Today's Bubbatune - Blondie
BLONDIE : MODEL BLONDAGES (bub22)
Cover Designed by Bradley Jacobson
A little rarities package of my all time favs, Debbie & The boys - those Blondies...
Track List:
1. Suzy & Jeffrey
2. The Thin Line
3. Scenery
4. Pop Trash Movie
5. Good Boys - Scissor Sisters Gyad Byos Myax Yo Mix
6. Slow Motion - Stripped Down Motown Mix
7. Peurto Rico
8. Double Take - Acoustic
9. Studio 54
10. Maria - J&B Mix
11. Out In The Street
12. Ring Of Fire
13. Underground Girl
14. No Exit - The Loud Rock Mix
15. Ordinary Bummer
16. Live It Up - Special Disco Mix
17. Hot Shot
18. Union City Blue - Diddy Power & Passion Mix
19. Danceway Live 83
20. Once I Had A Love (1978 version)
21. Poet's Problem
22. Platinum Blonde
THE STORY
Most kids at one time or another get the urge to run away from home - thinking they can have fun all the time and their parent's stupid rules won't hold them hostage any longer. These children are usually ready to head off with the circus or the county fair, perhaps even to the nearest amusement park, but not this kid. No, I was just as rare as this Blondie compilation. For I was running away for sure, but I was going to New York City where I would live in a small apartment preferably like the one I saw on the Pat Benatar "In The Heat Of The Night" album, and once living up in my apartment above a small bar, I would play pool all day long and at night I would head over to Debbie Harry's house, where we would chat and talk, sing together and generally have us a great old time.
After listening to Blondie's "Parallel Lines" and acting out every song in video form, I informed my parents that I was indeed sick of the life I had been living for all of my 8 years and I was heading to New York to hang with the Blondies. My mother thought it was a great idea as she peered over her tomato shaped pincushion still hemming away whatever it was she so needed to hem, my father of course just snored with his Lazy Boy in comfortable mode. So I thought, "Hey it's 11:59 and I want to stay alive..." so I started planning my get away.
First I had to come up with what exactly I would need in my suitcase. Of course I had to pack the Blondie record or Debbie would never know who I was when I knocked on her door. The rest I figured I could just wing.. perhaps some shoes and a few pairs of jeans. I didn't know if New York would be cool or hot when I got there. I figured whatever I didn't have, Jimmy Destri could lend me.
After weeks of waiting for just the right moment and weeks of telling my parents how I really was running away, I had an opening. My mother was working one afternoon and my father and I were going to my grandparents. My dad decided to take a shower and after asking him fifteen times if we were leaving right after he was all cleaned up, my head started reeling. I had an opportunity to hit the high road to New York and I was so close to Debbie and the boys, I almost fainted.
So my father hit the shower, and I hit the road. I grabbed that suitcase, wrote a little note: "I told you I'd run away and now I'm gone. You'll see me on the next Blondie album cover!" and headed out the door. I was headed down the great big hill we lived on to the Red Owl Grocery Store where the Greyhound would stop and take me away from my boring Mosinee, Wisconsin existence.
I got to the Red Owl and I waited - suitcase in hand, ready to take MY bite out of the big apple. As it happens, all my plans were not meant to be. For the Red Owl had something I hadn't counted on - Pearl, the bitchy cashier with the big black bouffant and Pearl was not about to let some little blonde boy head to New York without checking him out first. Perhaps, it was the fact I was all alone waiting for a bus, or perhaps it was the fact I was all alone waiting for a bus without a bus ticket or perhaps it was the fact I was all alone waiting for a bus without a bus ticket that only came on Tuesdays; whatever it was, something tipped off Pearl that I was not telling her the truth when I informed her my parents knew of my bus trip.
That Pearl took me into her back office, looked through my suitcase - a huge invasion of my privacy I thought, and then she called my parents. Apparently, I crack easily under pressure or it was all the hairspray from her bouffant that made me weak but it was I who gave her the phone number to call. I guess I knew the jig was up.
Telling of my parents’ attitudes towards my endless rants, there was no answer at my house. This didn't stop Pearl though. She sent me back outside with my suitcase insisting I go directly home. "Isn't someone going to even drive me back up the hill?" I wondered, "What the hell kind of grocery store people are you? I'm a defenseless child and you're sending me off on my own to walk up a hill?" I couldn't believe it.
But I walked up that big hill, went into my house waiting to hear the verdict of this latest antic. No one was there which just made me want to run away again. What the hell kind of adults were in this town? Then it struck me like a piece of paper; literally; there on the kitchen table was my note but it had some extra writing on it. I picked it up, "I'm sick of this running away shit," it said in my father's handwriting but he had more to say, "I went to Grandma's, go to Smokey & Evelyn's and don't leave until I come and get you."
Now Smokey & Evelyn were my next-door neighbors, an old couple of say about 200 years old who were apt to sit at their kitchen table, drink highballs and smoke endless cigarettes. Evelyn smoked so much and did so much with the cigarette hanging out of her mouth. She would make her pies, her cookies, all of her meals right there under the smoke. If you got lucky and took a bite out of one of her prized macaroons you may end up with a mouthful of second smoke. It wasn't exactly Debbie Harry and pool playing but I figured what the heck, I could always suck in the smoke and pretend I was in New York City.
