it. So I was like, what's the deal? Did you guys get in a fight with Georgia? And he doesn't remember. He has no recollection. I feel like I did read that they tried to, before this album, they tried to make it with

Giorgio maybe and it was just not working. And they had to go back to Mike Chapman. Yeah, I feel like Giorgio was very, in 1980, Georgio was very busy because he was like, it's like the end of him and Donna. They're still in the recording studio, but they're like, he's just like doing a lot of incredible stuff. Yeah.

And he's starting to like be, for whatever reason, him and Donna are kind of ending. So like everyone else wants the man. Right, right. Totally. But whatever. it didn't happen. Here's to looking at you is like, it's a bizarre, it's a bizarre turn in the album to me

because it's like, it's almost like they were like, oh, remember how we like to doop girl groups? What if even more old-timey music? Because it's this very like, I don't know, like, what would you, how would you describe this song? I would describe it like, Lady Gaga being like, boopop, da, blah, blah. Totally. Yeah.

In a gown and an up to where you're like, all right. It's like, take me out to the. ball game core. You know, it's like 1930s. I'm just like, what made you want to like go in this direction? Sure I stopped drinking, but for the moment, honey here's looking at you. Buy me some peanuts and cracker jacks. That's that's what it's giving. It's giving buy me some peanuts and cracker jacks. But okay, listen, they wanted to try things. Then the motherfucking tide is high. We're redeemed ourselves. We, we, we right it. We, So we write at the ship.

They really have a good track record of picking cover songs. And this was obviously their most more successful than hanging on the telephone. Would you say? Oh, my God. This is a huge hit. And again, I'm a broken record because I was asking Chris stuff. Do you know Chris? Are you guys friends?

We're friends, yes. But I only have one more. I only have one more because I was like, yo, I'm going on this podcast. like I need some information to impress my cool friend. And he said that, I said, did you know some of these songs were going to be hits? And he's like, I never knew a song was going to be a hit except for the tight as high. That's the only one in the studio that I knew was going to do. Oh, that's really cool.

Yeah. So it's a cover of a song by this Jamaican group, The Paragon's. And yeah, it's, I don't know about you, but it's burned into my brain much like, look at me, I'm Sandra D because of the blondie greatest hits. And I listened to it so fucking. much. Yeah, I don't need to listen to this song anymore because I've listened to it a few thousand times too much. Yeah, that song fucking goes. I mean, you can totally tell why it would be a hit. And it was a great choice of a great choice of a cover song. And again, like, this is the same year that like, remain in light by the talking heads comes out. Like, and again, the clash is doing

their fucking thing. Like, there's a big thing around New Wave and punk groups being like, Y'all heard reggae? Y'all know about this reggae thing? It's cool. We're going to make some songs to teach you about this reggae thing. And tight as high is obviously one of the best cover things. Angels on the balcony. They wrote this song while they were doing the movie Rodey.

Go through it. Maybe it was meant to be on the Rody soundtrack. It's flagging. We're flagging. But it's okay. Do the Dark. That song's about Satan. Disco Satan. Jimmy Destry. Not really remember one. No offense to Jimmy Dustry. But you did better work elsewhere. Okay. Let's talk about Rapture. Ooh. Written by Debbie Harry and Christyne. I'm not going to like do the annoying thing where I like give an oral history of hip hop music. But like, we just should point out that like hip hop is like on the rise in New York. It is a. underground movement that's starting to really become a big thing. It's the most white girl way to say it ever.

I'm really sorry. I don't know how else to describe. A fun thing about this song that's not that fun. A fun thing about this song that's not that fun is like a lot of people love to erroneously say facts about it. Like, oh, it was the first ever commercially released rap song, which is not true. The first ever commercially released rap song was Sugar Hill Gangs Rappers at the Light, which came out the year before. But it was the first rap song to ever reach the number one on the singles chart.

