Blondie, Parallel Lives Read online

  “That was kind of knowing you’d arrived, when that was going on,” recounted Nigel, who temporarily found himself on the wrong side of the closing bus doors as Blondie fled the hysteria. “Because it wasn’t fake – it wasn’t a couple of hundred people, it was thousands of people.”

  “It’s nice to go in a record store and create scenes in public because I’ve always tried to create scenes in public and Debbie has too,” Chris asserted. “We always did outrageous things, so now we’re doing it on a mass level.”

  Chapter Nine

  You Always Pay

  “In New York City there’s a dog that lives in an alley with a lot of fleas and he gets more money for the tour than the band.”

  Chris Stein

  In October 1978, Chris and Debbie returned home from a string of European gigs – concentrating on Germany, but also taking Blondie over the border into Switzerland and France – to resolve some nagging issues. First of all they moved home, taking over a penthouse on West 58th Street that had previously belonged to actress and singer Lillian Roth, a Paramount starlet during the thirties. “Everybody thinks we’re millionaires but royalties take a long time to come through. When you come to New York you can see our spacious penthouse apartment … The building is falling apart. Everybody keeps reading in the papers that we live in this luxury penthouse but it’s just an old crummy apartment,” declared Chris.

  “You can see the peeling paint with the leaking roof and the mould on the walls,” added Deborah. “But we love it, it’s home.”

  “My uncle had to co-sign the lease,” said Chris. “Then my mother took that over and then I couldn’t get it back. The fucking agency wouldn’t give it to me, of course, because I would’ve had to have lived there for two years. Which I didn’t.”

  Exasperated by Peter Leeds’ relentless tour schedules and minimal wage payments, Chris and Debbie had decided he had to go. The couple met with business manager Bert Padell and lawyer Marty Silfen, who advised them to renegotiate their contract. However, Leeds refused to relinquish control, leaving them no option but to instruct his business partner, Edward Massey, that there was no way that any working relationship could continue.

  It soon became apparent that extracting the group from their manager’s control was not going to be a cheap or easy process. After Padell and Silfen had unsuccessfully examined the contract between manager and band to see if the matter could be resolved, Chris observed, “It’s horrendous. It’s like all the stuff your old grandmother told you. Shep Gordon, a friend of ours, told us, ‘You shouldn’t spend all your money on a real expensive straitjacket,’ which I think is a great truth of this business.”

  As negotiations ensued the band could do nothing except carry on playing gigs, while Chrysalis plucked singles from Parallel Lines. Issued at the end of October, ‘Hanging On The Telephone’ sold relatively poorly in the US but rose to number five in the UK chart. “Things take longer to catch on here,” explained Debbie when asked about the band’s failure to crack the domestic market. “Everything is really spread out and regional. I think the American people suffer from a lack of press. European press is very important. Here, television is what’s important. Press makes more of an organised statement. The printed word is where it’s at. Not some creep sitting on TV saying, ‘Hi, there. Blah, blah, blah. Bye, there.’ American culture [no] has definition because TV has no awareness. I think that the future hope of TV lies in video cassettes.”

  To address this lack of recognition, Blondie embarked on a three-week American tour with support from former New York Dolls frontman (and former lover of Debbie’s) David Johansen. Irked by the legal hassles, Chris found it cathartic to be back on the road. “Being on stage is great,” he declared. “What I don’t like about touring is the rest of the day. You spend an hour having a good time, and you spend 22 hours sleeping or lazing about a bus. That’s a real drag. I mean, you’re never not tired on a tour. You’re always tired because you always got to get up too early.”

  “Sometimes it’s real tiring,” agreed Debbie. “So we usually unwind after a show. A lot of times, the guys will go out, and they’ll go to a discotheque or something like that. I don’t really do that that much because I’m with Chris. I think if I was on the road and single, I would definitely go out. You just can’t go back to the room and sit there, especially in foreign countries. The TV goes off at an unreal hour, and it’s boring. I read a lot when I’m on the road. That really saves me.”