Now stay tuned for the songs!
posted by swivek @ 6:30 PM
2 Comments:
THE SONGS
The very first “adult” record I ever got was Blondie’s Parallel Lines album and I was immediately in love with all of the songs and all of the members of the band. So when new albums started coming out, I was completely excited, I couldn’t wait to get new singles and new albums. Unfortunately being about 8 years old didn’t keep me totally in the loop but I did get “The Tide Is High” practically the minute it came out and on the flip side of this reggae little tune was a song called “Suzy & Jeffrey” – a song that wasn’t on the new album and wasn’t available anywhere else. I didn’t understand, why isn’t it on the album? What if I bought the album and never bought the single? I never would’ve heard this song? I didn’t get it but I kind of liked it. And so was my introduction into the world of “B-sides and Rarities.” So it’s only fitting I combine the rarities with the band that first informed me of its existence – Blondie.
It’s also why this little compilation Mondo Blondages begins with “Suzy & Jeffrey” which isn’t such a rarity these days but at the time of its release, it certainly was. This has always been one of my all time favorite songs Blondie ever did. The story of Suzy and Jeffrey is quite tragic, for they are to be married but Jeffrey says, “Let’s wait” so “Sue puts her foot on the brake” and before you know they crash into a wall! The best part of the song, which includes strange lyrical odes to Orson Welles and deprogramming, is there is really a story behind it. While recording the album AutoAmerican in Hollywood, a boy named Jeffrey drove his car into the wall of the recording studio in his girlfriend’s Suzy’s car. Why you ask? Well possibly to hand over a demo from his band the Deprogrammers, oh and Orson Welles happened to down the hall recording some kind of spoken word album… art imitating life… life imitating TV… mmmm?
I’ve included all the songs from the original Blondie demo (1975); something I never knew existed for all those years either. Most of them can be found now and in 2001 Blondie’s albums were reissued including bonus tracks and they included these early demos. However, they didn’t include “Puerto Rico” which is one of my favs from that first demo. In the song, Debbie’s boyfriend wants to take her to “Puerto Rico/boring Puerto Rico” but Debs won’t go for it, for she “I did that/I paid the bill”.. It’s quite enchanting in a sassy pants sort of way. Which is a way to describe “The Thin Line” a crazed lyric where “I hate you/aaah I love you..” she can’t make up her mind but I love the indecision. The other songs included on Blondie’s first demo were “Out In The Street” (a cover song from the greatest 60s girl group ever, The Shangri-Las, and a song Blondie redid on their comeback album “No Exit.”), “Platinum Blonde” – the complete epitome and essence of Blondie is found in this little glint that miraculously never ended up on the debut album. There’s also a track titled “Once I Had A Love” which began at the very beginning in 1975 but didn’t end up on album until 1978 when it became reworked and known as a little ditty called “Heart Of Glass.” The demo version ended up on the Blondie reissue as well, so I opted to use the reworking of the 1975 version that they started for the Parallel Lines album. It’s a little closer to the completed version yet still holds onto the roots of the original.
It wasn’t only the demo songs that didn’t cut it for the debut because those sessions left off some of Gary Valentine’s tirades as well. Though it’s been disputed where this song really comes from, I think it’s safe to say by the sound that “Underground Girl” is from the sessions for Blondie. It has Gary Valentine written all over it, and by the time the second album was around, he was gone, gone. And from that first album “Scenery” was also gone, gone. Between the two, “Scenery” is really my fav. The New York City imagery is usually represented in one form or another in these early Blondie songs and for me “Scenery” with lyrics like “We took to long to park the car/ran across the street and into the bar” the song tells a story and creates, well I guess scenery in my mind.
Blondie didn’t end up doing all that many B-sides but there were a few more besides “Suzy & Jeffrey.” Jimmy Destri, keyboard extraordinaire, songwriting expert and hunk du jour wrote “Poet’s Problem” which didn’t make it to the Plastic Letters album but did make it on the flip side of the single “(I’m Always Touched By Your) Presence Dear”. Like all of Jimmy’s songs, it’s catchy and dark and makes me tingle all over. Or maybe that’s just Jimmy – either way, “Poet’s Problem”
“Hot Shot” is a song that ended up as a pseudo B-side though it came out some 10 years later. The little disco dance cover song was available on the “No Exit” single in 1999. Though Debbie gives one of her great performances, it’s definitely a song I can see being thrown into the discard pile – though perhaps it is a tad better than “Dig Up The Conjo” but don’t quote me on that.