So that's cool. And also, I will say, again, Magnificent Seven by The Clash, which is also kind of a rap song, came out before this like six months before. But it's a fucking sick-ass song. There's no denying that. Debbie, Debbie has said many times that Rapture is not a rap. It's an homage

dedicated to the form. Right. Because Fab by Freddie, who was a tagger. We don't call them taggers anymore. That's what I called them when I was in high school. So did we. The hot guys who did graffiti in my school were the taggers.

Yeah. So hot. Jedi Knights. That was the crew at my Torrance High School. They were all so hot and they would, they would throw up J.K. Anyways, Fab by Freddie had taken them to a rap.

show, hip hop show, and they got really inspired. And Debbie said, we met Grand Master Flash and some of the Sugar Hill gang. They were all so cute. I remember Chris and I were lying in bed one day. He was smoking a joint going, we should do a song called Rapture. I'm ashamed to admit that I was like yesterday years old when I realized rapture is like the name is is referring to rap. I never thought about that in my entire life. As you were saying that, I was like, wow, I, the things one learns. This many years later, it never occurred to me. It never occurred to me. That's why they called it rapture. Nope, never. Had no idea. Told me everybody's fly. DJ spinning. I said, my mind, flashes fast. Flash is cool. This is sort of in conversation with the giant

ants from outer space song, wouldn't you say in earlier? It's a sci-fi. The man from Mars won't eat up bars. He's eating cars. You know? Yeah, you're right. It's very giant ants from space snuff. It's their sci-fi. It's in their sci-fi universe. Anyways, this song fucking slaps and it's just, you know what? I'm going to go ahead and say it. If you're thinking about putting rap in your rock song, don't do it. Okay, don't do it. But on a very rare occasion, the fate's a line and it does work, and this is one of the rarest examples. But you at home, don't do it. Yeah. Don't do it. It was done not to be matched.

No, it's unparalleled. Unfortunately, they themselves did try to do it again, and we'll get into that later and with unfortunate results, but, you know, listen, it's okay. Faces is a song that Debbie Hary wrote, just her, and the only notable thing I have to tell you about Faces is that the saxophone on that song is played by Tom Scott, who also wrote the theme song to Starsky and Hodge. I don't remember Faces. That's okay. T-birds? Okay, so like, I think that I would respectfully like to say that T-birds is no Detroit 4-4-2 or I'm on E. It's just not. Yeah, again, this is a little bit flagging. Walk like me is

fine. Then the absolute most bat-shay crazy, you thought take me out to the ballgame core was insane. Then they're like, what if we fucking cover a song from the 1960 musical Camelot? And that's the last, That's the last song. I have literally no idea what follow me as a way to follow me. It doesn't work. But listen, to your point, two of their biggest songs of all time are on here. So, like, this overall is a successful album. It's uneven.

But when you've made music for this long and you've had success, you have earned the right to experiment and play around and do what, try things. I'm glad that they fucked around here and they found some incredible stuff. They found out. The tide is high and rapture are worth all of the experimentation that doesn't really work. Rapture alone. Rapture alone. All of the experimentation.

And I love Europa and I love Live It Up. Yeah. Look, again, uneven, but still overall worth the expenditure. This must be the point in their career where they're like, no, no, no, we do know. Like, T-Birds is it. I don't think so. think this is like a totally different time that we're like so far removed from where again you're a close personal friend and my hero of life riana has maybe never going to put out of

their album but it's been 12 25 years you couldn't do that back then like they were like every year on the fucking dot you are putting out an album bitch i don't care if it's done i don't care if you have enough good songs like you're on a goddamn schedule and the fucking label is outside tapping their foot being like where's the fucking album like these people had to grind out an album per year. It was not allowed to like take time and find yourself and find the music or whatever. So like that might have informed why some of it got a little mid, you know? Also drugs are a hell of a drug.

