Pure Punk Picks
Rip Her To Shreds – Blondie
The first time I saw Blondie play Boston was in ’75, ’76 in Cambridge. The were opening up for Iggy Pop. Their first album was just released and I had it and liked it.
My best friend and I rode in his Ford Mustang to that town to see that show.
The Tubes were a theatrical band that booked themselves into The Brattle Theatre in Cambridge, a place that usually hosted plays. And we saw them play just months before we went to see an Iggy Pop/ Blondie show.
As teens, we were fairly new at indulging in cocaine and after parking, we laid some coke out on an eight track tape to snort it, before the show. We over poured, producing a larger amount than we had ever done before. But we said- “Fuck it. Let’s do it up.”- which we proceeded to do.
We stood in line at The Brattle Theatre for the show we were expecting to see but marveled that there were folks in tuxedos all around us. And we were very stoned.
They took our tickets, at the door, ripped them apart and directed us towards the usher.
He looked at our tickets and told us, “You guys are at the wrong place, this is for the Harvard Theatre.”
My buddy knew where it was, we raced down the street, handed our ripped tickets at the entrance, while he explained that they got torn in his wallet from moisture.
The ticket guy just shrugged and said, “Well, they’re valid tickets,” and let us in.
Blondie opened up with Freddy Cannon’s “Palaisades Park” a great, fun sixties tune. The kind of tune that would go great as the background on a roller coaster or amusement park ride. And then Iggy played and, to our surprise, he had David Bowie playing keyboards and adding background vocals.
It was great show and a memorable night.
I feel lotsa folks may think Blondie as a lame new wave band from the eighties.
New Wave: Hot female singer, check. Keyboard player, check. Skinny ties on skinny guys, check. They all wear red, white and black, check.
But Blondie fought in the trenches in the mid seventies at CBGB’s, when World War Punk was first being fought.
Sure, the British punk bands were soon fighting the good fight, more successfully in England. And shortly after the California bands were valiantly fighting the hippies and their music in L.A. and San Francisco.
But never forget- the earliest punk scenes on this planet were in Boston and New York.
So Blondie were fightin’ tooth and nail, alongside The Ramomes, The Dead Boys, Richard Hell & The Viodoids, The Dictators amongst many others.
They all were rejecting the sixties ideals where the only groovy music was indulgent, acid-head country/folk like The Greatful Dead. (Andy and I are starting a punk band that does songs by that band only punk style- we’re calling it The Great Fuck Head.) Or the pop/folk of dreary bands like Crosby, Stills and Nash.
You know, the kind of music that you were pleased to hear as long as you were too stoned to move your limbs away from it.
Blondie instead, were embracing fifties rock’n’roll, garage rock, surf music and in my ears, the most underrated genre in music- early sixties girl group bands.
All these styles favored emotion over skill, were straight forward and honest in displaying everyday life and created, understated and unambitious perfect art.
“She’s so dull, C’mon rip her to shreds!” Not so much a violent notion but a more bitchy one- let’s verbally tare her to bits!
This song was rumored to be about Cherry Vanilla, a woman who was first known as a groupie and then became the main assistant to David Bowie, she was also part of the New York/Andy Warhol crew. Debbie Harry has reportedly denied it was about Cherry.
With the sixties, high pitched organ and the aggressive playing and vibrant, vicious vocals that see-saw between melodic and snarl, this song just rips my mind and ears to pieces and makes me enjoy every moment.
This song rips apart the very fabric of life where everything and everyone is non-confrontational. This song rips apart the notion of a female simply playing the role of a submissive mate. This song rips apart the idea that a female singer must be either, a heart broken lover or a woman entranced in love or a woman placidly giving her control to a man.
“She’s making out with King Kong, she takes her boat to Hong Kong…Well, bye bye sugar, and not a minute too soon.”
Along with Madonna, Patti Smith and Joan Jett, I would add Debbie Harry as the four women involved in music during that time that showed society, both men and women, that women could be strong and in charge in music and suggesting, that in any other industry they could also, do the same. And I feel, this lesson was learned by young women and now, women are making real gains, and will continue to do so.
And in just this way, that’s why Blondie is a punk band even if your definitions of punk music exclude them.
I can easily see why many young fans of the current punk/metal/hardcore scene might want nothing to do with this band.
And though they fit the stereotype of what was predictable and vacuous in a lot of new wave music, please be aware that this band set the mold for bands to follow.
At their inception they were totally unique, it was the bands that followed that were copying them. There were no bands really like Blondie before they came about.
So please lose your misconceptions, please rip your preconceived notions of what punk was or is. Please take your rosary beads and rip them to pieces. And please realize that Blondie, at least at its’ immaculate conception, was as pure and blessed as the Virgin Mary.
And… Oh, God! Just Rip Me To Shreds!
(Slimedog)