Before the comeback album of 1998 began, it started as another greatest hits compilation called This Is Blondie – only this time Blondie was going to come back and make a few extra new tracks. Warren Cuccarello of Missing Persons and a new member of Duran Duran joined those double D boys in writing a few songs for Blondie. Thus became “Studio 54” and “Pop Trash Movie.” Debbie contributed lyrics to “Studio 54” and ironically both songs sound like they belong in the Deborah Harry autobiography. The music is new wavey dance circa 1998 and the voice is pure energy but it’s the lyrics that grab me. “Studio” tells the tale of the ill fated club with thumping lines, “My head was spinning like a mirror ball/they filled up 77 they opened up the doors” where she showed up in a Halston dress, “we’re talking discotheque” croons Debbie before the chorus pumps up, “Flaaaaashhbaaak Studio 54.” The song continues to thump while Debbie makes references from Interview Magazine to Truman Capote. In fact, the whole thing seems to be inspired by this picture I once saw of Debbie at Studio 54, in the picture Debbie smiles next to Bianca Jagger, Andy Warhol, Truman Capote, Lorna Luft and Tanya Tucker. Now who wouldn’t kill to be a part of that? Perhaps that’s what the real inspiration in my running away… flaaashbaacck…
The second song recorded for This Is Blondie, is the ballad “Pop Trash Movie” which tells another facet of Debbie’s life. In fact it seems so personal I’m always surprised she didn’t write it. Perhaps she had more input than my credit sheets represents. All I know is the chorus, “I’m living in a pop trash movie/we star together in every scene/we’ll all be famous for fifteen minutes/part of a celluloid dream..” just oozes the imagery of Debbie’s Studio 54 days in New York. I wonder if Nick Rhodes and Warren Cuccarello were going for a theme here.. Either way, I don’t know why these songs didn’t show up in some form on album. They are really two of my favorite of the “second generation” Blondie songs.
Blondie’s “Ring Of Fire” is another rare gem I couldn’t wait to get my hands on. It was not only from the Roadie film starring Meat Loaf, but Blondie actually performed the song in the movie. An old Johnny Cash song (co-written by June Carter Cash) is a thumping little dose of country rock. It was released on the 12” “Atomic” single but just like rarities in general, I hadn’t a clue what or where to find 12”… now I seem to be a little better finding those missing inches…
As with all bands, remixes became more and more popular and I haven’t’ overlooked some that were actually quite good. The oldest and barely a remix as it is a “reworking” is “Slow Motion – Stripped Down Motown Mix”. The song is produced and remixed by Mike Chapman and seems to be just a version recorded in 1979 without all the instruments incorporated. It’s fun but so is the song in general, and not only because it’s a Jimmy song. It is just a good song, upbeat, fun and with it’s “Stop, look at the pictures rolling in your head…” oh such dreamers, so dreamy…
The Special Disco Mix was the name given to both the “Rapture” and “Live It Up” remixes of 1980. Included here is the 8 minute version of the discotheque edged “Live It Up” which includes one of my favorite lines, “Your old lover’s lying in the gutter/he used to be such an all night strutter..” Live it up indeed…
The comeback singles, “Maria” and “Good Boys” both got their fair share of remix treatments but I think these are two of the best. “Maria” is such a great rock song it’s interesting to know you can remodel a song so much and it still sounds good. Meanwhile, Scissor Sisters can do no wrong in my book and their little stab at “Good Boys” is just as good as the original song.
Prior to any type of full on reunion, Blondie as Debbie, Clem, Jimmy and Chris appeared on the Iggy Pop tribute album We Will Fall. Their low profile appearance as Adolph’s Dog seemed to have launched the reunion but at the time they weren’t able to use the name Blondie because of the other members, not still included. So leave it to our boys and gal to come up with such a clever moniker. Regardless of the name used, Daniel Rey’s production on “Ordinary Bummer” was very inspired and Debbie sings her little heart out. This was the first thing we got to hear from the group since the last note of “The Hunter Gets Captured By The Game” in 1982 and it is well worth hearing over and over again.
The 1998 album No Exit yielded a lot of press and a lot of great live performances. The greatest to me was when Blondie appeared on the American Music Awards in their first live appearance singing, not the single, but “No Exit” – all gothed out, all hip hop, all fabulous. The recorded version of the song didn’t have nearly that much bite and though this “Loud Rock Remix” is close to that performance it still lacks some of the punch, not to mention some of the lyrics that the performance yielded. Still it’s a good rocking multi genre track that is better than the album version.
Blondie performed an acoustic set on television’s “Bravo Musicians” in 2002 and one very inspired and beautiful outcome was the version of “Double Take” with Chris playing the guitar and Debbie hitting notes and dreams “with micro surgical precision.”
Finally, another live song, the 1983 version of “Danceway.” In 1983, Blondie performed on HBO and I never would’ve guessed it was the end of an era. There I was watching Debbie saunter up, hair braided to the side of her head, all 80s up, wiggling her butt and looking like she wanted to kill her band mates. It was the greatest night of my television watching life, and I ran in to the kitchen, waved away the smoke and told Smokey and Evelyn all about it.
Now that you've read about the rare and wonderful Blondie, you can comment...
and stay tuned for tomorrow we enter a whole new arena, the pumpin' world of a Kristy McNichol compilation!
Post a Comment
<< Home