So I don't know. Who knows? Who knows what's happening? Chrysalis. Chrysles also didn't hear any hits on here. So they were once again the wrongest. Robert Criscow, God bless his heart, gave it a B minus. Like you said, there's two hits.

and two high points on the album. They're both two songs predicated on black culture, which is totally right. Jamaican reggae and rap music. Rolling Stone gave it one star. They hated it, which is really insane because they gave the Hunter three stars, which we'll get into it.

And the Hunter, I'm sorry, I'll say it. The Hunter is a bad album. It's not good. It is borderline irredeemable, that album. But we'll get into it. Three stars? They gave Otto American one star and they gave the Hunter three stars. Crazy.

nothing means anything. Okay, so let's move on. So now, see what I'm saying. It's 1981. They're literally putting out an album every year, but this is not a blonde album. But they put out the next year, Debbie Harry was like, and we're not going to go into the weeds on this, don't worry. But Debbie Harry was like, I want to, I want to do my own thing. I want to do a Debbie Harry solo album.

Owning it for the cover art alone is worth it. It is the sickest, HR Geiger. I know that this is an audio-only podcast, but I'm currently. silently holding that, yeah. The album you guys have to look at it. It's basically,

Debbie went brunette. It's just her perfect face with these like acupuncture needles going through it. Huge needles going through her face. It's really a stunning. It's black and white. It's really beautiful. Nile Rogers and Bernard Edwards from Sheik produced this album.

I think it's very 80s is what I'll say. It doesn't hit. It doesn't hit. It doesn't hit. It doesn't hit. It doesn't hit. I have to say on record, I respect the hell out of Debbie Harry being like, I'm borderline at the top of the world, like you were saying. Like, we have mega hits.

Like, we're super famous. But I'm not creatively satisfied. And I'd like to try something different. I think that's fucking amazing. And she was like, I want to work with chic or whatever. It's not my favorite thing in the world. But I think it's cool that she did it. And Chris Stein was obviously involved, too, because they have creative partnership.

So then in October of 81, they put out Best of Blondie. the album that both you and I acquired through different sources. Me, I stole it from the BMG and Columbia House Music. I don't remember which one where I taped a penny and then grifted them out of CDs. And that's really great. Then in 82, they put out The Hunter. All their album covers have been absolutely incredible and the albums have gotten better or like maybe auto-American's not as good, but damn, if it's not the best album cover.

Such a good album cover. But then this one suddenly, it's a table. terrible album cover, Debbie looks bad, her hair is stupid, and it's a flop. I need to, like, know what the conversation was. You guys, like, go look up this album cover. It's, like, unhinged. It is, she looks like, she has, like, massive blonde hair and wearing, like, a Tarzan Jane outfit.

And also, the, like, lettering is Tarzan-esque. Like, it's, like, I don't want to say a racist, but do you know what I mean? It's, like, in the neighborhood of racist. It's going for Island of Lost Souls. Or like the Joseph Conrad, the dark, dark heart. What is it? The heart of darkness. Heart of darkness.

Like, babe, what is going on here? It was a concept album in the press release. This also made no sense to me. Because no offense. Like, okay, so here's what the concept album is about. Searching, hunting, or pursuing one's own Mount Everest. I don't know what that means. I just don't, like, this whole album.

You know what it kind of sounded like to me? And I'm going to say this. It's controversial. We can ask Christyne later. You're a close personal friend. But you know when like you're in a relationship and you're just kind of like a little over it, but you don't want to be the one to break up with them. So you just start doing fuck shit so that they'll break up with you.

It feels like Blondie as a band didn't want to be a band anymore. And they were like, instead of quitting, we're going to go ahead and make the hunter. Well, like, as someone who makes magazines, like sometimes they're better and sometimes some issues will be better than others. And sometimes you'll go in and you'll put stuff together and you're like, God, this was so fun to make. I really had a good time making it. I'm really into it. Hope people like it. Oh, gee, people really like it.

Or like other times you're like, oh, wow, this was like so unfun to make and felt like lead. And like, why did it feel so heavy? It was so annoying. and like everything was just like kind of weird. Well, this is like that, you know, much more intense way and it's the end because it's the last Blondie album before they break up. I think you nailed it. They were just like, it's not fun anymore.

