Blondie, Parallel Lives Read online

  “We had to do what we felt,” recalls Chris. “We couldn’t be writing ‘Rock’N’Roll Baby’ because that would have been virtually impossible. It would have been easy but we just would have felt compromised with ourselves, which isn’t the right way to feel about art.”

  “Look at it this way, from a business point of view, I didn’t know anybody in the business and Chris didn’t know anybody,” adds Deborah. “If we were gonna try and do AM radio songs, I would never get a band together and struggle and struggle and struggle for no money, playing dates uptown in club circuits where you would have to play everybody else’s music and be AOR and from there try to get a record contract, it would be foolish, so the natural course is to do something that’s personal and fresh.”

  More happily, Blondie was greeted by largely favourable reviews. The New York Times’ John Rockwell confessed that, when he’d seen the band the previous spring, he’d found the music “crude”, declaring that Debbie’s singing was “tensely off-pitch and even her tough hussy-strutting looked timorous and unsure.” With the album before him, he modified his opinion: “It turns out to be a most appealing disk debut indeed. Miss Harry sings with a pretty, graceful assurance, the band plays spiffily and the songs themselves are full of clever pop twists and arrangements – not so much punk rock, more a kind of progressive pop.”

  The SoHo Weekly News observed that Blondie “shows a depth that will surprise the legions of sceptics … there’s a Ronettes-style fifties flavour, that rapid-fire surfin’ sixties sound, and a uniqueness in lyric and interpretation that’s all Blondie. I stand impressed.”

  Similarly, The Village Voice homed in on the “pastiche of sixties rock moves”, concluding, “what makes Blondie’s first set more than just a fanzine mentality collection of 10-year-old styles by 25-year-old diehards is that it consistently conveys the same energetic conviction in its dumbness as the original punk rockers, yet like, say, The New York Dolls, the group are implicitly intelligent enough not to ram their understanding of earlier rock’n’roll down your throat. Like The Ramones, they have both drive and a sense of humour … you’ve got what rock’n’roll has always really stood for: the sort of unselfconscious fun that transcends both scenes and generic restrictions.”

  At the end of a year that saw Blondie establish a settled line-up, record their first two singles and an album and develop into an exciting live act, the band played their biggest show so far – an open-air New Year’s Eve concert amid the snow, sleet and slush of Central Park’s Bethesda Fountain, organised by the New York Department of Parks. Two thousand hardy souls braved the bitter cold to catch Blondie’s set. At the stroke of midnight, the group launched into Booker T And The MGs’ ‘Time Is Tight’ as five men in eight-foot high ‘Hands of Time’ costumes capered around them. Debbie later described the experience as “one of those moments that is Xeroxed on my brain”.

  The gig was comparatively profitable, with Blondie receiving a fee of $500. “It was one of the first times we ever got paid,” announced Chris. It also established a tradition for Debbie. “I have a rule,” she explained. “I always work on New Year’s Eve. I don’t care where I do it, whether it’s a club or a bar or a big stage, it doesn’t matter. I just have to work because I always feel it’s symbolic for me for the next year.”

  The year 1977 thundered in with an intensive run of shows, including gigs supporting John Cale at My Father’s Place in Roslyn, Long Island and three shows at Max’s – one of which was billed as a ‘Big Party For Blondie’ and featured support from The Cramps.

  Throughout January Peter Leeds continued to pursue his interest in managing Blondie. Although the band were aware they were reaching the stage where it would be impractical for them to organise their own shows and the dispute with Private Stock over Debbie’s picture was unresolved, they remained uncommitted to anyone else fighting their corner. Having failed to gain the band’s trust despite assurances that, if they engaged him as manager, they would be free to leave at any time, Leeds made a decisive move. With legendary KROQ DJ Rodney Bingenheimer heavily featuring cuts from the album on his West Coast radio show, the impresario booked Blondie into a run of concerts in Los Angeles.

  “I didn’t trust him from the moment I saw him,” insisted Gary Valentine. “Nobody asked him to, but he set up some gigs for us in LA and flew us out. At the Whiskey he came backstage and said he didn’t think we should be doing a song I’d written called ‘Euphony’. I said, ‘Hang on – you’re not our musical director.’ From that moment I’m sure he wanted me out.”