  The tour, which finished in New Haven, Connecticut on November 16, banked around $2,000 per show for the band and saw them play to enthusiastic young crowds. “Our favourite audiences are those that applaud or dance. I like noisy crowds. I like them to yell. Whatever age. I don’t care,” remarked Deborah.

  “I think the bulk of our audience is under 21,” Clem added. “Jimmy got invitations to proms from teenage girls. We play to kids and they go crazy; they ask for autographs and everything. That’s the way it should be. I think people intellectualise too much about rock’n’roll. It’s fun to write about, but I don’t think you should get too serious.”

  The New York Palladium concert on November 12 saw Blondie joined on stage by Robert Fripp who, in addition to adding his guitar flourishes to ‘Fade Away And Radiate,’ had become interested in contributing to Chris and Debbie’s projected remake of Jean Luc Godard’s cult 1965 science-fiction film, Alphaville. “It’s contingent on three factors: the next Blondie album, and the tour to promote it; my solo album; and finding a producer,” explained Fripp, who had screen-tested for the part of subverted secret agent Lemmy Caution. Melody Maker reported that the movie would be directed by Amos Poe, with Debbie taking the role of Caution’s love interest, Natacha von Braun. Although both Chris and Debbie would continue to express interest in the project, Alphaville was never made.

  “We blew it,” Deborah admitted. “Chris and I started out with the idea to do a remake – we pursued it and got the rights from Godard, and we had characters lined up, and who was going to play what. But we didn’t have any backing. Chris had done a whole lot of stills of how it was going to look … Fripp went to England and did an interview on it, and it just sort of blew it, in an odd way. I guess you shouldn’t ever let anything out unless you’re in production or something.”

  Fripp had also planned to feature Debbie as a guest vocalist on his debut solo album, Exposure, but this similarly came to nothing when Chrysalis refused her permission to contribute. “Our record company won’t let us do anything with anybody, especially me,” Debbie complained. “It’s such a fucking drag.”

  More positively, 1979 rolled in with ‘Heart Of Glass’ released as a single on both sides of the Atlantic. With the aid of a video shot after the seven-inch had been issued, the song would surpass the popularity of ‘Denis’, hitting the top of the UK chart on February 3 and staying there for three weeks. This success took the band as a whole, and Clem in particular, by surprise, “‘Heart Of Glass’ was buried in Parallel Lines – we never thought of it as a single,’ he explained. “We thought it was too weird with the sequencing and the drum machine at the beginning … We never really knew what was going to be a hit.”

  For British audiences, ‘Heart Of Glass’ was part of a post-punk Zeitgeist that would see bands with their roots in the punk scene transcend their basic musical template and incorporate diverse elements into a palate of sonic experimentation. By the year’s end, The Clash’s London Calling, The Slits’ Cut, The Gang Of Four’s Entertainment! and Y by The Pop Group would all apply punk’s unfettered energy to various forms of black music. At the populist end of the spectrum, The Police were already peddling an accessible line in sanitised cod-reggae, while a more valid chart phenomenon would emerge in the summer as The Specials kick-started the whole 2-Tone movement with ‘Gangsters’.

  “I am really excited about the 2-Tone band thing because that is really saying something,” Chris later enthused. “It’s great seeing black and white kids on stage together. In Ame
rica blacks have contributed so much to our culture and they’re still treated as second class citizens. I hate that racist shit. And [in the UK] the battle between mods and skins and punks is just stupid. It’s missing the point that there is a common enemy, the greedy power-mad politicians and the fat bastard businessmen who sap our strength and steal our art.”

  In contrast, the US was polarised by disco. Whereas New York throbbed to a million sequenced beats while hip hop gestated in the streets, much of the American interior seemed less receptive. This extended as far as an anti-disco movement that culminated in 90,000 rock fundamentalists gathering at a Chicago baseball field to witness the detonation of a crate filled with disco records. Although the event was subsequently criticised as “a mass exercise in racism and homophobia, reminiscent of Nazi book-burnings”, the truth is that it had more in common with The Dukes Of Hazzard than it did the Säuberung of 1933 – on being blown up the crate of records set fire to the field, which triggered a pitch invasion by hundreds of stoned yahoos, who wrecked the baseball equipment as the demonstration organisers fled in a jeep.