And Blondie's whole tagline was Blondie is having fun. Like, it's about having fun. And I don't think they were having fun anymore. Like Chris is, I think at this, I don't think he was Rotter American, but I think he is at this point kind of sick. They hate each other. They've hated each other for three albums. The album getting bad reviews.

probably really hurt their hearts, especially Chris's, because that was like his baby, you know, and then Debbie tried to do an album. That also got shit on, didn't get any, you know, love or press. They also are still broke. They still are not, not reaping money. And I think it's, yeah, it's just not fun anymore. The party's over. And also the 70s are over. Like, I have a weird, I may because I grew up in it, it's like two periods of time that I find not to be my favorite are the mid-aughts and the 80s. Obviously there's exceptions. very cool stuff that happened in the 80s, very cool stuff that happened in the mid-auts. But I think the overarching culture, like the most popular culture of the 80s, is not my thing.

And it does kind of kill some of the, like, beautiful punk spirit that was coming from the 70s. I love the 80s, but the early 80s, this moment is not the best. But also, I was thinking about this when I was reflecting before doing this podcast. I feel like some of the really cool kids that loved Blondie are now making new wave albums like Berlin Pleasure Victim, which is like a fucking banger album. I have that on it. I love it. It's so good. The amount of times I listen to writing on the metro as a 12-year-old?

Oh, it's so. Off the charts. Thousands of times. It's like this effortlessly cool thing that. I think comes out in 1982, but, but like, it's, it's not, the kids that were growing up obsessed with Blondie are now making banger, new wave music, like Vizage and Berlin and stuff, and it's not as easy for them anymore. It just doesn't sound, you look at, listen to The Hunter now. It's not, it's not it. No, it's not it. It's really not it. And I think there's just, like,

time has changed. They've also been a band for a really fun. fucking long time at this point, you know, I mean, Debbie is, how old is she in 82? 37. 37. I don't know about you, Bibb, when I was 37, I got real tired all of a sudden. All of a sudden, I was like, actually, I'm not going to do cocaine and dance to. We found love in a hopeless place for five hours. Like, I'd like to watch the Gilmore girls at home having a beautiful hot cup of tea and

then go to sleep at 10 p.m., you know? So maybe that caught up with them too. Maybe they were just like, we're old, we're tired. Okay, let's talk about three songs. Free Your Eyes Only, it's the same name as the James Bond movie because they actually originally wrote it for the James Bond movie because the producer had asked them to. However, the producers actually ended up liking a different song, which was the Sheena Easton song that did become the soundtrack of Free Are Us Only.

So that's why that song is called For Your Eyes Only. The Beast is sort of once again in that trilogy of giant ants and rapture. You know? It's like in that weird world. Photographers would follow me. They'd you for a smile. Over here be. Hear me. The hatchet go.

It's also a response to walking with the beast, which was a gun club song, which is about Debbie Harry. There's that. And yeah, English voice is good. It's an ode to John Lennon. I think it's a cool song. It's an effortless, cool song. John Lennon loved Auto American.

He was listening to it all the time in the like months before he passed away. he didn't pass away, he was murdered, but you know what I mean? Like, he, it was reported to them that, like, he loved that album. Even Robert Criscoe, unfortunately, fucking his hands are tied, babe. He has to give this album a C. Even him, long-time friend of the band is like, it's not good. This is a lousy record by any standard is his statement.

Again, Rolling Stone completely lost the plot, gave it three stars. Not that it doesn't deserve three stars, more than, like, No, it doesn't. It doesn't. Auto American is much better. Whatever. Auto American is experimentation that leads to incredible and lasting success. This is just like, what?