  In addition to setting up the week’s residency at the Whisky, Leeds arranged for Blondie to stay at the Montclair Dunes Hotel, where they would play a show at the hotel disco as a means of paying their board. On February 9, the night the group were set to make their West Coast debut supporting soft-rocker Tom Petty, Leeds summoned Blondie to his hotel room and set a contract before them. “I knew that there was going to be a heavy industry crowd, and I was determined that before they were on stage, I was going to have that paper signed,” he explained. “I just called them to my room and I wasn’t letting them out of there.”

  “He took us to his hotel, the Sunset Marquis, and says, ‘I want you to sign this contract,’” recalled Valentine. “It was like a 10-year thing, and either we signed or he was going back to New York without us.”

  “It was a pretty standard management deal,” declared Leeds. “It was five years. I guaranteed them $3 million in the five years, and if they made the three million there were options. My cut was 20 percent. A real standard management contract: 12 pages with lots of lawyer mumbo-jumbo.”

  Still uncertain, the band argued the wisdom of accepting the deal but eventually signed. “Blondie were very serious,” Marty Thau recounts. “They had no money. They came to us and said, ‘Give us $1500 and you can manage us.’ I was lucky to feed myself! I turned to Richard Gottehrer and he said, ‘No, I don’t want to be in the management business.’ So I dropped that and they ended up with Peter Leeds. I didn’t personally care for him; he was not the friendliest person or the warmest person.”

  Despite misgivings about signing a contract, Blondie’s first experience of playing in Los Angeles was overwhelmingly positive. “LA was really inspirational to us,” announced Clem. “We didn’t really know what to expect and it was kind of a beginning for us. Everyone in LA was walking around with shag haircuts and velvet jackets; they’re still into glitter. Then slowly but surely people started coming to our gigs in skinny ties and everything.”

  “I hadn’t really been outside New York that much,” remarked Gary. “The second time we played [in April 1977], people were wearing skinny ties and mod suits. We definitely had an influence. That was adolescent rock heaven. We were staying in Beverly Hills, running up incredible tabs, doing all the things you do when you’re 20, and somebody says, ‘OK, you’re a rock star now.’”

  Chris was excited about making an impact on what was an almost horizontally laid-back scene. “We’ve conquered New York,” he grinned. “We just beat The Ramones’ record at Max’s by $10. But we realise it’s like starting all over here. It’s like the first step on a new ladder.”

  As the buzz around Blondie’s Whiskey residency grew, elements of the local rock aristocracy swung by to check them out – memorably including Phil Spector. “He came to our show with an ‘In The Flesh’ button – one of Private Stock’s promotional ideas – pinned to his jacket,” Valentine recounted. “He was wrapped in a long black cape, wore impenetrable sunglasses and was accompanied by a bodyguard … He made everyone else leave the dressing room and launched into a long and meandering monologue, peppered with remarks like, ‘Who the hell do you think you’re talking to?’ whenever one of us wanted to say something … He wouldn’t let us leave and had his bodyguard stand in front of the door. Later he invited Chris and Debbie to his house to talk about producing our next record. He wouldn’t let them leave there, either.”

  “I think Phil expresses
interest in people that he likes, that he can see something of himself in, ‘cos he also expressed some interest in The Ramones,” says Deborah. “I think it’s a very high form of flattery, but I don’t know if he was really into producing us. I think he has a direct pattern; he wouldn’t want to deviate that much. I think he’s interested in doing his own material. We went to his fortress, his hacienda. It’s not really alone, it’s in a very crowded neighbourhood. It’s very close to Sunset Strip, but it’s surrounded by a wall; a big house with dogs and lions outside. He did a real interesting thing with Leonard Cohen that he played us, and Dylan. He got Leonard Cohen singing rock’n’roll, which is strange.”

  As the LA Times’ Robert Hilburn described Blondie as “sleaze rock” and “a flashy version of The Shangri-Las meet Lou Reed with lead singer Debbie Harry playing both roles”, news reached the group that they had been invited to support Iggy Pop on his ‘comeback’ tour – also featuring David Bowie as part of the former Stooge’s backing band. Unsurprisingly, the band’s new management readily agreed. “The second week we were in LA we got the word we were going on tour with Iggy, so instead of just one week in LA we ended up spending three months on the road,” explained Clem. “We got word that we were going to do the Iggy tour and we were totally floored. This was just coming from playing clubs twice a month in New York. David Bowie had heard our album while he was in Berlin and wanted us to do the tour.”