  Irrespective of its comical aspect the disco backlash presented a genuine issue to Blondie, who were keen to score a US hit but unwilling to restrain their creativity. “We planned to release ‘Heart Of Glass’ as a single, but we wanted to hold it back, because we knew we were gonna get tagged with the disco thing,” Chris revealed. “We didn’t want to release it first from the album. The album was out six months before it came out.”

  “I thought it pretty funny,” recounted Deborah. “People were furious. People were like, [hissing] ‘Death to disco! How could you do that?’”

  Perhaps surprisingly, given the resistance to disco and their poor commercial track record in the home market, Blondie’s fears proved unfounded. ‘Heart Of Glass’ began to pick up airplay and sales, inching its way to number 84 on the Billboard Hot 100 by February 17, 1979, beginning a steady climb that would see the song top the chart by April 28. “We were in Italy when we found that it was number one in America and we felt so fucking vindicated and so cool, we were dancing around and popping champagne,” beamed Jimmy.

  With no national radio and little in the way of a countrywide music press, television was a key factor in the song’s success, with the video and performances on NBC’s Merv Griffin Show and the syndicated Mike Douglas Show bringing the band to nationwide attention for the first time. The importance of the visual media was not lost on the graphically inclined Chris, who would be instrumental in Blondie emerging as one of the pioneering groups of the video age.

  As is often the case, reaching the mainstream required a degree of compromise – in this instance, the wholly uncontroversial lyrics were censored so as not to shock even the most easily offended. “They took ‘pain in the ass’ out of some versions of ‘Heart Of Glass’ for the radio,” recalled Debbie. “But there was always a version available that said ‘pain in the ass’. There was just a single version that didn’t. That was good because we could put stickers on the album that said, ‘Contains the uncensored lyric.’

  “Our record company didn’t see any hit singles on Parallel Lines at the time,” added Clem. “Then ‘Heart Of Glass’ became a hit, and the album went back up the charts. It took around 35 weeks to get into the Top 10. Until The Go-Go’s, we were the band to take the longest to get an album into the Top 10. Parallel Lines is a classic album. I think when people think of Blondie they think of Parallel Lines, ‘Heart Of Glass.’”

  Even before ‘Heart Of Glass’ went global, topping the charts in eight countries and making the Top 10 in several more, Debbie’s profile had risen sufficiently for her to receive film scripts from directors and producers keen to capitalise on her evident cinematic potential. One of these was Union City, a psychological thriller set in the thirties, based on a story by mystery writer Cornell Woolrich and directed by New York filmmaker Marcus Reichert.

  “Edward Lachman, who was the director of photography, met Debbie at a party and she said, ‘I’d like to do a film sometime and I hear you’re a good photographer,’” the film’s producer, Graham Belin, explained. Debbie was offered the role of Lillian, the apparently timid wife of an obsessive accountant named Harlan played by TV character actor Dennis Lipscomb. “I play a very traditional kind of housewife who likes to keep the place looking nice,” she stated. “Originally, she wanted her husband and she works at it. She always cooks his dinner and does his laundry and makes the house look nice and everything, but he goes down Tatty’s bar all the time and gets loaded. And he gets crazy. He gets nuts. And in those days nobody went to psychiatrists, nobody knew anything, especially girls.”

  One of the main aspects that appealed to Debbie was how the character of Lillian represented a complete departure from her public persona. “I don’t want to make a film based on music. I want a script that will establish me as an actress. Being a singer in a movie won’t do it,” she asserted. “That’s why I did it. I wanted a part that wouldn’t put me under the microscope.”

  It called for her to wear a brown wig quite close to her natural hair colour for most of the film, something that came as a shock to many who were expecting a character more consistent with her media image. “Union City was non-union, and it was a real low-budget production – nobody had a dressing room or anything like that,” she recounted.

