BEIRUT click here, still great stuff!!!

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lots of younger kids at the European gigs! here are the troops outside our Moscow hotel… thnx!!

sooo in spite of jessie jackson wanting to ‘cut his nuts off’ we are still behind O’B whats odd is that while traveling it seems that the only people IN THE WHOLE WORLD who think Bush is cool are the ones in the US who actually voted for him… i have talked to hundreds of people here in Europe and in South America etc and unanimously they dont understand how this guy got to be president of the US, twice

we are in St. Petersburg Russia… off to Moscow in a bit… beautiful here, the white night is upon the city thereby staying light (the sky that is) almost the whole day with a little darkness in the early morning… the sun sort of sets without actually going down below the horizon… Debbie and i were here in St.P about ten years ago (April 1997) quite a difference, now its way up scale here, not as many wannabe Russian Mafia dudes lurking in leather jackets which was the prevailing style back then (just like home though in the US we have many more genre stereotypes for fledgling gangsters to emulate) i did have a fantastic time here in 1997, not to give another impression, then we were here for almost two weeks, i wish we had more time now, but we are just rushing in and out of places with our ‘off’ days spent traveling… the shows have been going nicely… Guilfest for example was memorable, people seem to be liking us playing the whole album… its ironic that though ‘HOG’ was sort of buried on the second side of the LP it works very well in that spot when playing the record in order in Tel Aviv with the STRANGLERS who were really great!

i am frequently asked what new music i am listening to and usually i dont have an answer… but now i am really loving BEIRUT, just fantastic references and just great overall… this guy ZACH CONDON and his band are so adventurous while still traditional… Barbara came upon Beirut just a little while ago and i have been really hypnotized since… i love french Chanson and related and these guys are pushing the envelope BEIRUTBAND.COM, click do check it out and i hope to see you at some of the BLONDIE shows that are left

just a couple of things one i am really behind Obama and i would urge all of you once again to get out and vote… i really vividly recall watching the last election returns in Lima Peru, it was very surreal and awful… Lima is in very bad shape with rampant poverty and being there in some strange way underscored the hypocrisy of the whole thing even more profoundly i also recall watching old John Kennedy speeches and thinking how modern politicians dont speak as directly any more, answers to questions being oblique and loaded with double talk… Obama’s dialogs are reminiscent of JFK’s directness… its about time to create some meaningful change in the US… i get excited with the prospect of a black man as president just that is such a huge deal it’ll do a lot to repair some of the old damage in America

besides that we have been doing a punk version of “My Heart Will Go ON” the dumb song from the Titanic film… the joke is that it lends itself so well to a punk format anyhow we learned it from the girl band SWITCHBLADE KITTENS, we used to have their version on our opening tape and liked it so much we started playing it thnx Kittens Link

we are still in cape cod after… how many? well a bunch of shows which are being very well recieved

click for village Voice interview

i found this list in cybespace just before and it was nice seeing all of this junk in one place:

1. First ever Video album released for “Eat to the beat” in 1980

2. First American #1 New Wave single “Heart of Glass”

3. First #1 Rap single in America “Rapture”

4. First reggae #1 single in America “The tide is high”

5. Oldest woman in rock with a #1 hit, when “Maria” debuted at #1 in 1999 in the UK

6. Parallel Lines sold sold over 20 million copies

7. Blondie has 4 American #1 singles and 7 in the UK

8. Blondie are the biggest selling american band in the UK Singles chart of all time

9. The single “Rapture” has been a Top Ten Dance single on the Billboard Dance charts in the 80’s/90’s/00’s, 3 consecutive decades

10. Blondie appear on more soundtracks and compilation albums than any other artist in rock.

11. “Call Me” was the #1 single of 1980 in America on Billboard

lets also not forget what is kind of my favorite: blondie the only band besides the Beatles to have a back to back #1 and 2 on WABC in i guess 1981… rapture bumped tide from the top spot

WABC was the biggest NYC rock radio station for a long time now gone

the tour is two shows old at this point we are actually performing all of ‘Parallel Lines’ which doesnt really make for the best live set but is aesthetically correct… i guess…

its hot today, i dont have too much else right now… i promise to write some more from the road

“… not again in all the world’s turning will there be terrains so wild and barbarous to try whether the stuff of creation may be shaped to man’s will or whether his own heart is not another kind of clay.”

this from BLOOD MERIDIAN by Cormac McArthy reading “No Country For Old Men” had a deep effect on me… one of the themes thats hammered home is that of the man of yesterday as opposed to the man of today… so i was thinking about the election coming and the future etc… certainly if we are fortunate enough to have everyone turn out for Obama, still i feel sorry for the poor bastard whoever it is as they try to dig out from the last period of government… what a way for Bush to leave office; with the country in more trouble than ever… 35 billion for ‘secret defense (sic) spending’ when i was a kid everything that was cheap and disposable came from Japan… now thats reversed… what’s gonna happen when the same is true for China? when China is one of the world leaders in technology and manufacturing? well, my wife yesterday said as we were driving in the local strip of malls and car dealerships that ‘these signs will all have chinese characters soon’ the world of Blade Runner will be here… see in ‘… Old Men’ we hear again and again how the people of the past never in their wildest dreams would have seen what is going on today… we may have a better vision of the future but there’s a lot, probably a real lot that we aren’t seeing… i didn’t used to think that, in fact i frequently said that this was perhaps the only period in history when humanity had such a clear picture of its future… now i don’t think that

we here at the site have gotten cranky letters about not putting up dates in a timely enough manner i sort of understand but really since the upcoming tour is still more than two months away i dont quite get the urgency… i do however appreciate the sentiment behind it all though, that some fans want to get tickets or know about shows as quickly as possible so to them sorry as for myself i always tell people “i’m just following orders” when it comes to touring info; for example the other day i was in the coffee shop here and the girl who works there told me that we were playing nearby which was news to me… hopefully dates will be up here soon enough that said i am also sorry that i have taken the winter off from blogging as it were… but it was a long ass winter, very icy.. i got a really massive new mac pro and have been working with LOGIC which i like a lot… after about 15 years of dealing with pc’s i finally switched and am now a dedicated mac fan and user… i am still amazed at the service they give as opposed to all of the companies that do pc’s… i guess having a monopoly is good for something this is just small talk cause i dont have much to say… i hope Obama is the president but i’m not holding my breath… i have been reading “No Country For Old Men” which is awesome, fills in the holes that were in the film so here then is perhaps my favorite film moment of all time from the epic “Maniac” which boasts Phyllis Diller in the credits though watching the thing its virtually impossible to tell who of all the young dames in the movie might be her, cause who the fuck knows what Phyllis Diller looked like at age 25 except her mother maybe enjoy

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“DOUSE THE FIRE IN MY BRAIN!”

Chris Stein is scheduled to appear at “The Party Will Be Televised: A Conversation with Glenn O’Brien, Amos Poe, and Chris Stein” on Saturday, March 8th at 3:00 PM. The event is at the New Museum Theater (235 Bowery in New York – 212.219.1222) and costs six dollars for members, and eight dollars for the general public. For more information, check NewMuseum.org.

This Monday, March 10th at 11:30pm EST, watch for Debbie’s guest appearance on Chelsea Lately, the hit late night talk show on E!