  “It was great,” confirms Chris. “They were real gentlemen to work with, very polite. They’re real professionals, into the idea of a whole show with a first act. We were treated very well.”

  After some enthusiastically received shows at Mabuhay Gardens in San Francisco, Blondie returned to New York for a pair of sold-out gigs at Max’s on March 10-11. Immediately after, the weary group climbed into a mobile trailer and set out for Montreal – the site of the initial concert of the Iggy tour.

  “It was perfect. Bowie was involved, so it was well organised,” enthused Clem. “The first day I met Iggy we both had on the same Beatle boots, so we had something in common right from the start. The first day he and Bowie came into the dressing room and introduced themselves.” Burke would nominate meeting Bowie as one of the highlights of his career. “It was a great thrill. He accepted us as working musicians on a professional level. He liked us, so the relationship was really easy. Bowie was really interested in Jimmy as a keyboard player because Jimmy has a Polymoog. He’d come to our soundchecks and give Debbie hints on what to do on stage. He was really willing to help.”

  “We’d been warned not to pester him in the dressing room,” grinned Debbie. “But he came and talked to us.”

  The respect and admiration between two rock legends and the upcoming young band was mutual – and, to a degree, salacious. Not known for his sexual reticence, Iggy took a keen interest in Deborah. “Bowie and I both tried to hit on her backstage,” he revealed. “We didn’t get anywhere, but she was always very smooth about that. It was always, ‘Hey, well, maybe another time when Chris isn’t around.’ Always very cool about it.”

  For her part, although Debbie admitted to being flattered, she saw it as part of a light-hearted tease. “It was a lot of fun. They’re two really great stars, musicians and writers that I’ve always admired. The whole thing was mind-blowing to be on tour with them in the first place. And to have flirtations with guys like that was just the icing on the cake.”

  After more than a month traversing North America, Blondie completed their run of concerts supporting Iggy at the San Diego Civic Centre on April 15. Before heading back to New York, the group played another week at the Whisky-A-Go-Go where they brought the tour to a suitably chaotic finale. “We wound up having this big jam,” remembered Clem. “We did ‘Anarchy In The UK’ with Joan Jett [then of The Runaways, on guitar] and ‘I Wanna Be Your Dog’ with Rodney Bingenheimer playing keyboards … I was singing lead and Debbie was my dog – I had her on a chain. It was total chaos.”

  Although the rest of the band saw the value of letting off a little steam at the end of their first major tour, Gary took a less light-hearted perspective. “It all collapsed into sheer noise, but everyone involved thought it was great fun,” he recounted. “All I could think was that this really wasn’t what I had in mind when I thought about being in a band.”

  “After three months on the road you go crazy,” rationalised Clem. “We were invited to this party in San Francisco with The Tubes. Jimmy, Gary, this girl and myself got there late. We went up to the door and the guy wouldn’t let us in because it was too crowded. We told him that we had been invited but he wouldn’t let us in. I kicked the door and he started chasing me. Jimmy walked up to the door – it had these big plate glass windows – and stuck his foot through one of the windows. They were going to put a contract out on me because some mobster owned the house, but Bowie paid for the window and got Jimmy off the hook.”

  Disinclined toward the more lunatic on-the-road antics, Debbie viewed the tour as providing some hugely beneficial experiences. “That was the first time I could go back and forth [on stage] without bumping into the bass player. Iggy had a fucking great band on that tour … I only saw Iggy throw one hamburger the whole time. He’s a pretty intense fellow, but he was very sweet-natured with me. He hung out more with the other guys in Blondie, though. I was with Chris. We were a couple, and we were happy. We loved music and doing shows. Sometimes we’d go out afterwards. A lot of times we didn’t. We’d go back to the hotel and fuck a lot. We were lucky.”

