Picture This

Tuesday night, I went to see one of my all-time favorite bands, Blondie. The band put on a really good show, playing all the crowd favorites for about an hour and a half. At 61, Debbie Harry looked much older of course, but she still has a pretty impressive vocal range, a lot of energy and a real stage presence. Harry and the two other original members of the band, guitarist Chris Stein and drummer Clem Burke, were joined by very capable, more recent musicians who stayed true to Blondie's sound. Burke's drumming was especially energetic and impressive.



I was glad to see that they were more than a nostalgia act- they're still making albums and still having and impact on contemporary music (their last hit was "Good Boys", a UK hit in '04) . In fact, they were just inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame a couple of months ago for their contributions to rock history. They deserve it.

Going to see the band was so random, and the circumstances were kind of unusual- I saw them at Pala Casino...with my dad! He got two free tickets from Pala, and when I went to visit my parents on Mother's Day, he asked if I wanted to go. Blondie live, for free? Why not?

There's a little story behind the family interest in the group, if you will indulge me. When I was about 10, I was watching Solid Gold with my family. Blondie performed "Heart of Glass", and my dad watched with some interest, as he was quite taken with the lead singer, Debbie Harry. My mom, being the nice lady and wife she is, took notice and bought my dad the 8-track (yes, 8-track- I'm old, ok?) of Blondie's album Parallel Lines for his birthday. Well, that tape became a staple in our truck's tape player on family trips, especially at Bass Lake. For my family, that album is Bass Lake, and to this day, I usually only listen to it (on CD, of course) when I'm at Bass Lake.

Parallel Lines is still one of my all-time favorite albums, and now I have an excuse to write about it...

CD OF THE WEEK

Parallel Lines
Blondie
1978

Parallel Lines was the third studio album for punk/new wave prognositcators Blondie. The band had fine-tuned their early punk/60s/pop sound into a mix of power pop, rock, and disco for the album, making it one of the catchiest and relevant albums of the decade. It's blend of crunchy guitars, propulsive drums and disco beats makes for an album that was all at once ahead of its time, a throwback to to the 60s, very of-the-moment, and timeless.

Debbie Harry's vocals range from sweet and yearning to urgent and gritty, and she pulls it off with natural ease. Of course, her looks and style contributed to her being the perfect frontwoman for the rest of the band- five talented, highly-capable muscians who crafted most of the songs along with Harry.

The catchy songs are many- the driving "Hanging on the Telephone", the pretty, poppy "Pretty Baby", and the catchiest of them all, "One Way or Another". Of course, "Heart of Glass" was the monster hit you still hear today, but at least half the songs on this album could have easily been hits. There are one or two songs which are slightly weaker than the others, but there's not a bad song on the album, and most are excellent. One listen to the album reveals that the band was not a flash-in-the-pan, one-hit wonder. This is credible, enduring power-pop that is fun and sentimental, yet ultimately legitimate.

Blondie would go on to have more hits, like the edgy pop of "Call Me", the calypso-tinged "The Tide is High" and "Rapture", which was mainstream America's first introduction to rap. But to me, Parallel Lines was indeed their finest hour.