  “She was unpretentious – she didn’t lord it over us because ‘Heart Of Glass’ had just broken,’ remembered Belin. “She was professional about everything, which is very unusual for major music stars. Working with her was a joy. Her abilities and potential as an actress are both great. She needs work, but for film she’s fantastic because her face is so photogenic, and she’s just herself in front of the camera. I think if she works with a more experienced director he’ll bring her out even more.”

  Although her unexpected performance would garner critical praise, Debbie found that her creative courage was a double-edged sword. “They took it to distributors and everyone went ‘Ah, Debbie Harry movie,’ and they expected this big glamour thing, but it’s very low-key and Debbie’s role is just a role, plus it’s this weird sort of underground movie,” explained Chris, who supplied the film’s jazz-inspired soundtrack.

  “It’s a strange little sleeper art film, not a picture that would get broad-ranging praise,” added Deborah. “I think a lot of people were surprised that I made such a low-key film. I was criticised for not doing some big, splashy production, but, personally, I got very good reviews! I was shocked!”

  Disappointed that Union City wasn’t some kind of Hard Day’s Night style vehicle for Deborah, distributors were reluctant to invest in the film. It was never given a general release in the UK and did not emerge in the USA and Canada until September 1980, several months after its premiere at Cannes. “Not that many people saw it,” said Debbie. “The film business is a different world. The producers and directors don’t want to take any chances. A film is a big project – there is a lot more money involved than on a record album. And a film takes three to five years to put together – to finance, to write, to produce, to publicise – so you can’t just hire a ‘name’ on a whim. You’ve got to be absolutely sure the actor can handle it.”

  Some observers still conspired to miss the point. “Those two idiots who do film reviews, Fric and Frac [probably Siskel and Ebert], came on and said, ‘Well, we didn’t think Deborah Harry demonstrated the energy she’s known for on stage.’ I suppose she should have leaped into this thirties kitchen with a microphone,” groaned Chris.

  “I was being directed,” continued Debbie. “That’s the important thing. I was someone else’s creation, not my own.”

  After Debbie and Chris completed work on Union City, it was planned for Blondie to return to the studio with Mike Chapman to begin work on their fourth album. However, the band’s management situation remained uncertain and negotiations between themselves, Peter Leeds, Marty Silfen, Bert Padell, Chrysalis’ Terry Ellis (as mediator) and Leeds’ le
gal representative, Mike Mayer, continued with no apparent resolution in sight.

  “That whole period was ridiculous because we started to make the album in February, but we didn’t actually get anything done,” recalled Nigel Harrison. “We booked some studio time, which we cancelled at the last minute. That cost us … $18,000 or something. We tried to get it together for three or four days. There were so many hassles going down with the management thing.”

  Instead, the group travelled to the West Coast to film performance spots for a variety of mainstream chat shows, before flying to Europe for a promotional tour aimed to coincide with ‘Heart Of Glass’ rising across the continent. “We were now the biggest pop stars in Europe, zooming around in limousines to the best restaurants, but meanwhile, we were totally zonked out and unable to eat, feeling like we were a hundred years old,” said Debbie. “Everything seems to balance out. You always pay for what you get. And as you get to know what the price is, you get a better idea of how far you want to go and how much you want to pay.”

  The promotional jaunt paid off. In addition to unprecedented sales for ‘Heart Of Glass’, when ‘Sunday Girl’ was released in April the single made the Top 20 in eight European countries, as well as topping the chart in Australia. Assisted by a French language version on the 12-inch, it provided the band with their second British number one but, despite the label’s efforts, failed to chart in the US.

  “The way they merchandised and marketed me had a very unthreatening tonality,” Deborah observed. “Chrysalis wanted desperately to get Blondie records on the radio in the States and punk was completely verboten. Everybody viewed it as being threatening and dangerous, sick and bad. So they really made an effort to make me appear somewhat palatable.”