  Love at the pier – Blondie, New York City 1976: (L-R) Jimmy Destri, Clem Burke, Debbie Harry, Gary Valentine, Chris Stein. BOB GRUEN

  Strumming brunette Debbie in 1968, during her tenure with Wind In The Willows. GETTY IMAGES

  Fronted by Elda Gentile, Debbie and Rosie Ross, The Stillettoes represented a mix ‘n’ match extension to the girl group canon. BOB GRUEN

  The Stillettoes in full flight at CBGBs, June 24, 1974 (L-R): Elda Gentile, Fred Smith, Rosie Ross, Billy O’Connor, Debbie Harry, Chris Stein. BOB GRUEN

  Tish and Snookie (far left) back Debbie in the short lived Angel And The Snakes as Chris (far right) works the Alice Cooper look. BOB GRUEN

  Up on the roof; Blondie 1976 (L-R): Gary Valentine, Chris Stein, Debbie Harry, Jimmy Destri, Clem Burke CHRISWALTER/WIREIMAGE

  Jimmy Destri takes centre stage as Blondie fill the cramped confines of CBGBs in 1977. BOB GRUEN

  The heart of Blondie – Chris and Debbie cuddle up at Max’s Kansas City. ROBERTA BAYLEY/REDFERNS

  Producer Richard Gottehrer and rockabilly powerhouse Robert Gordon flank Chris backstage at Max’s, June 11,1977. EBET ROBERTS/REDFERNS

  Debbie and Chris frozen in concentration at CBGBs, 1977. ROBERTA BAYLEY/REDFERNS

  “Don’t do it, Gary” – Valentine and Harry blow up Television, Hammersmith Odeon, May 1977. RICHARD E. AARON/REDFERNS

  Blondie backstage at the Whisky A Go Go, West Hollywood, 1977. CHRIS WALTER/WIREIMAGE

  Joey Ramone and David Johansen inspect Debbie’s manicure for a Punk magazine photo-shoot, watched by Joan Jett. ROBERTA BAYLEY/REDFERNS

  Fun-time with Iggy and Debbie; Toronto, March 1977. BOB GRUEN

  Blondie’s controversial former manager Peter Leeds. BOB GRUEN

  The first stirrings of Blondie-mania; Dunstable Civic Hall, March 2, 1978. PAUL SLATTERY

  On the road, USA, 1979 (L-R): Clem Burke, Jimmy Destri, Nigel Harrison, Chris Stein, Debbie Harry (front): Frank Infante. ROBERTA BAYLEY/REDFERNS

  Chapter Seven

  Flying Over With Bombs

  “For all people know, we could have just been put together by Peter Leeds, hired and popped out of a can.”

  Debbie Harry

  After they had kicked up impressive little clouds of enthusiasm on both coasts and made their first sorties into the great American interior and Canada, rave reviews for Blondie in UK mags Zigzag and Sounds pointed the way forward for the anglophile group. The Ramones’ landmark incursion into Britain t
he previous year had raised interest in the CBGB’s scene and Warners, keen to capitalise on English press approval for the recently released Marquee Moon, booked Television into a tour of Britain’s finest drafty town halls and crumbling old cinemas. In order to complete a ‘New York’ package, a deal was struck with Television’s manager, Jane Friedman, for Blondie to provide support. “Both bands happened to be in the country at the same time and the tour was just flung together,” said Chris.

  After arriving at Heathrow Airport on May 17, 1977 and being booked into a shabby Kensington hotel by Peter Leeds where, according to Gary, “even the phones didn’t work”, the band made their British debut with a warm-up gig in Bournemouth three days later. “We headlined over a band called Squeeze,” recalled Clem. “That was really great, the audience was really spurring us on. Debbie almost got dragged out into the audience. Everybody was going crazy. We got all psyched up.”

  The tour proper started on May 22 at the notoriously tough Glasgow Apollo, formerly Green’s Playhouse, where the following year Suicide would be assailed by a hail of beer-laden missiles when they opened for The Clash. “When we arrived at the Apollo for our soundcheck, we got our first indication that this tour was not going to be as pleasant as our one with Iggy,” Valentine explained. “All of our equipment was pushed into a tiny space at the front of the stage. [Tom] Verlaine had decided that we were to work within this restricted area. Our brief encounters with him made it clear that he wasn’t particularly happy to have us on his tour.”