Blondie: Chris Stein
News about Chris Stein, guitarist and songwriter for the rock band Blondie.
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Posted by Chris Stein at 9/30/2003 06:50:00 AM
post: cold war of rock, ufo's etc
i urge someone out there to write a screenplay wherein Arnold Schwarzenegger becomes dictator of the united states, perhaps he's rushed into office after his run as governor due to an invasion of alien space arab terrorists who come from some oil-rich desert planet, singlehandedly he crushes and mangles the evil hordes of slimy turbaned creatures all the while dressed in a smart but tasteful Armani suit cause after all he is the president... anyway the idea is to get Arnold to play himself... i think he's much better suited to be a dictator than a president... (i recently heard that both hitler and idi amin each had only one testicle, this as a prerequisite for dictatorship could easily be checked in the case of prospective candidates)
in other news we (the band) have just returned from a cheerful grind of media attention in Europe... all in all i have come away feeling very positive about the future of the whole thing, that maybe blondie is something beyond being one of the worlds biggest cult bands... the record has been well received by all the people we've talked to who heard it and those were mostly journalists and radio people
i had a lot of revelations about the world of popular music after spending hours and hours discussing the same stuff with the press at large and the band members... let me see if i can remember some of this shit... wellll i think that the people who are into brittany and american i-dull and all of that stuff are not the people who are deep into music, i think that the ones who buy 15-20 cd's a year as opposed to those who buy 100 cd's a year are the ones who are into the superficial trends of music... unfortunatly the masses of people are the ones who in their sheepish following shape the trends of popular culture... i could swear that the dumbing down of the masses and the mainstreamization of popular music is a planned thing...
"absurd!! paranoid conspiracy nut thou!!!" but all agree that the days of music as an anti-establishment force are over, that if one can hear heavy rock on a sneaker commercial thats as good or better than the stuff thats on the radio then why bother paying attention, its all become just a soundtrack, backing track for modern life always droning on without any uniqueness... i kept quoting Karl Marx who said something like 'the way to undermine the bourgeoisies is to co-opt the avant garde', that means that the way to control the masses is to make any new outstanding idea part of the system of control... in the UK they've been eating this 'pop-idol' garbage even longer than here, how anti-punk is this bunch of straight old farts telling these tearful young people that they suck or are good... wouldnt it be fantastic if the next time they had a 'casting call' for one of these shows nobody showed the fuck up!! one night in a hotel i was watching the brit version of 'american idol' (that or porno movies) as they laughingly played the clips of the 'abject failures' the people who they considered the worst, bottom etc etc and it struck me that some of these nuts with their quriky personal styles and weirdness were of course WAY better than the bland dull people who were the 'winners'... and any way where the fuck does competition enter into art, i've always been very against the "spirit of competition" that chews its way through society... (years ago i saw a film on life in the rain forests of the amazon; there the older kid is happy to show his skills to the younger, the idea of holding back, competing is not in the vocabulary)
the white stripes and the strokes, the white stripes and the strokes, over and over were these guys referred to in our discussions, do they represent a real breaking away from bland mass produced rock or are they just more cult stuff that will be followed up by cleaner more acceptable versions of what they do... this is all an odd very subtle struggle now, its perhaps the 'cold war' of rock, not as defined as it was in the days before MTV as the fellow says: "the enemy is us"
what else have i got... ok, rather than going away my wife Barbara's ufo tv spot that was done for SCI-FI TV here is still pulling in comment and e-mails... the main reason being that the thing was shot using the world trade center in new york as a location... now we've gotten to a place in the culture wherein my denial of the 'reality' of the thing will undoubtedly convince various people of its viability but even though i personally wish that indeed it had been evil aliens who destroyed the trade center, the blame is unfortunately a lot closer to home and the now famous tv spot is just that: a tv spot with a fake photoshop (or whatever) ufo etc etc etc so once again the sci-fi tv spot with the ufo at the world trade center is not a 'real' film of a 'real' ufo, barbara is the person in the helicopter but she was just pointing at empty sky and the ufo images were put in later, neither she nor i have had any alien encounters, been abducted by space. or other aliens, and we are currently not hanging out with any space aliens and to the best of my knowledge have nevr met any creatures from outer space, have never been on a flying saucer etc etc etc
i had some more stuff i wanted to write but i cant remember at the moment...
