Official Blondie Web Site: Chris Stein

this is winding down, three more shows what happens is after about four maybe five shows we get very 'warmed up' as it were, and just play better... the first show at the BOSpop festival in Weert Holland was maybe the weirdest ever as far as us being 'cold'... i really had wanted to do a few days of rehearsal prior to coming over but everyone was involved in other stuff... as a result we did the show after not playing together for, hmm, what? two months? (the last thing was the today show i guess and then no sound check to top it off i guess it was ok but required more concentration than i prefer... after we are 'warmed up' there is very little concentration needed and the stuff is just a lot more relaxed, we can do more improvising within the song frameworks etc one funny bit is that i of course watch the crowd to see how the stuff is being received, one thing i used to use as a measure was people lighting cigarettes when they were bored a little, so thats gone now cause you cant smoke in these places anymore... what still is around is camera flashes though another measure of crowd interest; when people like a moment they take pictures, shoot camera flashes... this is a bit psychic cause its not always a visual thing they are trying to capture, flashes go off at musical highs, crescendos etc as if sometimes they were trying to take pics of the music itself the LOVEBOX festival in London is almost upon us, lots of talk about Sly, what he will do or not do etc... but even though we likely wont get to see them one of my favorites TOOTS and THE MAYTALS... i may have written in the past about these guys, to reiterate a bit, here is a band that REALLY deserves to be in the hall of fame, and i dont think they were ever even nominated... TOOTS and THE MAYTALS made some of the absolutely greatest recordings ever finally, now more than ever, everyplace we go we hear about the 'end of the record industry'... Prince releasing his new album as a giveaway with one of the UK daily papers is a perhaps a great stroke, a lot of grumbling in the media but i dont see what the hell he owes to 'the record industry' after being so badly screwed over by it... nothing is gonna stop music from being made even though how it is packaged and presented is in transition... problem for me is how to make a living doing this, well recording anyway... as soon as Prince did his release various other daily papers here jumped on the train, two days later was a giveaway of Chuck Berry cd's with another paper... where will this lead? will we see CD's littering the streets and in freebee vendors like copies of last weeks Village Voice? finally finally NO, we never tell the security at gigs to make anyone sit it their seats, i much prefer stand-up situations thanks again to all of you who have said hello and have come to the shows