Yeah, it's a bit of a what situation. It felt like self-sabotage. When your image really is that good and that relevant to culture, it hurts when you wear a bad wig. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm wondering if it was because they actually got, they got mass. at her because she was brunette. So maybe she was like, kind of doing a fuck you. She was like, oh, you want me

blonde? Here's a huge blonde wig. Here's a big ass blonde wig. Okay, well, like, I asked my friend, Chris Stein about it, and he was like, yeah, it's such a bad off cover. I know, he knows. So they knew. I feel like it was just like they were just over it.

Like they wanted to do this like half creature. Like he said, oh, we wanted to get, I wanted to get Rick Baker to do the makeup. And we were all going to be these creatures and so like that was the concept but that ain't the reality and honestly no one cares about the concept that didn't happen you know because it's just yeah because we don't have that we just have the reality okay well after that chris starts his own label animal records iconic i think their first

major release is iggy pop's sixth album zombie birdhouse releases a bunch of all other cool shit tab falcos panther burns james chants and then most importantly the iconic second gun club album, Miami, one of my favorite albums that Chris also produced. It's so good. Then they go on tour. This is when Chris gets really sick, the summer of 82,

after the tour for the Hunter. They go on tour for the Hunter? I don't think they have a choice. And this is their job, you know? Yeah, they go. We need to make another $100,000 to, like, to, like, cut into that ice. iceberg of death. Yeah, of debt. And I guess I read, this is like a throwaway line, but I found it

really profound. Like, I guess they took Duran Duran Duran on tour, but by midway through the tour, Duran Duran was like eating them alive, like was so much better than them. And like, I think it was Klem who was like, we were like not good. Like we were not doing well. Chris was sick. Nobody was into it. Like it was just, the vibes were bad. That's it. Like, the changing of the guard, basically. Like, it's Duran Duran Duran time and we're just like kind of over. Chris has finally has to stop touring because he's so sick. And again, the band is fighting. Vibes are horrendous.

Chris is hospitalized. They diagnose him with this rare autoimmune disorder. And like, it's the perfect storm. Blondie breaks up. They don't announce it, nothing, but it's just like all of the elements combined where they're like, we're not doing this anymore. We're done. Here's what Chris said.

As far as why the band split, there were just so many causes and a lot of negativity. Getting older gives one a different. view of just about everything. I'm sure I said some really stupid shit. It was a period of stupid statements. Looking back from the 21st century, I often wonder about some of the things people said back then about Blondie, about how some of the crazy criticism and mud slung at us would hold up today in light of all that has come after. For example, how would Lester Bangs' severe comments about Debbie and my selling out and exploiting her sexuality, for one, hold up in the cold light of Brittany and all her ilk? We didn't have to drag Britney. Deb got so whacked for doing what, in

retrospect was absurdly innocent compared to what's become the norm now. And then Debbie was like, it was a gradual thing to end Blondie. It wasn't totally my decision. We had all outgrown it and wanted to do different things. So we stopped. I wanted people to know there was more to me as a person than the sort of cartoon character we had created. It wasn't enough for me to be treated anymore like I was Blondie. I had to let people know that there was something else happening there. I wanted to be an actress. And that's what I want more than anything now to be recognized as an actress. It's important to let people know, I'm not blondie. I'm Debbie Harry. And that makes sense to me. Also, cocaine was a hell of a drug. I must reiterate because Chris was like the drugs were a

tremendous downfall for us because we were with management that was really okay with cocaine use. That was fine. But once you graduated to heroin use, you were fucked. So again, it wasn't explicit in any of the books, but like to your point earlier, I think they did slip back into heroin land. Okay, I definitely read somewhere that they're really deep in heroin at this point. And I can't remember where I read it now because it's not as explicit in the Debbie book as I remembered it being. Yeah, but Chris basically confirms it, which is in this other book, the parallel lives. They don't go on about it. I know they are because there's also a whole part in that book about how they both go on methadone later.

So that is what you go on when you kick heroin. It's called rock and roll. These people gave us rock and roll. That's true. They live the rock and roll lifestyle. Anyways, so Chris finally heals and recuperates at the hospital. Debbie's by his side the whole time. They get out and they're like, oh, you thought it couldn't get worse?

