4th October 2003 – page 74
WHY I LOVE…
Blondie
By Didz from The Cooper Temple Clause
“The Blondie image that sticks in my mind is this footage of them playing the Glasgow Apollo on New Year’s Eve 1979. Jimmy Destri is onstage, and there’s a load of really warped death-space noises coming out of his synthesizer. Then someone cranks up a smoke machine and he’s just shouting wildly at the smoke, lost in a world of deranged synth wails.
“For me there was a real dirtiness and sleaziness that never left them but at the same time they were really inventive and always open to new ideas. They mastered that whole magpie approach to making music.
“They made ultimate dancefloor music, the kind that makes you want to get up and shake yourself off. You know, when that phone rings, the snare hits and it’s like (sings), “I’m in the phone booth/It’s the one across the hall”. We stick that on a lot when we’re DJing.
“It’s great music for karaoke as well. You can really see people go for death or glory to a Blondie track. But something like ‘Heart Of Glass’ should only be heard on the dancefloor. The best way to dance to it would be some kind of stereotypical girl-around-her-handbag thing. Like in the Pulp video for ‘Disco 2000’. But with fists. And possibly a blade. Why? Because it’s a bit more edgy than most disco songs. It doesn’t have to be a blade. though, maybe just a small surgical scalpel.
“Like Blondie, we’re a six-piece and we can relate to the whole interband politics they must have gone through. It’s interesting when you realise that Debbie Harry and Chris Stein were together as a couple. You can probably learn a lot about being in a band from studying Blondie.
“I think the cover art of ‘Parallel Lines’ must have put them up there as icons for me, purely because you’ve got this drop dead gorgeous sexy fucking sleazy punk woman in a white dress and then these fucking… fucknuts behind her in suits and trainers and stuff. It looked great. But just Debbie being who she was and having the attitudes she had… you can look to people like Patti Smith but Debbie Harry was the only female punk icon to cross over on that huge level.
“I’ve still got a crush on her, I suppose. But it’s disappointing when you fancy someone who’s not the same age as you because you have to go through that stage when you realise they’re actually a really old minger and you probably fancy your own mum more than you fancy them.
“We’ve all dressed as women before, but not as Debbie specifically. I think Kieran would look great – the whole beard thing would definitely offset the iconography nicely.”
Didz was talking to Tim Jonze.