oh one thing is for those of you who read books (the things in book stores) i have been a fan of one Martin Amis of late, he is a pretty complicated writer but i suspect that his books are enjoyable on many levels, any way i really recommend one called "Times Arrow" which simply is the story of a persons life in reverse, a bit like "memento" the film, its much more though, now im into his "London Fields" which is very funny and clever i suggest any of you who indulge in literary pursuits check this stuff out...
all for now, rehearsals start soon for the next part of the touring, keep the comments coming in, thank you all as usual
love
chris
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Posted by Chris Stein at 9/06/2003 06:52:00 AM
[this is in reference to the comprehensive Blondie gig list which Barry is working on]
jeez... good fucking luck with this...theres no way, i think you should somehow indicate that this is a partial list... the first actual blondie gig was at a place called monty pythons with the miamis, a later gig there was attended by some rich up towners who hired us to play a private party... various private partys and semi public events... thee are just too many gigs and partial gigs to even get close to listing for ex the stilletos opened for the dolls someplace in midtown... 82 club was played many times... gigs at whites pub where debbie tended bar near wall street... blondie did the music for ingrassias rendition of the first act of jackie curtis' vain victory at some loft spce in lower manhattan (clem, leaving a taxi for this event, opened the cab door in front of an oncoming car which nearly tore it off, told cops his name was joe dellasandro) gig with the dictators at the cuando gym on houston street... very famous jam in seattle with gary v. me and clem backing up iggy in the local 'punk house' after the idiot tour show there... first out of town gig was in phila.... many gigs in boston early on... with john cale at 'my fathers place' on long island, many gigs there
( there we were recorded by the FBI discussing illicit things with some promoter that they were after, they later interviewed us at our lawyers office).... at the mabuhay gardens in san fran the first time we played there the dressing room walls were pristine white, we did THE VERY FIRST BITS OF GRAFFITI stuff about ronnie toast etc, on various returns not only were the walls dense with writing but in places they were actually worn away from layers of hacking and ink... played on some stupid roller derby tv show in LA.... at one point played cbgb's every weekend for seven months... played various forgettable clubs in new jersey malls... any way etc etc you can see what you're up against here... i didnt go over the whole list and this is just what comes to mind now , im sure im forgetting a lot of things
i looked at the list and see some of the things i mention here... i guess the biggest problem is that we played sooo many times at cb's and max's and other places around nyc, im sure we played close to a hundred gigs at cb's and max's
c
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Posted by Chris Stein at 9/06/2003 06:51:00 AM
the fifty greatest lists of 2003!
we go to europe for two weeks to do promo, tv in various european markets, maybe i'll see some of you all... Akira is really a great amazing little creature and im sorry too miss time of her as we are getting along great, she really is alert and adventurous, likes to go out and see stuff, we went to a party at bob gruens, she was fascinated by a lot of people in one place
beyond that what? this that,... ive seen heard people take the view that the government, powers that be, are 'too stupid' to really do any of the insidious things that are suspected of them, it... bush is a clever decoy, his dumbness is certainly not indicative of the clever double think that is employed by those behind the throne... a good example: i just saw an article in the sunday times about a showing of the "Battle of Algiers" at the pentagon, this is a heavy anti war film about the french occupation of Algeria and all the underhanded methods, torture intimidation, coercion etc that were used to try and break the back of the Algerian national liberation front... even though the french won the battle of the films title, were successful in destroying the guerilla movement in the capitol city of Algiers they ultimately 'lost' the war and left the country...well its a simple point just dont underestimate these fuckers ( the times piece is easy to read put Battle of Algiers into GOOGLE, its one of the first things to come up)
i see the site here is getting more elaborate, barry's got a thing going that has old memorabilia and junk, i've got tons of this stuff, just have to get the scanner going... what else, not too much
back soon
chris
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