It's worse. Your accountant didn't pay your taxes ever. Ever. So you are, actually, they're taking your house away. Like, the IRS literally came and was like, we're taking your house. Like, it couldn't have gotten darker. Like, if they were broke before. it's way broker town now.

So everything sucks. It's just so crazy. This band at this point has sold over 20 million albums, and they have zero dollars. Like their accounts are being frozen by the IRS because they had so many people that fucked them over, managers, accountants, money managers, just bad vibes. Okay, well now Madonna's first single comes out also, everybody, 1982, and the debut album in 83. Which prompted Andy Warhol to say, you know Debbie was actually the first Madonna. What do you think about that?

We all owe a great debt to Debbie Harry. Yeah. It's really wild because I really stood back and thought about it. And it's like, it's like the slits, right? There's like all these cases where like, another really good example that parallels Debbie Harry and Blondie is Iggy Pop. They were these insane, iconic trailblazers. But being first isn't always best. They both didn't make any money.

I mean, we haven't even said it, but like, if Blondie had come out in 84 when MTV existed, we would be having such a wildly different conversation. They didn't have the benefit of MTV. And they were such a visual band. Yes, but also thank God that they came out when they did because they own the 70s in this, like, way. Yeah, but I feel you, it's just like a new, weird. darker time. Yeah, totally. It was just different. Anyways, so in 1983, Debbie Harry has like one of her biggest film roles, which is videodrome, the David Croninberg movie. Is it good? Is it bad? I don't know.

I motherfuckin love it. Is it socially positive? Well, I think we live in overstimulated times. We create stimulation for its own sake. We'd gorge ourselves on it. We always want more, whether it's tactile, emotional or sexual. Debbie wanted to make movies. So she's, She's making movies. Now, what happens? Debbie makes another solo album. Again, we're not going into the weeds. It's called Rockbird.

1986. It didn't do well. It did okay in the UK. Lips are in motion. Paris is crying. Honestly, though, great album art. She looks so fucking good. Her cheekbones at this point,

and she's 41 here. She's my age. The album art is a collaboration between Andy Warhol and Stephen Spouse. Who else can? can say that nobody, nobody. And it was one of the last things Warhol did before he died. It's amazing.

She looks so fucking good. But the album didn't, it didn't hit. Christau gave it a B. Then they, I'm going to skip the remix album. We don't have time for this. Then she puts out another solo album. I honestly, I'm so sorry. I did not know Debbie Harry put out this many soul albums.

I was not aware. Debravation, 1993. Were you in? Real. Because by 1993, I don't want to be smirch your age, but you were, you know, probably a teenager, right? At least. In, yes, in 1993, I am listening to amongst many contemporary things at the time. I'm listening. I'm listening to like last splash and parallel lines. The breeders, babe. Fuck. Yeah. One of the best albums of all time. But you're not checking for the new Debbie Harry Soul album, Debravation. I did have Rockbird, and I was like, there's one song on here, and I just want to listen to Parallel Lineside, everything that's new. I hear you. I hear you.

It's sort of a good time to be her on the comeback, because 70s was really cool. Yeah. But. You would have thought that, but it. I just, I don't think in 93, like, I don't think a Debbie Harry solo album is breaking through the fucking wall of sound that is like Pearl Jam. You know what I mean? Like, this is 93. Like, we're in like peak alt rock grunge.

It's not, it's not Debbie Harry solo album time. Here's something cool that happens in 94 after nobody cared about deprivation, unfortunately. Chris is like, I'm going to sell some of my old blonde dem memorabilia. he puts an ad in the village voice. Harry Sandler, a veteran tour manager, answers the ad. And instead of being like,

I want to buy some stuff, he's like, you guys need to reunite Blondie and make a new album, which is a kind of a killer move to, like, respond to like, a fucking classified ad

about selling Blondie memorabilia to be like, you guys need to get back together. And Chris is like, you know what? Why not? So he calls Debbie, and he's like,

we should get Blondie back together. And Debbie's like, I laughed, and then he went on to call everyone else. So he calls Clem, immediately says yes, Jimmy, who's kind of confused, but down. And then he calls Gary Valentine. Because you know why? I think he hated Nigel and Frank. So he doesn't call Nigel and Frank,

but he calls Gary Valentine, who he has not spoken to or seen in 10 years. And Gary Valentine's like, okay, sure. Nigel and Frank were a little mad about this. They did sue them to try to get them to stop using the name Blondie. They did not win. They tried to make this new album with Mike Chapman. That didn't work. They turned to their old pal Craig Leon, and then no exit comes out in 1999. sorry, real quick, low-key, no exit is good. I went to see them in concert. It was cool. It was, it works. Maria is, the highest praise I can give a song is that when I hear it, I think it's a cover. Because it's that good, you know what I mean? Like, it's that familiar and hits that hard.

And when I had to look up Maria and I was like, oh, what cover is this? And I was like, this is a new composition in 1999 by Blondie. Like, they captured the magic again. It's pretty wild. It's pretty often. And it really hit and people were impressed. It was in the movie 200 cigarettes, which a movie I have absolutely seen 10 times, one of my favorite films of all time. And Patrick Sandberg made a great point. That should have won an Oscar for like best original music or best soundtrack or whatever. Like it should have won the Oscar. Wow. It should have won the Oscar. Was it even nominated?

Nope. It wasn't even nominated. Bullshit. Well, people have bad taste. Jimmy Destry wrote that song. Also, as high as the high got with Maria, I was immediately, unfortunately, Dick slapped in the face with a song with Cooleo in 1999, which I was like, was this necessary? Then I got a call. Let's say, wait, hold up, homie. You must be chipping.

You can't be putting that sipping and whipping up in your pippet. Did somebody make you do this? Did they have a blackmail situation? Why did you do this? But you know what? It's a fun little artifact of history. May he rest in peace, Culio, the gangster. is Paradise. Debbie does wrap again on this song.

All in all, I enjoy this album. Like, I put it on and I really liked most of the songs. It felt very modern, very fresh, but also had the Blondie magic to it. They finally put out in the streets cover on there, hadn't been on any other album. I thought it was good. Robert Criscoe came in hot A-minus. He was like, you know what? Hell yeah, bitch. We're back. It got mixed reviews elsewhere. Then Curse of Blondie comes out in 2003. also surprisingly good I'll say I was expecting worse and there's like some really good songs

and there's rules for living is a good song there's good songs great name Curse of Blondy given like what they went through and then in 2004 they put out a live album Debbie Harry put out another solo album in 2007 called Necessary Evil

oh yeah panic of girls this one wasn't as good this is another Blondie original album I couldn't get into it do you remember this album I don't Yeah. Then they put out that Blondie 4-0 ever on the 40th anniversary. Do you remember that album? Yes.

That's the one where they did the Beth Ditto song and some other stuff. It's okay. No exit is my favorite, like... Of the back half catalog of Blondie. Yeah, same. It's the best one, I think. It gets increasingly, again, law of diminishing returns. Pollinator is the most recent one. That's 2017. That's when And they were like, we'll have Dev Hines write a song. We'll have Dave Sytech write a song, which I thought was very cool. Johnny Maher writes a song on here. Cia writes a song.

Charlie X-Ex wrote a song. So they tried, you know. It's okay. It's not an album I'll ever put on of my own volition, but I think it's cool that they were. I think that because she's eternally so cool, it's also cool to keep going because you're still cool. and you just want to do cool stuff like she's open and cool.

And that's like, that can make a hit. So true. I still believe. I didn't mention it, but at some point along the line they kick Jimmy Adestri out for doing too much drugs.

I think it was 2007. And that's it. Pollinator is the last original blonde decomposition. So it's redeemable that I think they at least were able I don't want to speak to their financial situation, but like, I hope that they were at least able, as every forerunner who is iconic is, should be able to cash in on their legacy.

You know, like they deserve that. I mean, they're on tour as we speak, I think, aren't they? Yeah, exactly. I think so. I think they're actually on tour right now. They started putting songs and commercials and shit. Like, it was like, they deserve it. They deserve every dollar and every heap of praise.

and they paved the way, Bibb. They paved the way. Okay, and before we close out the episode, it's time to hear from some Blondie mega fans who called in, called me on the line. Let's hear it. I was a teenager in the 1970s, and, you know, it was a really exciting time in rock music, right?

The bands were starting to push things in new directions. We had, you know, punk and new wave. but Blondie really took it to, you know, a whole new level. Miss Debbie Harry is one of those voices that I know people listening to her music. You would hear one of her songs and then hear another one of her songs and not know that that was her. That's what happened to me anyway. I was introduced to Blondie's music when I was a kid and my dad rented a compilation video of musical guests that performed on the Muppets. Debbie Harry was the coolest looking woman I had ever seen and it turned out we had a couple of Blondie's

CDs in the house. So I would just listen to them all the time. Growing up, I did not realize that Heart of Glass and Calm Me were done by the same band. That blew my mind when I found out. I mean, yeah, they took a kind of a, you know, a retro girl group sound, but they, you know, they amped it up. When I got older and I started doing live music and I had my own band, we started singing, Call Me, and one way or another, and the tide is high. She just, she reached so many different layers of performance and vocal abilities. She could be your pop ethereal disco queen, but also is this like grungy rock singer as well. I think the spirit of Blondie's music is that you can be vulnerable and confident at the same time and to not give up when the going gets tough.

And you can still look hot while doing it. At least that's how I feel when I listen to them. Whatever she did, she always did it to the extreme. And it was so, So impressive, so diverse, and I just, I've always looked up to her. The songs were just like so catchy. They were witty, intelligent. And, you know, then you had Debbie Harry, right? She had that, you know, beautiful crystal clear voice. And she was so gorgeous and, you know, sexy and kind of dangerous.

It was just a killer combination. Okay, Gorge. Really some beautiful heartfelt sentiments there. This is the greatest honor of my life to be on your podcast. Thank you for having me. Can't possibly be true, but I really appreciate you saying so. And it's been a great honor of my life to have you on my podcast. Thank you for making the time.

Thank you for sharing your deep love of Blondie and your well of knowledge about culture. It was a real treat. You're the treat. Thanks, Blondie. Come back next week for a new episode of Bansplain. If you liked what you heard today, subscribe for more episodes of Bansplain. Our guest today was Mel Ottenberg.

You can follow Mel on Instagram at Mel Z-Y-917. This episode was produced by Jesse Miller Gordon, edited by Adrian Bridges, with help from Justin Sales. Executive producers for Bansplaine are Gina Delbeck and me, Yossi Salek. Huge, huge thanks to the blondie mega fans you heard on this episode. Jennifer Jesse, Daniel Oxen, and Ler. and Curran Tork. Our gorgeous and catchy theme song was composed and performed by Bethany Costantino and Jennifer Clavin and graciously recorded by Carlos Delagas in Los Angeles, California.

Special thanks to our producer emeritus, producer Dylan, aka Dylan Tupper Rupert, and also Casey Simonsonson, Michael Hardman, Robert Adler, Leah Edwards, David McDenna, Dana Meyerson, Jessica Hopper, and this new Seamoss beverage I purchased at Arawan. Come back every Thursday for a new episode of Bansplain on Spot-upon. On Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Since we're completely off the record right now, may I please pee? Yes, go, babe.

Yeah. Okay, I'm back. I've got a Red Bull. Let's fucking go. Babe, we have so many more albums. It's whatever. I'm, this is my job now. Okay.

I'm like literally not. I live here now. Like, I'm not doing, I'm in it. I cleared my schedule. Okay.